AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[de5_Roy]

now i have a theory for amd's mantle launch and reason for pre-emptively undermining dx12. it's a conspiracy theory that fills the boldness part. it's because of amd's high margin products. amd has two types mainstream high margin products - fx cpus and high end gpus. for years, amd's mainstay has been the cpus. now that amd's fx lineup is 2-3 years old, "high end" is more like mid-range and lower (price-wise), slowing down in sales while low-cost apus taking over, amd is left with the high end gpus. that's why amd tried to push high end gpus to users with more mainstream, budget cpus. usually, higher end gfx cards get into pcs with high end cpus.
imo, a mantle-like effort was due since cpu performance wasn't scaling up as fast as gpu performance since sandy bridge.
amd won the console designs. amd was really close to catching up and beating nvidia in terms of mainstream gaming performance. stars finally aligned. amd knew how much time they had before next dx iteration would come out. iirc late last year, amd lost money in apus as well due to kaveri's delay. (btw, fx 9k series doesn't count... as anything). mantle's calculated release and hype was amd's way to go "all in" for revenue from high end gfx cards. i consider this amd's inevitable, long overdue, well-deserved recognition of the gfx cards as the new mainstay. and then they botched it. partly due to the mining craze, which seems to be finally winding down a little. partly due to amd using mantle to push hawaii cards and overpriced kaveri apus instead of supporting already-available gcn 1.0 cards. and partly the choice of launch partners (ea, mostly). in the end it was teh moniez as always - just amd trying to get more people to buy their higher end gfx cards and overpriced new apus.
all of this is purely speculation on my part.
it worked too...almost. i am pretty sure it was nvidia who got ms to announce dx12. their tegra 4 socs have been massive flops afaik. same with shield. they've been fab-blocked by apple. dx12 was the only way they could hold potential buyers' attention.

We(toms) Take a Tour of AMD's Datacenter in Georgia
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-data-center-suwanee-georgia,26421.html

 

[Cazalan]

PCIe 5 and 6 doesn't exist. Only 4.0 is under development.

The links given before explain why PCIe cannot be scaled up at the NVLINK level: energy data movement, point-to-point, and signal integrity.

That's like saying DDR3-3000 doesn't exist because there is no official spec for it. Yet you can buy "overclocked" DDR3-3000 DIMMs. Likewise I have customers already using PCIe5 effectively in their own platforms. It's as simple as picking PCIe protocol in the MGT and changing the PLL clock frequency and multiplier. If the board is laid out right it works just fine. Whether or when this makes it officially into consumer PCs is another matter.

As I said before at the physical level this is all very similar. You get the same energy efficiency by using higher clock speeds. PCIe is already point-to-point. Signal integrity is of course always important which is why companies have been using PCIe mezzanines since the spec came out. HP has been using them in their blade computers for years to get higher density.

You realize there's more than just graphics cards riding on PCIe right? SATA express also rides on it. As flash/mram densities increase these devices will also require much faster interfaces. When the manufacturers get past the stumbling blocks of making stacked die there is going to be an explosion in densities. This may end up driving the push as they prefer fewer channels of higher speed. Then it's up to the CPU makers to decide just how many of these channels they want to support.

Its not like PCI-SIG is just going to dissolve after 22 years of being one of the most successful associations the industry has ever seen.

 

[con635]

Thirdly, Devs typically aren't told about major API changes until AFTER the API is finalized and released, which didn't happen until GDC last month. So of course they didn't know about it.

Maybe that's whats wrong then, maybe that's why mantle performs better and utilizes hw much better than d3d, developers actually worked with amd on mantle and told them what they wanted.

 

[sarinaide]

I was simply commenting on how interesting the result set was.

Intel:

Single card: Mantle offers <5% performance gains. Similar FPS/Latency results.
Crossfire: Mantel offers SIGNIFICANTLY less performance then D3D11. Mantle crossfire latency is constant, indicating significant frame pacing is occurring.

Can't really comment on the CFX results due to the frame pacing kicking on, though one wonders why the DX11 mode isn't showing the same behavior in this regard...

AMD:

Single card: Mantle offers <5% performance gains. Similar FPS/Latency results.
Crossfire: Mantle is SIGNIFICANTLY faster; D3D11 result is worse then the single card results

Again, hard to reach a conclusion here, due to the poor showing for the crossfire test. This is almost certainly a driver bug that needs looking into.

