Such a question could only apply to a brutally honest hard core gaming site like HardOCP.
IF a threshold is reached in Mantle developer support, Mantle performance gains and AMD high end GPU cost/performance.
The GPU question is answered, the 290 and 290x brought the sledgehammer down on Nvidia's mature cards at introduction with substantial driver and aftermarket performance gains to come.
When I see - "with Battlefield 4 running with Mantle the card (290x) will be able to 'ridicule' the Titan in terms of performance" (AMD exec) and " which lets us see dramatic increases in performance on Mantle-enabled systems" (Oxide site) - I'm thinking Mantle gains are going to be on the kick ass side of the meter.
We know EA./Dice are big on Mantle - "Super exited about Mantle!" (GPU13 slide and yes their emphasis) and Eidos Montreal, Oxide and Star Citizen just came out as Mantle users, Eidos Montreal is owned my Square Enix, so they would appear to be on board, Star Citizen uses Cry Engine 4 so Crytek appears to be on board, though that was expected, and Oxide is building what they consider the definitive real time strategy engine for next gen games. Activision's principal technical director tweeted "We'll have to support #Mantle now; wish it was just #OpenGL extensions though! Maybe someone will lightly wrap D3D or GL around it for us?" so looks like they're on board.
EA/Dice, Square Enix, Crytek, Oxide, Activision ... already formidable and more can be expected at APU13. The question is what AAA developer can competitively afford to ignore Mantle if it enjoys wide developer support and brings game changing performance gains to the table?
Back to HardOCP.
The 290 cards are new and running shitty coolers. What will HardOCP's Battlefield Mantle review look like with an aftermarket cooler, driver optimizations and Mantle? A cost/performance delta of 30%, 40%? Recommending an Nvidia card for BF4 would be out of the question. Extrapolate that out six months when several more developers are on board with Mantle, Nvidia would have to sell their boards at a loss to stay in the cost/performance ballpark on mantle games and AMD has at least parity on non Mantle games.
I would contend if the developer support is substantial and growing (probable) and Mantle brings game changing performance gains (probable) there will come a time when HardOCP will say they can no longer, in good faith, recommend Nvidia boards.
Please address the POINTS of my OP instead of attacking me. I'm more than happy to debate the points.
IF a threshold is reached in Mantle developer support, Mantle performance gains and AMD high end GPU cost/performance.
The GPU question is answered, the 290 and 290x brought the sledgehammer down on Nvidia's mature cards at introduction with substantial driver and aftermarket performance gains to come.
When I see - "with Battlefield 4 running with Mantle the card (290x) will be able to 'ridicule' the Titan in terms of performance" (AMD exec) and " which lets us see dramatic increases in performance on Mantle-enabled systems" (Oxide site) - I'm thinking Mantle gains are going to be on the kick ass side of the meter.
We know EA./Dice are big on Mantle - "Super exited about Mantle!" (GPU13 slide and yes their emphasis) and Eidos Montreal, Oxide and Star Citizen just came out as Mantle users, Eidos Montreal is owned my Square Enix, so they would appear to be on board, Star Citizen uses Cry Engine 4 so Crytek appears to be on board, though that was expected, and Oxide is building what they consider the definitive real time strategy engine for next gen games. Activision's principal technical director tweeted "We'll have to support #Mantle now; wish it was just #OpenGL extensions though! Maybe someone will lightly wrap D3D or GL around it for us?" so looks like they're on board.
EA/Dice, Square Enix, Crytek, Oxide, Activision ... already formidable and more can be expected at APU13. The question is what AAA developer can competitively afford to ignore Mantle if it enjoys wide developer support and brings game changing performance gains to the table?
Back to HardOCP.
The 290 cards are new and running shitty coolers. What will HardOCP's Battlefield Mantle review look like with an aftermarket cooler, driver optimizations and Mantle? A cost/performance delta of 30%, 40%? Recommending an Nvidia card for BF4 would be out of the question. Extrapolate that out six months when several more developers are on board with Mantle, Nvidia would have to sell their boards at a loss to stay in the cost/performance ballpark on mantle games and AMD has at least parity on non Mantle games.
I would contend if the developer support is substantial and growing (probable) and Mantle brings game changing performance gains (probable) there will come a time when HardOCP will say they can no longer, in good faith, recommend Nvidia boards.
Please address the POINTS of my OP instead of attacking me. I'm more than happy to debate the points.
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