Benchmark results
Like a bad relationship, we'll start off with some simple, pleasant bar graphs, then later on we'll turn dark and complex. First, the bar graphs:

These scores show some real performance improvements from the 7.67 release to the 7.70 release. 7.71 helps a little in Codecreatures, but it's slower in 3DMark.

Now, let's get out the nasty graphs and tackle an issue we first visited here. The 7.67 drivers reportedly have a texture upload problem that caused texture thrashing (and big performance dips) in Serious Sam SE, especially at higher resolutions. Our handy-dandy FPS-over-time graphs will pick out the problems for us.

The problem isn't as pronounced on our KT333-based test system as it was on our 845 DDR rig last time out, but you can see the purple line for the 7.67 drivers dip at about 4 seconds into the test. Notice how the 7.70 and 7.71 drivers don't have that problem. ATI seems to have fixed the OpenGL texture upload problem that was purportedly the cause of the slowdowns.

Notice, however, that the GeForce4 Ti 4200 card is clearly faster in Serious Sam, 3DMark, and Codecreatures. Whether it's hardware or software is exceedingly hard to say, but somehow, the NVIDIA card, with a very similar spec, is faster almost across the board.

ATI has a few more surprises in store, however.