No because Rise of Tomb Raider only gains 1FPS on the 1060 and the RX480 when using DX12 over DX11. If you know how DX12 works you know that shouldn't be the case. So it is a case of DX12 not being utilized.
Nvidia has struggled with DX12 implementation. Not sure why but it kind of irks me as an Nvidia user. But the whole Vram issue with the GTX 970 kind of irked me as well. Nvidia does get away with a bunch of crap because they are sitting in the number one spot and pretty much dominate. And just for clarity my main tablet is an Nvidia Shield tablet, my set top box is an Nvidia Shield Box, and my gpu is a GTX 970. So I am clearly pretty invested into Nvidia.
There is no reason a mid range GPU shouldn't be able to stay relevant, especially considering mid range has jumped to the $250-$400 range. I think my last AMD (ATI) card was an X800 XL that I paid like $179 for from zipzoomfly back in the day right after release (I don't remember how but that was a killer deal on the card at the time think it might have been in a brown box maybe), I think it was a Powercolor and that thing rocked in my main system for a long time and really the only reason it had to be changed out was because of some of the API's being used in games like Bioshock. But back then was able to play it thanks to some modders work arounds because the card was powerful enough to play the game just didn't support the API's at an architecture level. I have read that Nvidia supports most of all the DX12 instructions but actually not all of them. Though I never read if that changed or not with the release of the 1080, 1070, or 1060.
Most of the time I buy midrange because it is the best bang for buck. High end usually doesn't pay off because the dollar per performance isn't justified. They are always the best cards but you pay way more per dollar for each fps.
DX12 seems to be here to stay. Granted with even ultrawides we have already seen in at CES higher res screens that are like 5K I believe for ultrawide and the media companies don't plan on doing most of their broadcast updates until 8K is released as they don't want to upgrade so close after upgrading to 1080P. Granted if you play at 1080 or even 1440 you have probably been pretty content with the graphics card you had previously if you invested in a decent one. The only reason I am considering upgrading is because I want to move to higher res ultrawide and also like something with at least 8GB of Vram. Biggest mistake Nvidia had with the GTX 970 was the 4GB that didn't even run at full speed for the full 4GB.
You're in that crowd that doesn't understand DX12 and business. I don't mean that offensively, I mean it as a person who sees the difference between business and design.
You can't say that RotTR doesn't use DX12 properly, anymore than you can Hitman does. DX12 uses various methods to run and it uses those methods depending on the development. I posted a link in another thread, way back where the Hitman devs allowed the AMD guys to code Async to the gunnels, to get the most out of AMD hardware. They knew doing that (with AMD'S proprietary ACE's) would hamper Nvidia.
Likewise, Nvidia had more involvement with RotTR.
The curve ball is AotS, where the 1060 compares favourably to the 480.
Nvidia dropped compute hardware after Fermi to focus on efficiency. It's ironic that way back then, the heavy compute prowess was often questioned by reviewers as not being necessary for gaming. It was as if Nvidia had brought HPC to the desktop.
AMD plugged on with compute (that's why it has way more hardware and higher power draw than Nvidia equivalent) and moved to implement Mantle to utilise it's GCN.
AMD played the very long game and it's finally coming to bear fruit but the first trees are only just appearing. DX11 is still around. In fact go back a year and plenty of folks of a certain persuasion insisted DX12 would be the major force and in most games by now.
Nvidia competes competently without the compute hardware by using refined speed, rather than hardware grunt. Moreover, that hardware still hinders DX11 utilisation so forward looking isn't so great when DX12 isn't the standard model.
Finally, revisiting devs. It doesn't matter who has what benefits, when AMD or Nvidia get involved in a game, rest assured it won't generally suit the other side.