What is interesting is the final result, performance wise.
1st: i7-3960x D3D11
2nd: A10-7850k Mantle
3rd: i7-3960x Mantle
4th: A10-7850k D3D11 [Almost certainly a driver problem based on single-card results]

And again, its worth noting that even on the "weak" A10-7850k, the difference between D3D and Mantle is minimal, maybe 10% on average. The Intel result using generic D3D11 is about ~35-40FPS faster on average then the A10-7850k using Mantle.

My main questions:
1: Why does the D3D11 Crossfire result look so bad on AMD CPU's?
2: Why does Intel lose SIGNIFICANT performance when using Mantle? [30 FPS is significant no matter how you spin it]

So I'm seeing a LOT of funnies here that don't really make any sense. I'm *hoping* its just a driver issue and the results will settle on a re-test, but something screwy is going on with the result set here.

I just sometimes think you need a hug, let go of that inner AMD animosity and feel the feels.

I would like to see an across the board mantle review with frame pacing from the 290x right down to cards supported for dual graphics, if across the board Latency is a straight line while even at this juncture then mantle has done a good job. I really think that AMD has to be greedy with Mantle and really look after their own interests before Intel and Nvidia and that is probably why the results reflect that, DX overheads have overtaxed AMD CPU's for years without MS or anyone ever giving a damn, Mantle has found a way around traditional bottlenecks notably for AMD CPU's this is a good thing. I also thing Mantle drivers will evolve and soon will pull away from DX.

Said for years id take 30FPS with ZERO latency over 60FPS with off the chart latency if Mantle delivers single and dual GPU setups with minimal straight line Latency, id sell my 670 in a heartbeat.

Are you sure DX12 existed before mantle, you sure MS didn't religiously adopt the no mantle for xbox one because it was concerned of the benefits to its console over its own proprietory standard. I think AMD got MS to play ball, if DX12 is neutral to AMD hardware along with Intel and Nvidia then AMD will atleast wrestle back some margins.

 

[logainofhades]

Thirdly, Devs typically aren't told about major API changes until AFTER the API is finalized and released, which didn't happen until GDC last month. So of course they didn't know about it.

Maybe that's whats wrong then, maybe that's why mantle performs better and utilizes hw much better than d3d, developers actually worked with amd on mantle and told them what they wanted.

Even if they told M$ what they wanted, M$ would do what it wanted anyway. That is evident with the abysmal failure known as Win 8, aka Win ME 2.0.

 

[sarinaide]

now i have a theory for amd's mantle launch and reason for pre-emptively undermining dx12. it's a conspiracy theory that fills the boldness part. it's because of amd's high margin products. amd has two types mainstream high margin products - fx cpus and high end gpus. for years, amd's mainstay has been the cpus. now that amd's fx lineup is 2-3 years old, "high end" is more like mid-range and lower (price-wise), slowing down in sales while low-cost apus taking over, amd is left with the high end gpus. that's why amd tried to push high end gpus to users with more mainstream, budget cpus. usually, higher end gfx cards get into pcs with high end cpus.
imo, a mantle-like effort was due since cpu performance wasn't scaling up as fast as gpu performance since sandy bridge.
amd won the console designs. amd was really close to catching up and beating nvidia in terms of mainstream gaming performance. stars finally aligned. amd knew how much time they had before next dx iteration would come out. iirc late last year, amd lost money in apus as well due to kaveri's delay. (btw, fx 9k series doesn't count... as anything). mantle's calculated release and hype was amd's way to go "all in" for revenue from high end gfx cards. i consider this amd's inevitable, long overdue, well-deserved recognition of the gfx cards as the new mainstay. and then they botched it. partly due to the mining craze, which seems to be finally winding down a little. partly due to amd using mantle to push hawaii cards and overpriced kaveri apus instead of supporting already-available gcn 1.0 cards. and partly the choice of launch partners (ea, mostly). in the end it was teh moniez as always - just amd trying to get more people to buy their higher end gfx cards and overpriced new apus.
all of this is purely speculation on my part.
it worked too...almost. i am pretty sure it was nvidia who got ms to announce dx12. their tegra 4 socs have been massive flops afaik. same with shield. they've been fab-blocked by apple. dx12 was the only way they could hold potential buyers' attention.

