Thief Benchmarks: Mid-Range And High-End Graphics
On the previous page, we started with an A10-7850K APU and Radeon R7 250X graphics card at Low detail levels. Now we're increasing graphics quality to the Normal preset at 1920x1080 using a Radeon R9 270 and GeForce GTX 660.
Again, Thief appears to be an ideal proof point for Mantle. Under DirectX, the Core i7-4770K-based platform averages 56.7 FPS, while the FX-8350 registers 46. Once we switch over to Mantle, the AMD CPU is able to muster 56.4 FPS, nearly achieving performance parity with Intel's high-end processor.
Finally, with the High preset enabled, and a Radeon R9 290X/GeForce GTX 780 Ti installed, the results start getting strange. Nvidia's high-end gaming card averages about 80 FPS on a Core i7-4770K, and is matched by the Radeon R9 290X using Mantle and an FX-8350. Then, we swap the R9 290X into our Core i7-4770K-based system and observe dismal results with Mantle turned on.
The numbers are repeatable, and we don't have a concrete explanation to put forth. But we're reminded that AMD considers Mantle to be a technology in its beta stage. Overall, though, Mantle continues to help performance trend higher than DirectX.