Stardock's "Ashes of the Singularity" may not be particularly pathbreaking as an RTS, in the Starcraft era, but has the distinction of being the first game to the market with a DirectX 12 renderer, in addition to its default DirectX 11 one. This gave gamers the first peak at API to API comparisons, to test the tall bare-metal optimizations of DirectX 12, and as it turns out, AMD GPUs do seem to benefit big.

In a GeForce GTX 980 vs. Radeon R9 390X comparison by PC Perspective, the game seems to perform rather poorly on its default DirectX 11 renderer for the R9 390X, which when switched to DirectX 12, not only takes a big leap (in excess of 30%) in frame-rates, but also outperforms the GTX 980. A skeptical way of looking at these results would be that the R9 390X isn't optimized for the D3D 11 renderer to begin with, and merely returns to its expected performance vs. the GTX 980, with the D3D 12 renderer.

NVIDIA released its latest version of the GeForce driver software. Version 355.60 WHQL features the "Game Ready" moniker, as it's released just in time for "Ashes of the Singularity," a new RTS in the space-opera setting. Developed by Stardock, this game is one of the first to feature DirectX 12 support. In addition, the drivers include a beta version of NVIDIA's GameWorks VR SDK. Besides optimizations for "Ashes of the Singularity," the drivers add SLI profiles for "Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition," and "Next Car Game: Wreckfest."DOWNLOAD: GeForce 355.60 WHQL for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 8.1/7 32-bit

Google announced that it chose Vulkan, the next-generation, cross-platform 3D graphics API from Khronos, the people behind OpenGL; as the default API for upcoming versions of its Android operating-system. It currently uses OpenGL ES. GL-ES is widely supported across several embedded platforms, with its most recent update, GL ES 3.2, being released as recently as last week. What makes Khronos particularly interesting is that it's heavily based on AMD Mantle, a low-overhead API that proved its chops against DirectX 11 on the PC platform, before being withdrawn by AMD, in favor of DirectX 12.

Google will be helping developers through the transition between OpenGL ES and Vulkan using a suite of documentation, SDKs rich in compatibility test suits, and more. Vulkan's march to the PC could be a lot less straightforward. It's still being seen as rebranded Mantle, and while AMD announced support for all its Graphics CoreNext GPUs, there's no such announcement from NVIDIA. It could see good adoption with Apple's Mac OS, and desktop *nix. Vulkan could see a lot of popularity with game consoles other than Microsoft Xbox. Sony PlayStation 4, and Nintendo's upcoming console, which use AMD GCN GPUs, could take advantage of Vulkan, due to its lower CPU overhead and close-to-metal optimizations, compared to OpenGL.

As the leading gaming hardware brand, MSI is excited to launch a new, small and powerful gaming desktop PC: the MSI Nightblade MI. With a volume of only 10 liters, it's even smaller than its predecessor, the MSI Nightblade Z97/B85. Despite its nifty dimensions, the Nightblade MI houses a full sized MSI GeForce GTX 960 graphics card. Coupled with Intel Core technology and smart cooling solutions, the MSI Nightblade MI is an excellent choice for gaming enthusiasts around the world.

With a full sized graphics card, the Nightblade MI brings grand graphics for grand gamers in a small case. With a performance increase of 15% while using 41% less power compared to the previous generation, the GTX 960 provides plenty of FPS while playing games in Full HD and in high settings. To top it off, the Nightblade MI comes equipped with Intel Core technology, the latest Nahimic Sound Technology, Super speed transmission, GAMING LAN and much more.

AMD announced its latest Catalyst Software Suite following Microsoft Windows 10 launch, Catalyst 15.7.1 WHQL. It adds DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0) support for all Radeon GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, including the first-gen GCN chips, such as the HD 7000 series. To compatible GPUs, the driver enables Virtual Super-Resolution (VSR), Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC), and FreeSync (including FreeSync with CrossFire). It addresses a number of bugs specific to Windows 10.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.7.1 WHQL for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

In the wake of Microsoft Windows 10 launch, NVIDIA released its latest GeForce driver targeted at the new OS, GeForce 353.62 WHQL. This driver offers full support for WDDM 2.0, and DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0) support for NVIDIA GPUs based on the "Maxwell" and "Kepler" architectures. NVIDIA plans to enable DirectX 12 support for older "Fermi" (GTX 400, GTX 500 series) GPUs later this year. The driver also adds SLI profiles for a handful new games such as Batman: Arkham Knight (which was previously removed), Killing Floor 2, and Total War: Arena.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 353.62 WHQL for Windows 10

AMD announced availability of its newest budget socket FM2+ APU, the A8-7670K. This part, like the recently-launched A10-7870K, is based on the company's new 28 nm "Godavari" silicon. It combines a quad-core x86-64 CPU based on the "Excavator" micro-architecture, with an integrated Radeon R7 series graphics core, featuring six Graphics CoreNext 1.2 compute units amounting to 384 stream processors; a dual-channel DDR3 integrated memory controller, with native support for DDR3-2133 MHz memory; and a PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex.