We(toms) Take a Tour of AMD's Datacenter in Georgia
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-data-center-suwanee-georgia,26421.html

I only rebuke it on the basis that MS and Nvidia knew about Mantle a lot longer before public knew, probably when AMD won the console bidding war. DX12 was a twinkle in the eye now its development is rushed into production because MS may have inadvertantly shot itself and its XB1 sales by holding out against Mantle support.

 

[jdwii]

"I just sometimes think you need a hug, let go of that inner AMD animosity and feel the feels."
Lol sounds like he used to work at Amd's marketing team back in the day. Just trolling

But really you have to admit directx 12 seems just like mantle in disguise and really someone at Amd even said directx 12 wasn't going to happen. Why would he say that? I'm not saying directx 12 is mantle or vise versa but i'm saying i heard crazier things. Either Amd was lying and being extremely unprofessional or Microsoft and Amd both knew how much directx was a bottleneck when it comes to CPU overhead.

 

[blackkstar]

@gamerK, I've been over this with you before. Mantle means the API implementation is in drivers. DirectX means it's part of the OS.

AMD wants to bring Mantle to Linux? They just put it in fglrx and they are done. They want to bring it to some sort of GCN/ARM hybrid (what I would consider a hellspawn)? They just put it in the drivers.

Now, imagine AMD wants DirectX in Linux. They have to convince Microsoft they should move DX into Linux. They want to bring it to some sort of GCN/ARM hybrid APU? They can't do anything except pray for WindowsRT.

As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to port DX11 games to Mantle. Imagine someone like EA wants to make a big Linux push. They can just do some quick porting and moves games to Linux. Origin is already using QT4, so porting to Linux is easy there as well.

They all want out of MS environment. As Juan is saying, ARM will continue to grow from the bottom and I would even argue that something like Mantle is even more of a way of getting out of the x86 desktop and laptop ecosystem and opening up a path to things like gaming Tablets and ARM/GCN phones or shield-like devices. Except instead of playing Angry Birds at 400fps, it would play older AAA games and games we'd expect to play on PC.

I do not know how to explain this to you. We have reached the stage where we can't make single thread that much better so we added more cores. We have reached the age where adding more cores isn't helping, so we're trying software. We've also reached the age where die shrinks won't be magic bullets anymore.

Look at how stagnant Intel has been with CPU performance. We should have transitioned into the next big thing after adding more cores by Ivy Bridge. Yet it's not coming. Things like Mantle and APUs (and eventually interconnects that solve the latency and bandwidth problems of PCIe, but I feel that's far off) are trying to solve that problem.

If we continue to pretend to be OstrichK and burry our heads in the sand, nothing is going to move forward.

 

[de5_Roy]

I only rebuke it on the basis that MS and Nvidia knew about Mantle a lot longer before public knew, probably when AMD won the console bidding war. DX12 was a twinkle in the eye now its development is rushed into production because MS may have inadvertantly shot itself and its XB1 sales by holding out against Mantle support.

it's very possible that dx12, xbone(R), ps4's apis all three started at the same time. both amd and ms stand to save resources from co-developing the xbone(r) and port part of that to pc. that'd mean dx12 or pc version of dx 11.x or something like that has been in development since then. mantle being primarily gcn-bound, saved amd from extra works and time (headstart over next dx iteration) to make the api compatible with older gpus and validation works - something strangely supported by c.a.l.f. ("breaking compatibility is okay because amd makes money by getting people to buy new cards. besides, it's open, anyone can support it."). there's no real rush except the public announcement of it's existence and just enough preview. if nvidia wasn't so desperate, i doubt we'd see so many people getting worked up over dx 12 and mantle. if you read about the events, the announcements and previews themselves were nothing out of the ordinary.
mantle, despite all it's potential and capabilities, is being used as a p.r. tool and for pursuading people to buy high end gcn 1.1 gpus. ms management is responsible for xbone marketing and sales, mantle has nothing to do with that. what's worse, i have recently noticed the old trend of amd catalyst drivers displaying relatively high cpu and memory overhead with dx, in games as well as in games that should typically be cpu-agnostic and gpu-bound. those almost went away after t.r., toms and others forced amd to work on their drivers by revealing it's weaknesses and long-standing user abuse ("we didn't know those were there because we weren't looking, screw enduro. lol j/k.").
expect more pushes from amd like this one along the current consoles' lifecycle.

one of the ways amd could really utlize mantle is in closed devices as i said before. especially in laptops where tdp limist often causes the cpu inhibit igpu/dgpu performance. mantle and enduro (don't forget dual gfx) could be a killer combo. guess what, that's where amd is neglecting the most. at least amd finally acknowledges gfx cards as their main money earner.... until next hedt cpus/apus/soc come out. that's better than nothing.

