I'm going to be upgrading from a radeon x600 SE to a radeon HD 3850 in the next few days. I currently have the ati 6.12 drivers installed. When I install the 3850, I will install the new 8.1 radeon drivers. My question is whether or not I need to uninstall the current 6.12 drivers before upgrading the card? Alternatively, is it a non issue, or do I need to install the 8.1 drivers for my old card and then it will be fine to swap in the new card? The fact that they use the same driver is the source of the confusion here.

Uninstall your current drivers, plus go in to Device Manager and uninstall your current Video Card also. Then just shut down the machine, remove old card, install new one, power on, install new drivers.

Not considering a nVidia card? You'd get better performance, for a cheaper price imo

I use Guru3d's driver sweeper to clean out drivers, worth a shot!

Sounds reasonable; thanks!

@Raa: No, I'm not considering a nVidia card.

The ROT on graphics drivers is you do NOT need to remove the existing driver if both of the following are true:

1. You are not changing graphics chipset manufacturers (you are going from one nVidia card to a newer model, for example, such as 7-series to 8-series; for ATI owners, upgrading from X1K series to HD 2xxx or HD 3xxx series)

AND

2. Both chipsets are supported by your current driver.

Anecdotal Example: Last year, I finally retired my AIW 9700 Pro (due to impending GPU failure, as I was using it strictly as a graphics card at this point) in my daily-use PC, running Vista Ultimate, with the latest Catalyst drivers (at the time, Catalyst 7.6 for Vista), and replaced with the ATI Radeon X1650PRO graphics card (also in AGP). I did NOT need to replace drivers (as I did not change manufacturers, or to a chipset that required a special driver). My upgrade process was therefore pretty darn simple.

1. Shut down the computer (and physically unplug the computer, either from the wall or PSU end, for safety reasons).
2. Take out old card (and disconnect auxilliary power cable running from PSU).
3. Connect new card to auxillary power cable (if the card uses the same connector as the old one, use the same cable) and insert in the same slot.
4. Reconnect power and restart the computer.
5. Windows *should* not only say that there is a new card in the computer, it should also detect the card and update the drivers automatically; it will then ask to restart the computer. Let it do so.
6. Welcome to increased graphical performance.

I also, for the same reasons, loathe changing VPU chipset *horses* in midstream (not just from ATI to nVidia, but from nVidia to ATI), as both companies are known to sneak nitpicky ATI-isms or nVidia-isms in places that graphics cards have no business being; therefore, I tend to recommend that if you have nVidia now, that you upgrade to nVidia when it's time to do so (naturally, the same applies to ATI owners).