I think AMD repeatedly lied to its loyal followers by claiming huge gains from the mantle technology.In a way, Mantle proved some things we already knew: AMD's Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs are inferior for gaming and DirectX 11 API processors such as the Intel Core range can push graphics cards such as the R9 290X to the limits in modern games such as BF4. Core i3 through i7 owners can hope to see a 5% boost (a few fps) with Mantle but that's not enough to recommend it over the more mature DirectX 11 API for now.
Nice review. The colours used in the charts were hideous, but I'm sure they will get better.
Right now this just shows mantle isn't ready or atleast someone skimped out on either doing it properly on the game bf/thief or mantle just isn't ready...
Mantle reduces CPU overhead, because you ran the games at such high settings you were mostly GPU bottlenecked and mantle would have little effect. You should benchmark with slower CPU's or lower the games graphical settings so you are not GPU bottlenecked.
It’s as ready as its going to get, it’s not a magical frames per second API. It simply removes the CPU overhead and we saw that. This is all you are likely ever going to see from the current version of Mantle.
Slower CPU’s? Really slower than the A8-7600? Not sure there is any point to that or that it is even necessary.
Furthermore those investing in a Radeon R9 290X or R9 280X are obviously going to want to play these games using maximum quality settings. As for the R7 260X that was tested with lower quality settings and provided playable performance at 1680x1050 and here DX11 was faster. Explain that.
From what we have seen with drivers things will improve just like how CoD ghosts made 2 titans run at 20-30FPS it is as simple as patching it to improve it so your wrong things will improve its like a driver it just needs fine tuning like all things or if it didnt then why do drivers need improving?
Granted Mantle is new I don’t believe you are correct. Just look at the numbers. We are seeing 100% from Mantle right now, the evidence is all there.
Perfect example that Mantle is working as good as it’s ever going to is Thief.
Take the Radeon R9 290X results in Thief.
Core i7 = 42fps @ 2560x1600 with Mantle and DX11.
FX-8350 = 33fps with DX11 and the full GPU limited 42fps with Mantle, it can’t get any better than that.
Finally the example you gave in Ghosts is about Nvidia drivers and more importantly it is in regards to multi-GPU technology. It certainly isn't common for drivers to improve SLI or Crossfire performance in new games, that is an entirely different issue all together.
So OpenGL and Direct X can improve but mantle cant... thats a bit bias dont you think...
So OpenGL and Direct X can improve but mantle cant... thats a bit bias dont you think...
I like the new Techspot 3.0 and I'm quickly becoming used to it but this is the 1st review I've read in this format and I found out that I can no longer quickly navigate to the 'final thoughts' without having to scroll through all the other pages. If it's a subject or product that I find interesting it's not a problem as I will read the entire review but not every review or subject tickles my fancy and I just want to read the introduction and closing, this is one of them.
I'd appreciate it if the devs would include a 'quickly navigate to page' option.
P.S. If this sounds like a slur on the reviewer or article I do apologise (no offense Steve, it is well written and researched) and in no way intended to be that.
I would probably gather the same if I hadn't witnessed a different story.So OpenGL and Direct X can improve but mantle cant... thats a bit bias dont you think...
From what I can gather, all Mantle does is reduce the load on the CPU to which in turn frees up the GPU to work harder and therefore get a higher framerate, Since the i7 doesn't struggle anyway it just brings AMD processors in-line with Intel's.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are other optimizations, but this one seems to be key and it's probably quite hard to improve on over time as it already allows developers to use all the threads an 8 core offers etc...
They may improve it over time, but it won't be anything significant unless they come up with some new optimizations they can implement into Mantle. Or developers haven't been using it very effectively.
Well I have to say your number seemed alot lower than I was expecting on BF4. As for Thief, im actually shocked it gives that much of a performance boost in that game but ive noticed that because my friend is running an old Phenom II X6 1100t overclocked to 4.0ghz and an HD 7870 and it brought up the FPS at max to around 50-60 on a 1920x1080p screen.
Now for me on BF4, im running an FX 9590 and 3 R9 290X GPU's in 5760x1080p which for me is giving me a pretty constant 60 FPS in multiplayer that ive noticed (Albeit I don't stare at the FPS counter in the top of the screen while playing but it does not bother my eye skipping around constantly). On DX11 I noticed lots of skipping around in performance.
Im more curious why the results are so low here for BF4 because other places are reporting higher Mantle results.
Well they didn't I was mostly referring to the Single tests as well in HardOCP and the frame time variance that was very smooth in BF4 with Mantle online. But of course everyones tests are going to be different because all hardware acts differently and scenarios will of course change just be the smallest of details.Well I have to say your number seemed alot lower than I was expecting on BF4. As for Thief, im actually shocked it gives that much of a performance boost in that game but ive noticed that because my friend is running an old Phenom II X6 1100t overclocked to 4.0ghz and an HD 7870 and it brought up the FPS at max to around 50-60 on a 1920x1080p screen.
Now for me on BF4, im running an FX 9590 and 3 R9 290X GPU's in 5760x1080p which for me is giving me a pretty constant 60 FPS in multiplayer that ive noticed (Albeit I don't stare at the FPS counter in the top of the screen while playing but it does not bother my eye skipping around constantly). On DX11 I noticed lots of skipping around in performance.
Im more curious why the results are so low here for BF4 because other places are reporting higher Mantle results.
Maybe techspot didnt do any crossfire cards like hardocp did?
Wouldn't 100 to 140 out of 200 be 20% not 40%?some rare dips to approx 100fps
and then to a lowest of approx 140+. So straight off the bat that's a 40% low frame drop improvement.