 

[eidolon171]

So I had to copy a 124GB file onto my home PC (a10 7850k) and my bosses PC (i5 3450). My 7850k ran the procedure at an average 40MB/s and took 45mins to complete, the i5 struggled to maintain 20MB/s and took around an hour and a half to complete. +1 to Kaveri

 

[jdwii]

where both where running on either 2.0 or 3.0 and where both freshly installed versions of windows with nothing else running or at least the same applications running?

 

[eidolon171]

where both where running on either 2.0 or 3.0 and where both freshly installed versions of windows with nothing else running or at least the same applications running?

The dongle was an Autodesk flash installer (rated as usb 2.0 device) but both PC's had usb 3.0 slots, which I inserted them into. They are both running Win 8.1 (Industry Build) mine was installed back in February, his in March. And yes I was browsing internet and had Multisim minimized to taskbar on the 7850k, the i5 3450 wasn't doing anything else but copying the one file.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Some good links and comparative insight here guys ... keep it coming.

I'll try to get you all a "Mantle Badge"

I want the mine spelled as "mantel".

Spoiler

The reason for MANTLE coming around is because Devs are tired of being tied to windows...myself included. MANTLE opens platforms to, yes, a specific architecture, but it allows them to port windows games to OSX/Linux via GCN cards. THAT is the point you are all missing. BTW, the work to port DX11 code to MANTLE literally takes 30 minutes...seriously. So, it is not much additional work at all to expose yourself to those other platforms that are literally almost untapped for even double A titles, much less triple A titles.

MANTLE is going nowhere...I could not care less what M$ does with DX12...I am not tying games to windows anymore, and MANTLE allows me to do that. Why do you think CryEngine got on board? EA? Square Enix/Eidos? The same reasons...they can back port those games when cross platform support comes.

The CPU overhead BS is the public marketing hype...the dev hype is "YES!!!! We can FINALLY be RID of M$ and Windows!!!!"

Why would devs want to move away from the main platform for consumers? Games are still not a major market for PCs in comparison to total sales but still game devs wanting to move off to another platform where sales would be only a small few and would also lose out on those other PC sales?

Unless other platforms get the support Windows has, I don't see anything taking over. Even Android is too segregated and still a weak OS in comparison.

Windows is not the main customers platform anymore. I believe Toms had a article about that. Only about 25% of share is for windows. Linux and Apple are the rest.

In the second place, it was already explained that Microsoft recent strategy away from traditional PCs, toward tablets and Xbox1, motivated PC game developers to either (i) switch to linux or (ii) develop MANTLE in collaboration with AMD.

I already provided links to game developers confirming that Microsoft didn't have any plan for DX12 before MANTLE was presented.

Game developers that switched to linux also gave talks explaining why they were disappointed by Microsoft new strategy



http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167253-gabe-newell-made-windows-a-viable-gaming-platform-and-linux-is-next

Mobile gaming? Really? How does that even equate compared to what were are talking about with Windows vs Linux? I don't consider phones a proper gaming platform.

Developers don't know more than hardware vendors do. NVidia would know more than say EA.

And I know what Gabe Newell did. It is one of the reasons I idolize him. He took the most popular (at the time) game and ported it to Windows and made Windows a major gaming platform.

I do love however the out of context article about how VALVe was worried (pre Windows 8 launch) about Microsoft closing the Windows platform like Apple in 8 with the App store. That was what Gabe was talking about because it would be if that happened but it wont.

I find it so amazing how people think Microsoft is willing o give up on one of the biggest things it has over Apple and Linux.

I don't think MS is as stupid as people think.

Fourthly, it looks like either 8.2 or Win 9 (however MSFT decides to package it) is bringing back the start menu, so Linux missed a chance to grow on one of MSFT's screw ups (again).

Start menu is only one of the problems.

The Start Menu is what everyone has been whining about. And other than that Windows 8 is a great improvement over 7.

