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
Mid Quality Performance
Since our evaluation so far has been focused on performance with Star Swarm’s most resource intensive Extreme setting, we wanted to shake things up by trying a lower quality setting.
In this case Star Swarm’s various quality levels adjust both the CPU and GPU workload, with the Mid quality setting reducing both the number of draw calls generated and the amount of work generated per frame for the GPU. As a result we’re not adjusting just the CPU or the GPU workload, but it can give us an idea of what to expect from DirectX 12 and Star Swarm at lower settings more suitable for weaker systems.
Even with this lower quality setting, the CPU results tell us that only the GTX 980 is truly CPU bottlenecked with 2 cores. Everything else from the 290X on down can reach its GPU limit with a relatively weak CPU.
Overall the numbers are different, but the lineup is the same whether it’s Extreme quality or Mid quality. Every vendor still sees massive gains from enabling DirectX 12, though the overall gains aren’t quite as great as with Extreme quality. Meanwhile GTX 750 Ti in particular continues to see the weakest gains from DirectX 12, at only 14% for a 2 core configuration, thanks to a combination of NVIDIA’s lower CPU consumption and earlier GPU bottleneck.
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nikon133 - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
Windows Mobile was very strong smartphone/PDA OS, back in the pre iOS/Android days. I don't remember how it compared to Symbian, but I do remember that it overtook Palm (marketshare wise) at some point.Tablets, true... unless OP considers PDAs an early tablets.
sr1030nx - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
Win10 (and 8.1 to a very limited extent) uses universal apps, meaning you write an app once and it works across PC, tablet and phones.Also means you only need to buy an app once and you get it everywhere.
Christopher1 - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
The only person who is wrong here is you, hwangeruk. There are numerous people who have had that the whole "Free upgrade to Windows 10 from 7 and 8!" is directly due to Microsoft wanting to encourage people to not stay on old code and move to new, safer and faster code.pixelstuff - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
Windows 8 is not old code by any stretch. I think hwangeruk was right. Microsoft wants all Windows 8 users and especially Windows 7 users to upgrade so they can all run the unified apps that will also run on Windows Phone 10 devices. Microsoft eventually wants all developers writing Windows 10 apps even for things like Photoshop and Illustrator. To make that feasible Microsoft really needs to upgrade the majority of their user base.domboy - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
But even if they do get everybody to upgrade to 10, that still doesn't guarantee developers are going to switch to the store model, especially the big ones as they'd have to start giving Microsoft a cut of their profits. Same for game developers... Steam is pretty well established at this point. I will probably upgrade since it's free, but really only so I don't get locked out of DirectX 12....Naqoyqatsi - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
"In that scenario, you are the product."No, you are the laborer.
Frenetic Pony - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
I suppose you only use iOS and OSX then as Chrome OS, Linux, and Android are also free?SparkySamza - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
as the saying i hear still now and when i was a child " there is no such thing as a free lunch" i know microsoft has done something, from gathering data via the operating system or even maybe filling it with micro transactions or even forcing people to use xbox everything even though pc people want to be as far away from xbox as they can.Cygni - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
This is a great way to ensure that developers are forced to continue coding for DX11, or just switch to Mantle. Windows 7 is going to continue to be the dominant OS long into the future.Viewgamer - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
I'm sorry but does no one find it suspicious that a supposedly "165W" GTX 980 consumes only 14W less than the "290W" R9 290X in DX12 ? and 19W less in DX11.No matter how you slice it, it's abundantly clear that the 165W power figure from Nvidia is pure PR fabrication. Just like the fabricated specs for the GTX 970.