ATI's Avivo Update - H.264 Acceleration & Special Downloadable Surprise

Anandtech has their Catalyst 5.13 preview online: Whenever ATI tells us they have some announcements to make two weeks before the end of the year, we usually get a bit worried. The fact of the matter is that it is very rare for a company to release and ship new products this close to the end of a year, so we tend to get suspicious when new announcements happen like this. There is one exception, however - and that is software, or in this case, drivers.

Just earlier this month, ATI released their Catalyst 5.12 drivers, which offered support for dual core processors, but without any really tangible gains in performance as we found out. ATI had also alluded to the potential of another Catalyst release before the end of the year, and as their predictions would have it, Catalyst 5.13 is due out for release this coming Thursday (12/22/2005).