Thirdly, Devs typically aren't told about major API changes until AFTER the API is finalized and released, which didn't happen until GDC last month. So of course they didn't know about it.

Maybe that's whats wrong then, maybe that's why mantle performs better and utilizes hw much better than d3d, developers actually worked with amd on mantle and told them what they wanted.

Even if they told M$ what they wanted, M$ would do what it wanted anyway. That is evident with the abysmal failure known as Win 8, aka Win ME 2.0.

Are you seriously comparing 8 to ME? Hell Vista wasn't as bad as ME. Me was a horrible OS that crashed and was so bugged out that they ended support for ME before they ended support for 98.

MS works closer with hardware vendors than it does with software devs, hence why AMDs HD7K series supported up to DX 11.2 even when released well before it.

So I had to copy a 124GB file onto my home PC (a10 7850k) and my bosses PC (i5 3450). My 7850k ran the procedure at an average 40MB/s and took 45mins to complete, the i5 struggled to maintain 20MB/s and took around an hour and a half to complete. +1 to Kaveri

Do a test. Run multiple file transfers on both and see how it responds. I want to see if the GPU can actually handle multiple requests or if it will choke.

 

[Reynod]

Any more complaints about the Mantle badge will result in all the regular posters here getting a Cyrix badge ... or possiby two even.

 

[juanrga]

That's like saying DDR3-3000 doesn't exist because there is no official spec for it. Yet you can buy "overclocked" DDR3-3000 DIMMs. Likewise I have customers already using PCIe5 effectively in their own platforms. It's as simple as picking PCIe protocol in the MGT and changing the PLL clock frequency and multiplier. If the board is laid out right it works just fine. Whether or when this makes it officially into consumer PCs is another matter.

As I said before at the physical level this is all very similar. You get the same energy efficiency by using higher clock speeds. PCIe is already point-to-point. Signal integrity is of course always important which is why companies have been using PCIe mezzanines since the spec came out. HP has been using them in their blade computers for years to get higher density.

You realize there's more than just graphics cards riding on PCIe right? SATA express also rides on it. As flash/mram densities increase these devices will also require much faster interfaces. When the manufacturers get past the stumbling blocks of making stacked die there is going to be an explosion in densities. This may end up driving the push as they prefer fewer channels of higher speed. Then it's up to the CPU makers to decide just how many of these channels they want to support.

Its not like PCI-SIG is just going to dissolve after 22 years of being one of the most successful associations the industry has ever seen.

Using your own logic, the analogy would be that overclocking DDR3 implies that DDR5 and DDR6 exist, which is false. Thus stop pretending that PCIe 5 and 6 exist.

I never said that PCIe wouldn't evolve. As commented before, PCie4 is under development. I said something different.

@gamerK, I've been over this with you before. Mantle means the API implementation is in drivers. DirectX means it's part of the OS.

AMD wants to bring Mantle to Linux? They just put it in fglrx and they are done. They want to bring it to some sort of GCN/ARM hybrid (what I would consider a hellspawn)? They just put it in the drivers.

Now, imagine AMD wants DirectX in Linux. They have to convince Microsoft they should move DX into Linux. They want to bring it to some sort of GCN/ARM hybrid APU? They can't do anything except pray for WindowsRT.

As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to port DX11 games to Mantle. Imagine someone like EA wants to make a big Linux push. They can just do some quick porting and moves games to Linux. Origin is already using QT4, so porting to Linux is easy there as well.

They all want out of MS environment. As Juan is saying, ARM will continue to grow from the bottom and I would even argue that something like Mantle is even more of a way of getting out of the x86 desktop and laptop ecosystem and opening up a path to things like gaming Tablets and ARM/GCN phones or shield-like devices. Except instead of playing Angry Birds at 400fps, it would play older AAA games and games we'd expect to play on PC.

Previous benchmarks showed that 1.3GHZ dual core phone-rated TDP chip from Apple was able to match higher-clocked Intel/AMD quad-core tablet-rated TDP, which was impressive. A recent article by Anandtech reveals that the chip was not showing its real potential and that both software and surrounding hardware (e.g. memory subsystem) crippled performance of the Apple chip.