The CPU cores on the AMD A8-7670K are clocked at 3.60 GHz, with maximum TurboCore frequency of 3.90 GHz. The CPU features unlocked base-clock multipliers, enabling CPU overclocking. The four CPU cores are spread across two "Excavator" modules, with a total of 4 MB of cache between them. The GPU is clocked at 757 MHz, and offers native support for DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0). It offers Dual-Graphics support, letting you pair it with select discrete GPUs from AMD's lineup. With the advent of DirectX 12, it should also support asynchronous multi-GPU. The A8-7670K is available now, and is priced at US $117.99 in its retail package.

AMD has halted optimizations for its Mantle 3D graphics API, for current and future graphics cards. The cards will retain Mantle API support at the driver-level, to run existing Mantle applications, but will not receive any performance optimizations from AMD. Launched around 2013, Mantle had a short stint with AAA PC games, such as Battlefield 4, Thief, Sniper Elite III, and Star Citizen, offering noticeably higher performance than DirectX 11. The API improves the way the CPU-end of 3D graphics rendering is handled, particularly with today's multi-core/multi-threaded processors, bringing about significant increases to the number of draw-calls that can be parsed by a GPU.

AMD will now focus on DirectX 12 and Vulkan (OpenGL successor by Khronos Group). Why the company effectively killed its own 2-year old and promising 3D API is anyone's guess. We postulate that Mantle could have been used by AMD to steer Microsoft to introduce vital bare-metal optimizations it reserved for the console, to the PC ecosystem with DirectX 12. It appears to have served that purpose, and as if to hold up to its end of a bargain, AMD 'withdrew' Mantle. DirectX 12 will feature a super-efficient command-buffer that scales across any number of CPU cores, and will have huge increases in draw-calls over DirectX 11. The new API makes its official debut with Windows 10, later this month. AMD's Graphics CoreNext 1.1 and 1.2 GPUs support DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0), as do rival NVIDIA's "Maxwell" GPUs. The company will continue to nurture Mantle as an "innovation base" for its upcoming tech, such as LiquidVR.

Building on the success of the previous generation, the new series features the latest Graphics Core Next architectures from AMD, paired with larger frame buffers and the evolution of our award winning cooler solutions to deliver the very best performance ratings and support for the latest technologies including DirectX 12, AMD FreeSync, TrueAudio, Liquid VR, VSR scaling and support for Ultra HD. This new generation includes models with our industry acclaimed Tri-X and Dual-X cooling technologies and will be available from 18th June 2015.

At the top of the range is the new SAPPHIRE Tri-X R9 390X which features the latest version of our award winning Tri-X cooler. This now features dual ball bearings in each of the three fans for higher reliability and enhanced Intelligent Fan Control (IFC-II) which turns off the fans completely for silent operation under light load. Its heatpipe array with its industry leading 10mm heatpipe and diecast heatsink design keeps the card running cool even under the most demanding applications, and the use of long life capacitors and SAPPHIRE Black Diamond chokes contribute to consistent performance and high reliability.

Today SAPPHIRE Technology introduces a new line of graphics cards based on the latest Graphics Core Next architectures from AMD. The new SAPPHIRE NITRO series is an evolution of our market-leading, award-winning, high-end graphics card technology developed with features designed to be attractive to the majority of PC gamers. At the same time, SAPPHIRE will also promote a new community website for gaming enthusiasts - SAPPHIRE NATION.

The excellent performance, quality, reliability and stability of high-end graphic cards has always been the preserve of the hardcore gamer. Until now. The SAPPHIRE NITRO series boasts a range of features previously reserved for high-end cards, including long-life capacitors and award-winning SAPPHIRE Black Diamond Chokes, as well as new versions of our award-winning cooling solutions. Its elegant contours with purposeful black and gunmetal finish have been designed to suit any build. And the latest graphics architecture from AMD paired with larger frame buffers delivers fast, reliable gaming performance as well as support for the latest technologies including DirectX 12, AMD FreeSync, TrueAudio, Liquid VR, VSR scaling and Ultra HD. So whatever kind of gamer you are, the SAPPHIRE NITRO series offers you the maximum gaming experience for your budget.

AMD today announced its 6th Generation A-Series Processor, the world's first high-performance Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) in a System-on-Chip (SoC) design. Previously codenamed "Carrizo," the 6th Generation AMD A-Series Processor takes advantage of extensive AMD processor and graphics IP enabling exceptional computing experiences not possible before. The 6th Generation AMD A-Series Processor is the most versatile notebook processor ever produced, built to excel at today's and tomorrow's consumer and business applications, delivering premium streaming entertainment, unmatched smooth online gaming, and innovative computing experiences, with all day unplugged performance.

