Preface: This is my experience of this BETA driver on a WINDOWS installation. I currently do not run Linux due to the poor AMD drivers, but I think that may change given what I've just experienced...


So, two days ago I downloaded and installed the 14.6 beta drivers for my R9 290x. While that GPU is no slouch, certain titles (Metro Last Light, Assassin's Creed 4, and the latest (unoptimized) Wolfenstein) still can make it tough to push 60+ fps on ultra at 1080p. Note that two of those games are Nvidia gameworks (PhysX/other Nvidia optimizations). Anyways, the funny thing is that all of that changed two days ago with the release of the "watchdogs" (another Nvidia title) launch beta driver which boasted some 30+% improvement on AMD cards specifically in watchdogs. While I don't own nor plan to own watchdogs, it seems that performance across the board has increased. Wolfenstein runs flawless now, Assassin's creed now plays like butter, and Metro last light no longer suffers from Framerate dips during heavy action.

While this may seem to be an unintended consequence and purely based on my experiences, I feel that this movement could signal the coming of better AMD drivers, to Windows and Linux alike.

Also, as a side note...AMD has started rebranding their graphics driver installation package, and in my opinion it looks so much better now. Perhaps that's another sign that things are changing.

Things to note:

How Nvidia limits AMD's time with games and the general closed off (to AMD) nature of Gameworks:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

Can someone running the Linux 14.6 drivers share their thoughts?