FRONTPAGE AMD FX Processors and DirectX 12

[Overclockers.com]

Today we're going to have a look at the benefits of DirectX 12 (henceforth DX12) and system performance when using an AMD FX processor. To best explain why Windows 10 and DX12 will have such an impact on multi-core CPUs we need to take a closer look at what it's doing behind the scenes.

Click here to view the article.

 

[Dolk]

Very nice article. Lots of good information here.

 

[Alaric]

My daughter will be a happy camper when she reads this. She's getting my Vishera rig. Except now I have to buy her a better graphics card. LOL

 

[AnubisOne]

This was a great article to read. Glad to hear my FX CPU will still be able to game on, possibly better! Can't wait to see what it can do with DX 12.

 

[Johan45]

Thanks guys, there's a new DX12 benchmark from 3DMark called TimeSpy. We've been posting results here if you're interested. http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...-3DMark-TimeSpy-released!-Post-up-your-scores!

 

[trents]

Does this apply to those older Nvidia and AMD GPUs that are DX11 natively but through API magic are made DX12 compatible?

 

[Johan45]

That I don't know Trents but I do know my 770s aren't on Nvidias list for DX12 cards. Not sure if it was intentional or oversight. Seems like everything else is down to some 4xx series but I do know trying to run SLI in Win 10 is a real headache and the new Time Spy DX12 bench would crash every time. I have swapped in my 980 now.

 

[trents]

AMD developed a low level API to implement DirectX 12 capability or it's equivalent in pre DirectX GPUs and called it Mantel. Mantel was short lived and succeeded by Vulcan. At the time, Nvidia had an equivalent technology to Mantel but I forget what it was called. Both technologies extended backwards a generation or two in their GPU product lines. But both what AMD and Nvidia were doing then was a bridge technology as GPUs with native DirectX 12 capability were not yet out. Do either of these technologies still survive and if so, are they as good as native DirectX 12? See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API)

 

[PetrolHead]

Does this apply to those older Nvidia and AMD GPUs that are DX11 natively but through API magic are made DX12 compatible?

Possibly to some extent, but it depends on the GPU and manufacturer. Different generations may support different feature levels, even though they're marketed as DX12 compatible. See for example: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...what-amd-intel-and-nvidia-do-and-dont-deliver

 

[PetrolHead]

This was a great article to read. Glad to hear my FX CPU will still be able to game on, possibly better! Can't wait to see what it can do with DX 12.

Even with DX12 both your FX processors will bottleneck your GPUs to some extent. The FX-9370 used in the article was bottlenecking the GTX 980 Ti (a 12% OC resulted in ~10% gain in DX11 and ~9% gain in DX12), and here you can see an OC'd FX-6300 bottlenecking the RX 480 compared to an OC'd i7-6700K even in DX 12 games like AotS:

Not that the FX CPUs are obsolete, and DX12 is definitely a welcome improvement (as is Vulcan), but there's no denying the FX-line is starting to feel it's age and the DX12 is not exactly a fountain of youth. More like a simple nip and tuck.

 

[trents]

Good read, Petro. Thanks for that link. Pretty much answers my question.