Mantle tests yielded mixed results. Mantle delivers the best results in CPU-bound games, on configurations with powerful GPUs and somewhat slower CPUs. It benefits the CPU rather than the GPU, as it eliminates a lot of CPU overhead. An integrated GPU backed by an entry-level discrete card doesn’t really fit the bill, but Mantle still provided us with an 18-percent performance boost in Battlefield 4. It might not sound like much, but it makes a visible difference.

First we want to show you our results without Mantle. The 14.6 beta driver provided us with a 3% gain in DirectX 11 rendering compared to the first beta driver from January. The on-die GPU can deliver playable framerates in Battlefield 4, but you have to lower in-game graphics details to minimum or medium.

As you can see from the following graph, with the A8-7600 and its on-die R7 GPU we got a 15-percent performance uplift thanks to Mantle. This resulted in near smooth gaming at 1080p at medium details, which is very impressive for a mid-range processor with integrated graphics.



The next results also prove that there is no significant difference between using 1GB or 2GB of RAM for the GPU. Whether the system has 8GB or 16GB of system RAM also makes no difference, but speed matters, and we show that in the next page.