NVIDIA has released a new ForceWare WHQL drivers v180.48 for its various
GeForce video chips (8x, 9x, GTX 2xx series). They are available for
Windows
Vista x86,
Windows Vista x64,
Windows XP x86, and
Windows XP x64.
These new drivers
bring four major enhancements: across-the-board performance
increases,
multi-display support for SLI multi-GPU configurations, the
option to
dedicate a graphics card to PhysX computations, and SLI
support for some Core i7 motherboards with Intel X58 chipsets. Here's what you can expect on the performance side of things,
according to Nvidia:
Up to 10% performance increase in
3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
- Up to 13% performance increase in Assassin's Creed
- Up to 13% performance increase in BioShock
- Up to 15% performance increase in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
- Up to 10% performance increase in Crysis Warhead
- Up to 25% performance increase in Devil May Cry 4
- Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
- Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID
- Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies
- Up to 18% performance increase in World of Conflict
There are some caveats, however. For one, the 180.48 release
only supports GeForce 200-series, GeForce 9, and GeForce
8800-series graphics cards. Also, SLI multi-display support
apparently doesn't work in Windows XP for now. Finally, Nvidia
says X58 mobos will only work in SLI mode with GeForce 9800 GTX,
9800 GTX+, 9800 GX2, and 200-series GPUs.