Are the ATI/AMD HD 5000M/6000M series being forgotten by AMD's Catalyst Control Center?

It's only been a few years ago since I slammed down just about 4,100us$ for two new laptops. I made sure that these laptops were as future-proofed as well as well as any laptop could be by . . . well. . . spending appropriately. :hi2:Goodbye $ :thumbsup: And just recently I almost got caught up by Dell's M4600. What a deal. . . And what a vicious little circle I was almost caught up in, again! :hi2: $ That's not a. 'Hi!'

But I've since made the decision to move on and instead of buying a new laptop and endorsing that vicious circle I'm just going to just build my own upgradeable noname desktop and just keep the laptops updated as well as . . . well . . . as AMD possible. :hi2:

Part of this vicious little circle is AMD's doing. It's only been a few years since I've handed them stacks of hard-earned money, and it seems they are forgetting this financial fact. If Intel forgot I had their i7's or Windows just forgot that I had bought their OS7 because it's been a few, :hi2: :hi2: and a few years have passed since :hi2: so they don't need to bother updating my laptops anymore because, 'Hey, that there OS in those their machines is a few years old,' won't float!

Anybody else out here with the HD 5000/6000M series got a minor or humongous beef with a forgetful AMD and their Series 7000 Catalyst Control Center 13.1?

 

I stopped at 12.9 for obvious reasons. No need to proceed further really. No benefit. Besides, the GPU is outdated to the point where you should be upgrading relatively soon if you haven't already. 7970M here I come. :3

 

Yeah, I will soon enough with a bmo. But hd6000 series is just a rebrand of the hd5000 series, so now they're going to start dumping each gen?

 

5000 and 6000 series are still supported by the latest AMD drivers

 

they can put in a few minor improvements or bug fixes for games from time to time but yeah, major performance increases are already there.

 

That pretty much sums it up. I don't think AMD is going to drop 5000m series support any time soon, especially since they share a few similar cards via rebrand with the 6000 series. I'd be surprised if driver support goes prior to the arrival of DirectX Blue. I think the 5000 series is just going to tag along for the ride until it is over.

My 5870m has been pretty well optimized:

Resident Evil 5 2010:



Resident Evil 5 2013:

 

When the HD8000 are out, HD5000 will be legacy. So will HD6000 for the most part. Right now, AMD's focus is the HD7000 and GCN. HD4000 are already considered legacy.

You were right when you said the 5870M is pretty optimized. Far as AMD is considered they are already optimized as can be. The only driver updates HD5000/HD6000 will get are game fixes or serious bugs/issues.

And I think that is what should happen. People who expect their hardware to be continuously updated and optimized for 3 years are daft. If you want the latest and cutting edge in software development for your hardware, then upgrade. It's only fair that AMD and Nvidia should put their effort to optimizing their latest hardware, not ancient old.

Even for me, if AMD never fixes the HD7K GCN core after nearly 2 years, then so be it, just time to switch to nvidia and get new hardware that will have proper optimized drivers.

 

NVIDIA still support the old GeForce 8000 and 9000 series! Including laptop ones. I'm surprised AMD has abandoned their Radeon HD 4000 series already.

 

to what extend? any big performance bump? or just legacy support?

 

HD6970 and HD6990 are VLIW 4 where the lower ones and the 5 series were VLIW 5.

It's not hard to support a product no one owns because all the chips are dead.

 

good point =). the 8600GT, 9800GTS were popular way back in 2008 =)

 

Uh no. Nvidia does not provide optimizations and performance boosts for those old cards. They are legacy. You will not see any new drivers claiming any new game to have performance boost for these cards. They get the same legacy treatment that legacy drivers provide for AMD. What you claim is extremely misleading.

Yes, for those old cards they get legacy support. As they should, Nvidia should not be spending resource and time when the new hardware need the support. They should get the same treatment as the cards from 3-4 years ago did. That's only fair.

 

Yeah. . . well, I can see where a lot of these comments are coming from by their TAGS: $ Cha-ChaNG! $

 

Actually they still get full driver support and can install the latest beta driver 314.14. The 6000 and 7000 series were the lastest cards to be moved into legacy support - their last supported driver is the 304.xx branch.

Sources:

NVIDIA legacy mode moves to support its GeForce 6000 and 7000 Series | Tech News Pedia

What's a legacy driver?

 

Hey, @Cakefish:

Thanks for the factual light!:thumbsup: