Many of you have an AMD graphics card in your desktop or laptop, like a Radeon. In that case, there’s a good chance you’ll want to grab this beta driver update, even though it’s not the full release driver. Why? Read on for a list of improvements that the AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver provides.

What does this driver not support?

Beginning with this driver, and continuing forward, AMD will no longer support vanilla Windows 8. That means that if you haven’t done the free major update to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to do so before you update your driver to this version. Expect many driver manufacturers to follow suit — you really need to get onboard the Windows 8.1 train sooner, rather than later.

If you can’t upgrade to Windows 8.1 — for example, you’re in a corporate environment, all is not lost. In a future driver release, AMD will allow the Windows 7 driver to work in Windows 8, but we don’t know when that will be.

As always, this driver works on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or higher.

The Radeon R9 295X2 is just one of many AMD graphics cards that sees improvements from this driver update.

What does this driver improve?

• Completely new driver architecture with new features
• Performance improvements in Watch Dogs, Murdered Soul Suspect, Battlefield 4, Thief and Star Swarm
• Double-digit percentage improvements in the AMD Radeon R9 290X series at the highest resolutions
• Much faster JPG decompression, decoding and power efficiency
• The ability to create different display groups if you have multiple monitors of different sizes and shapes

What’s a beta driver?

The thing about beta drivers is that they’re not the stable, release versions. However, sometimes it’s really necessary to update to the beta driver to get the performance or features you need with the lastest graphics cards and the latest games. There’s a tradeoff between supported features, speed and bug fixes on one side and the possibility of crashes or BSoDs on the other.

What about Driver Reviver?

As a matter of policy, Driver Reviver doesn’t update beta drivers on your PC. It sticks to the full, stable release versions. There will soon be a new AMD stable driver release, and you can bet that the update will come to Driver Reviver quickly. Until then, use Driver Reviver to update the other drivers on your PC for a more stable, more reliable PC experience.

Where can I download this driver?

Download the AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver at AMD’s site.