Pre-orders begin for AMD Radeon R9 290X, likely priced at $699

From what I remember, Mantle is an open API so Nvidia and Intel can actually make use of it.
I think that implication has been well and truly put to rest:
AMD understands Mantle not an open standard à la OpenCL or OpenGL....But if another hardware vendor [were to] create a backend for Mantle with special drivers for its own hardware, AMD will not refuse this application from the outset...
Seems to us like the wrangling over a possible PhysX and AMD drivers for it, which caused a heated debate a few months ago.

Raja Koduri interview with PCGH

The inference being that, should any other hardware vendor start using Mantle it is at the whim of AMD's code writing revision that it stays viable. The fact that Mantle does not support AMD's own VLIW4 (HD 6900 series and various APU's) and VLIW5 (everything else before GCN) GPU architectures pretty much implies that the code will be very specific.
 
Mantle is hardware specific, and that's problematic. However AMD is saying that it will allow others to create compatibility layers, and I'm sure some of the general public will try this for other chips, including AMD's older ones.
 
That actually makes sense. Compatibility layers bring overhead with them, so this would be AMD's way of ensuring that Mantle applications run best on their hardware.
 
I recently replaced my Phenom II X4 965 with an FX-8350. It was an easy drop-in because I already had a 990FX motherboard. The difference is just amazing although for now, you'd be fine just to OC the 965 to 4GHz. That would give you a very nice speed boost.

I agree with the cpu boost. I picked up an AMD FX 9370 last fall and it's night and day difference. I tried overclocking the 695 but I had a bottleneck somewhere and it made no difference.
 
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