In their analysis of the architectural details Anand finds that the Apple chip is already a "desktop class" chip:

With six decoders and nine ports to execution units, Cyclone is big. As I mentioned before, it's bigger than anything else that goes in a phone. Apple didn't build a Krait/Silvermont competitor, it built something much closer to Intel's big cores. At the launch of the iPhone 5s, Apple referred to the A7 as being "desktop class" - it turns out that wasn't an exaggeration.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchitecture-detailed

This is a reminder for all those who claimed that ARM never could match x86 performance. Don't forget also the benchmarks of the Cortex-A57 core showing that has more IPC than Jaguar/Piledriver cores.

About MANTLE on linux: AMD is already talking at developers about porting MANTLE to linux.

 

[juanrga]

But really you have to admit directx 12 seems just like mantle in disguise and really someone at Amd even said directx 12 wasn't going to happen. Why would he say that? I'm not saying directx 12 is mantle or vise versa but i'm saying i heard crazier things. Either Amd was lying and being extremely unprofessional or Microsoft and Amd both knew how much directx was a bottleneck when it comes to CPU overhead.

He said so because DX12 was not planned then, as mentioned before.

In fact, as some of you may recall, an AMD executive publicly stated a year ago that there was no “DirectX 12″ on the Microsoft roadmap. Microsoft responded to those comments by affirming that it remained committed to evolving the DirectX standard — and then said nothing more on the topic. Then AMD launched Mantle, with significant support from multiple developers and a bevy of games launching this year — and apparently someone at Microsoft decided to pay attention.

[...]

We’ve spoken to several sources with additional information on the topic who have told us that Microsoft’s interest in developing a new API is a recent phenomenon, and that the new DirectX (likely DirectX 12) will substantially duplicate the capabilities of AMD’s Mantle. The two APIs won’t be identical — Microsoft is doing its own implementation —

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/178904-directx-12-detailed-backwards-compatible-with-all-recent-nvidia-gpus-will-deliver-mantle-like-capabilities

Next link offers additional support to my claim (in this same thread) that Microsoft recent interest in DX12 is motivated by bad sales of Xbox1. Despite improving Xbox1 performance by 20% with the new DX12 API, The PS4 will continue to outperform it.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/179885-developer-claims-ps4-will-always-be-stronger-than-the-xbox-one

 

[juanrga]

Mobile gaming? Really? How does that even equate compared to what were are talking about with Windows vs Linux? I don't consider phones a proper gaming platform.

Mobile gaming is an important and rising market.

Android exists outside of phones and Intel has already stated its desire of scaling it up to desktops.

Developers don't know more than hardware vendors do. NVidia would know more than say EA.

They known what they want from an API. In fact the talk about DX12 given by Microsoft at GDC started with

You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware. You also asked us for better tools so that you can squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console. Come learn our plans to deliver.

"You" = "developers".

Pay also attention to Microsoft mentioning phones.

And I know what Gabe Newell did. It is one of the reasons I idolize him. He took the most popular (at the time) game and ported it to Windows and made Windows a major gaming platform.

And he is doing now the same with linux... well, to be accurate, He is doing much more now with Steam machines.

The Start Menu is what everyone has been whining about. And other than that Windows 8 is a great improvement over 7.

7 was barely acceptable but 8 is pure junk for me.

 

[juanrga]

http://techreport.com/review/26239/a-closer-look-at-directx-12/3

From the day Microsoft announced DirectX 12, AMD has made it clear that it's fully behind the new API. Its message is simple: Direct3D 12 "supports and celebrates" the push toward lower-level abstraction that AMD began with Mantle last year—but D3D12 won't be ready right away, and in the meantime, developers can use Mantle in order to get some of the same gains out of AMD hardware.

At GDC, AMD's Corpus elaborated a little bit on that message. He told me Direct3D 12's arrival won't spell the end of Mantle. D3D12 doesn't get quite as close to the metal of AMD's Graphics Core Next GPUs as Mantle does, he claimed, and Mantle "will do some things faster." Mantle may also be quicker to take advantage of new hardware, since AMD will be able to update the API independently without waiting on Microsoft to release a new version of Direct3D. Finally, AMD is talking to developers about bringing Mantle to Linux, where it would have no competition from Microsoft.

Corpus was adamant that developers will see value in adopting Mantle even today, with D3D12 on the horizon and no explicit support for Linux or future AMD GPUs. Because the API is similar to D3D12, it will give developers a "big head start," he said, and we may see D3D12 launch titles "very early" as a result.

