The DirectX 12 Performance Preview: AMD, NVIDIA, & Star Swarm
by Ryan Smith on February 6, 2015 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Microsoft
- NVIDIA
- DirectX 12
GPU Scaling
Switching gears, let’s take a look at performance from a GPU standpoint, including how well Star Swarm performance scales with more powerful GPUs now that we have eliminated the CPU bottleneck. Until now Star Swarm has never been GPU bottlenecked on high-end NVIDIA cards, so this is our first time seeing just how much faster Star Swarm can get until it runs into the limits of the GPU itself.
As it stands, with the CPU bottleneck swapped out for a GPU bottleneck, Star Swarm starts to favor NVIDIA GPUs right now. Even accounting for performance differences, NVIDIA ends up coming out well ahead here, with the GTX 980 beating the R9 290X by over 50%, and the GTX 680 some 25% ahead of the R9 285, both values well ahead of their average lead in real-world games. With virtually every aspect of this test still being under development – OS, drivers, and Star Swarm – we would advise not reading into this too much right now, but it will be interesting to see if this trend holds with the final release of DirectX 12.
Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that largely due to their poor DirectX 11 performance in this benchmark, AMD sees the greatest gains from DirectX 12 on a relative basis and comes close to seeing the greatest gains on an absolute basis as well. The GTX 980’s performance improves by 150% and 40.1fps when switching APIs; the R9 290X improves by 416% and 34.6fps. As for AMD’s Mantle, we’ll get back to that in a bit.
Having already established that even 2 CPU cores is enough to keep Star Swarm fed on anything less than a GTX 980, the results are much the same here for our 2 core configuration. Other than the GTX 980 being CPU limited, the gains from enabling DirectX 12 are consistent with what we saw for the 4 core configuration. Which is to say that even a relatively weak CPU can benefit from DirectX 12, at least when paired with a strong GPU.
However the GTX 750 Ti result in particular also highlights the fact that until a powerful GPU comes into play, the benefits today from DirectX 12 aren’t nearly as great. Though the GTX 750 Ti does improve in performance by 26%, this is far cry from the 150% of the GTX 980, or even the gains for the GTX 680. While AMD is terminally CPU limited here, NVIDIA can get just enough out of DirectX 11 that a 2 core configuration can almost feed the GTX 750 Ti. Consequently in the NVIDIA case, a weak CPU paired with a weak GPU does not currently see the same benefits that we get elsewhere. However as DirectX 12 is meant to be forward looking – to be out before it’s too late – as GPU performance gains continue to outstrip CPU performance gains, the benefits even for low-end configurations will continue to increase.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
245 Comments
View All Comments
OrphanageExplosion - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
Sony already has its low-level API, GNM, plus its DX11-a-like GNMX, for those who need faster results, easier debugging, handling of state etc.Gigaplex - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
The consoles already use bare metal APIs. This will have minimal impact for consoles.Bill McGann - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
D3D11.x is garbage compared to GNM (plus the XbOne HW is garbage compared to the PS4). The sad fact is that the XbOne desperately needs D3D12(.x) in order to catch up to the PS4.Notmyusualid - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Hello all... couldn't find any MULTI-GPU results...So here are mine:
System: M18x R2 3920XM (16GB RAM 1866MHz CAS10), Crossfire 7970Ms.
Test: Star Swarm Perf demo RTS, all Extreme setting.
Ambient temp 31C, skype idling in background, and with CPU ALL at stock settings:
Mantle: fps max 99.03 min 9.65 AVG 26.5
DX11: fps max 141.56 min 3.26 AVG 11.6
CPU at 4.4GHz x 4 cores, fans 100%, skype in background again:
Mantle: fps max 51.03 min 7.26 AVG 26.2 - max temp 94C
DX11: fps max 229.06 min 3.6 AVG 12.3 - max temp 104C + thus cpu throtteled at 23%.
So I guess there are good things coming to PC gamers with multi-gpu's then. Alas, being a mere mortal, I've no access to DX12 to play with...
Anyone care to offer some SLI results in return?
lamebot - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
I have been reading this article page by page over the weekend, giving myself time to take it in. The frame times from each vendor under DX11 is very interesting. Thank you for a great, in depth article! This is what keeps me coming back.ChristTheGreat - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Can it be only a WIndows 10 Driver problem or optimisation for these result with the R9 290/X? On windows 8.1, 4770k 4.3ghz and R9 290 1100/1400, I do 40avg D3D11 and 66avg Mantle.. Scenario: follow, Detail: extreme...ChristTheGreat - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Oh well, I saw that you guys use the Asus PQ321, so running in 3 840 x 2 160?Wolfpup - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Good, can Mantle go away now? The idea of moving BACK to proprietary APIs is a terrible one, unless the only point of it was to push Microsoft to make these fixes in Direct X."Stardock is using the Nitrous engine for their forthcoming Star Control game"
I didn't know! This is freaking awesome news. I love love love Star Control 2 on the 3DO. Liked 1 on the Genesis too, but SC2 on the 3DO (which I think is better than the PC version) is not unlike Starflight-and somewhat like Mass Effect.
Wolfpup - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Forgot to mention... I also think AMD needs to worry about making sure their DirectX/Open GL drivers are flawless across years of hardware before wasting time on a proprietary API too...lordken - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Sorry but are you just amd hater or something?imho AMD did great thing with mantle and possibly pushed M$ to come with DX12 (or not we will never know). But that aside how about you think about some advantages mantle has?
I think that when they bring it to linux (they said they would, not sure about current status) that will be nice advantage as I guess native api would work better than wine etc. With more recent games (thanks to new engines) comming to linux would probably benefit more if they would run on mantle.
And nonetheless how about ppl that wont move to Win10 (for whatever reason)? Mantle on Win7/8 would still be huge benefit for such ppl. Not to mention that there will be probably more games with mantle than with DX12 in very close feature.
Plus if they work out console & pc mantle aspect it could bring better console ports to PC, even if game devs would be lazy to do proper optimalization mantle should pretty much eliminate this aspect (though only for amd gpu).
But either way I dont see much reason why should mantle go. I mean once it is included in all/most bigger engines (already in cryengine,frostbite,unreal) and it works what reason would be to trash something that is usefull?
btw funny how "M$ would need to do huge kernel rework to bring DX12 to Win7/8" while mantle, which does similar thing, is easily capable to be "OS version independent" (sure it is amd specific but still)
PS:What about amd drivers? They are fine imho, never had problem in last years. (you see personal experience is not a valid argument)