ATI has now released the final revision of its Catalyst 4.9 drivers which should bring some performance improvement, especially in the new generation Radeons. Get them here (http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp.html?type=xp&prodType=graphic&prod=productsXPdriver&submit.x=7&submit.y=9).

Doom3 performance improves 10-15% on ATI RADEON™ X800 XT products when anti-aliasing is enabled. UT2004 performance improves considerably on the ATI RADEON™ 9500 PRO, RADEON™ 9700 PRO RADEON™ 9800 PRO and RADEON™ 9800 XT products. The benefit can be 25% or more in some circumstances, particularly at extreme graphics settings such as 6xAA + 16xAF.

Is there any point for users of first-generation Radeon's like me in upgrading? Has the speed for the 7000 changed at all in the recent drivers?

I'm just taking an educated guess in the fact that you'll run about the same with any drivers going back.....oh.....say.....6 months ago or better. IMHO

I know the last drivers caused problems with my 8500, so I'm not getting those either.

Installed them on my 9700 Pro yesterday. No problems so far.

I would only install this set if I had a 9700/9800 Pro or superior card... unless I was having some issues with some game or app, of course.