What is really interesting is Nvidia's Tamasi praise:

Since Mantle's debut six months ago, Nvidia has "redoubled" its efforts to curb CPU overhead, improve multi-core scaling, and use shader caching to address stuttering problems. (Tamasi freely admitted that Mantle's release spurred the initiative. "AMD and Mantle should get credit for revitalizing . . . and getting people fired up," he said.)

 

[juanrga]

Updated drivers for HSA support on Kaveri

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7825/amd-updates-driver-roadmap-for-supporting-hsa-features-in-kaveri

 

[logainofhades]

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

 

[jdwii]

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

I use it on my laptop and desktop i rarely use the start menu and when i have to it drives me insane that it takes over my whole screen, WTF that is not multitasking. I find the 8 start menu block looking and outdated looks so ugly to me, the good news is 8 is faster than 7 more so on AMD APU's and i love the new task messenger and some other features 8 has such as a native ISO reader. I ran several benchmarks across 8 and the latest ubuntu and i see barley any benefit in performance on linux probably 5% or less. I also use ubuntu and i still have to use the terminal to install some programs seems way to outdated in 2014.

 

[juanrga]

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

I use it on my laptop and desktop i rarely use the start menu and when i have to it drives me insane that it takes over my whole screen, WTF that is not multitasking. I find the 8 start menu block looking and outdated looks so ugly to me, the good news is 8 is faster than 7 more so on AMD APU's and i love the new task messenger and some other features 8 has such as a native ISO reader. I ran several benchmarks across 8 and the latest ubuntu and i see barley any benefit in performance on linux probably 5% or less. I also use ubuntu and i still have to use the terminal to install some programs seems way to outdated in 2014.

Any person who I allowed to use Windows 8 laughed at that toy. I also laughed. It looks as if it was made for simple kids to play with.

Also Ubuntu is bloatware. It is far from representative of linux performance.

 

[logainofhades]

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

I use it on my laptop and desktop i rarely use the start menu and when i have to it drives me insane that it takes over my whole screen, WTF that is not multitasking. I find the 8 start menu block looking and outdated looks so ugly to me, the good news is 8 is faster than 7 more so on AMD APU's and i love the new task messenger and some other features 8 has such as a native ISO reader. I ran several benchmarks across 8 and the latest ubuntu and i see barley any benefit in performance on linux probably 5% or less. I also use ubuntu and i still have to use the terminal to install some programs seems way to outdated in 2014.

I prefer 3rd party programs to just about anything that M$ includes. The only thing I use Media player for is to rip CD's. I use the built utility to burn an ISO to a disk. That is about as far as my M$ included crap goes. I use WinRar for opening an ISO, and I use VLC player for music and video.

 

[jdwii]

linux fanboys are cute lol na everyone likes different things

 

[jimmysmitty]

Any more complaints about the Mantle badge will result in all the regular posters here getting a Cyrix badge ... or possiby two even.

Not much of a threat to me. I still have a Cyrix 486DX in a box somewhere.

Mobile gaming? Really? How does that even equate compared to what were are talking about with Windows vs Linux? I don't consider phones a proper gaming platform.

Mobile gaming is an important and rising market.

Android exists outside of phones and Intel has already stated its desire of scaling it up to desktops.

Developers don't know more than hardware vendors do. NVidia would know more than say EA.

They known what they want from an API. In fact the talk about DX12 given by Microsoft at GDC started with

You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware. You also asked us for better tools so that you can squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console. Come learn our plans to deliver.

"You" = "developers".

Pay also attention to Microsoft mentioning phones.

And I know what Gabe Newell did. It is one of the reasons I idolize him. He took the most popular (at the time) game and ported it to Windows and made Windows a major gaming platform.

And he is doing now the same with linux... well, to be accurate, He is doing much more now with Steam machines.

The Start Menu is what everyone has been whining about. And other than that Windows 8 is a great improvement over 7.

7 was barely acceptable but 8 is pure junk for me.

I honestly do not consider mobile gaming the same. If we are talking gaming it is not the same.

As for Steam Boxes, they are great because it does not require proprietary hardware or the OS itself. You can buy a pre built Steam Box and use Windows or build a custom PC and throw SteamOS on it.

In the end it is the same reason why AMD, NVidia or Intel use certaing benchmarks to show what they want, to get sales. VALVe is pushing into as many markets as they can. There are people on Linux and Appl that want to game but no company really supports it. VALVe is doing so. Why is Steam worth $2 billion a year? VALVe is a privately owned company with a genius, Gabe, for knowing trends and creating success. Look at VALVes game catalogue, almost every one is alauded for how great they are. Half Life is considered the changing point for FPS. Portal was considered one of the best games ever made for its simplicity. They focus on gamers and know there are gamers everywhere. Does that mean they think Windows is going to be ditched or become a non gaming platform? no. Just that they want to be in as many markets as possible. Steams competition, EAs Origin, is nowhere near as diverse and well done.

And I think I am pretty much done with you. If you think 7 is barely passable then there is nothing MS could do that is good to you. Sorry but XP is old, has a ton of flaws and needs to be removed from most PCs connected to the internet. 7 was a great improvement over it.

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

Most people at my previous job like it and realize they barely used the start menu. I have met multiple IT people who like it.

I had a friend who didn't like it then tried it and enjoyed it afterwards.

You also need to rewrite your book. ME didn't fail because it was a bad OS with a changed GUI but because it was buggy, insecure and crashed like crazy. As for the growth, do you have any numbers to back that up? From what I can see 8 is growing ok but I have read a few articles that use page hits as a way to estimate how many are 7/8/XP etc.

On Steams Hardware survey, 8 outweighs XP and Vista combined at over 20% there so it looks like gamers are fine with 8 so far. Vista never really had a massive growth on Steam like 7 did.

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

I use it on my laptop and desktop i rarely use the start menu and when i have to it drives me insane that it takes over my whole screen, WTF that is not multitasking. I find the 8 start menu block looking and outdated looks so ugly to me, the good news is 8 is faster than 7 more so on AMD APU's and i love the new task messenger and some other features 8 has such as a native ISO reader. I ran several benchmarks across 8 and the latest ubuntu and i see barley any benefit in performance on linux probably 5% or less. I also use ubuntu and i still have to use the terminal to install some programs seems way to outdated in 2014.

Any person who I allowed to use Windows 8 laughed at that toy. I also laughed. It looks as if it was made for simple kids to play with.

Also Ubuntu is bloatware. It is far from representative of linux performance.

The majority of consumers who buy PCs are not like us. We know what we know because we are enthusiasts. We have systems that are more powerful than the rest of our families systems combined. Do you think they need a complicated OS like Linux that requires advanced command line input without a GUI to install drivers? Or would a more simplified OS be better for some guy who has no clue what the difference between RAM and hard drive space is?

A good company will focus on the major market while still supporting the sub markets. 8, while being simplified in the start menu, still has the same desktop but much more advanced tools in the background, like the Task Manager or the new file transfer system.

Honestly, I don't like Metro and I don't use any apps. Of course I know how to go in and change all those settings. But rather than moan about changes that will eventually happen with or without our support I move on that way I know how to use the OS and have an advantage in the field. While I knew a lot of techs who were great with XP, they didn't know much about Vista or 7 when they came out. They didn't know how to do what they should have. Same with 8.

Windows 8 growth is worse than Vista's was. That is pretty much Mistake Edition 2.0 in my book. Not a single person I have talked to, personally, that has Win 8 likes it.

I use it on my laptop and desktop i rarely use the start menu and when i have to it drives me insane that it takes over my whole screen, WTF that is not multitasking. I find the 8 start menu block looking and outdated looks so ugly to me, the good news is 8 is faster than 7 more so on AMD APU's and i love the new task messenger and some other features 8 has such as a native ISO reader. I ran several benchmarks across 8 and the latest ubuntu and i see barley any benefit in performance on linux probably 5% or less. I also use ubuntu and i still have to use the terminal to install some programs seems way to outdated in 2014.

I prefer 3rd party programs to just about anything that M$ includes. The only thing I use Media player for is to rip CD's. I use the built utility to burn an ISO to a disk. That is about as far as my M$ included crap goes. I use WinRar for opening an ISO, and I use VLC player for music and video.

He is talking about the built in virtual DVD drive in 8. All you do is double click a .ISO and it mounts it.

As well 8 natively supports Hyper-V and reading VHD, 7 does not.

That is why I just laugh at comments like "8 is just a tablet OS on desktop" or the above, "looks like a childs toy" when 8 has more advanced features than 7. And this is on 8 or 8 Pro.

It is honestly funny how little people know about Windows 8 beyond Metro.