The world's first high-performance Accelerated Processing Unit in a SoC design marks a number of technology firsts: the world's first High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) hardware decode support for notebooks, the first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0-compliant design, and the first ARM TrustZone-capable high-performance APU. The new processor harnesses up to 12 Compute Cores -- 4 CPU + 8 GPU -- leveraging AMD "Excavator" cores and the third generation of AMD's award-winning Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. The result is a groundbreaking processor that boasts more than twice the battery life of its predecessor, up to 2x faster gaming performance than competitive processors, innovative computing experiences enabled through HSA, and a premium Microsoft Windows 10 experience with support for DirectX 12, adding up to an extraordinary experience for consumers.

Manli Technology Group Limited, the major Graphics Cards, Mini-PCs and other components manufacturer, today announced the ultimate graphics solution for gamers - Manli GeForce GTX 980Ti.

Powered by GM200 GPU, the Manli GeForce GTX 980Ti provides top tier gaming performance for gaming enthusiast. It built-in 2816 CUDA Cores, with core frequency is at 1000 MHz, base clock that can boost up to 1076 MHz, gamers can enjoy the ultimate gaming experience in HD and 4K UHD resolution, as well as headroom for overclocking via using TurboEngine software. The memory of 6GB GDDR5 ensures gamers can enjoy smooth and detailed gaming experience in DirectX 11 and incoming DirectX 12 new games.

AMD today introduced the latest addition to its line of desktop A-Series processors, the A10-7870K APU, a refresh to the existing line of processors codenamed "Kaveri". The A10-7870K delivers a best-in-class experience for eSports and online gaming with superior performance, best-in-class efficiency in DirectX 12, and unique features. The new processor also delivers exceptional performance in modern workloads and is designed for the future with Microsoft Windows 10.

The latest iteration of the popular and powerful AMD A-Series APU family provides premium performance and multitasking powered by up to 12 compute cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU). The responsiveness and processing power of the A10-7870K APU enables an immersive user experience on Windows 10 PCs while offering an easy path for PC builders looking to upgrade to discrete-level graphics and faster processing at an afforadable price. The A10-7870K APU is available at e-tail now at a suggested price (SEP) of US $137, and through participating system builders.

NVIDIA announced the first WHQL-signed driver for Windows 10. GeForce 352.84 WHQL offers full compliance to WDDM 2.0 specification, and offers support for DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0) on supported GPUs (all chips based on the "Kepler" and "Maxwell" architectures). There are no games that take advantage of DirectX 12 right now, but NVIDIA suggested a few tech-demos you can toy with, such as Forza DX12 renderer, Fable Legends DX12 Game Demo, Witch Chapter 0 DX12 SLI_support, King of Wushu DX12, and the Unreal Engine Race DX12 demo. DirectX 12 is highly anticipated among game developers, as it provides a leap in performance due to the way it handles multi-CPU. For the first time, 3D graphics rendering can take advantage of any number of CPU cores you throw at them, allowing game developers to increase eye-candy and detail. DirectX 12 will debut with Windows 10, which launches this July.DOWNLOAD: GeForce 352.84 WHQL for Windows 10 Desktop GPUs | Notebook GPUs

Microsoft revealed the six variants in which its next operating system, Windows 10, will ship in. The company decided to unify the Windows 10 brand across its PC, workstation, and handheld platforms. For PCs, workstations, and tablets running x86 processors, the lineup will include the Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Education, and Windows 10 Enterprise.

Windows 10 Home has everything a home and small-business user could ask for (including PC gamers and enthusiasts). It will include the Edge web-browser (so your post-install waltz to Chrome or Firefox websites is a few seconds faster), Microsoft Cortana voice-based assistant, richer Bing integration, Microsoft Hello face-recognition software, and support for biometric login methods. Gamers get DirectX 12 out of the box. Users of Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 8/8.1 get a free upgrade to this edition.

At its ongoing Investor Day presentation, AMD announced that will continue to make GPUs for every segment of the market. The company is planning to leverage improvements to its Graphics CoreNext architecture for the foreseeable future, but is betting on a huge performance/Watt increase with its 2016 GPUs. The secret sauce here will be the shift to 14 nm FinFET process. It's important to note here, that AMD refrained from mentioning "14 nm," but the mention of FinFET is a reliable giveaway. AMD is expecting a 2x (100%) gain in performance/Watt over its current generation of GPUs, with the shift.

AMD's future GPUs will focus on several market inflection points, such as the arrival of CPU-efficient graphics APIs such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan, Windows 10 pulling users from Windows 7, 4K Ultra HD displays getting more affordable (perhaps even mainstream), which it believes will help it sell enough GPUs to return to profitability. The company also announced an unnamed major design win, which will take shape in this quarter, and which will hit the markets in 2016.

NVIDIA released GeForce 352.63 Beta, a driver it recommends for all your pre-release Windows 10 testing. Tailored for WDDM 2.0 and DirectX 12, these drivers cover GeForce GPUs based on "Maxwell" and "Kepler" architectures only (GTX 900 series, GTX 700 series, and GTX 600 series only). It's still a wide selection of GPUs, which NVIDIA already announced will support DirectX 12. Grab your drivers from the links below:DOWNLOAD: GeForce 352.63 Beta for Windows 10 64-bit: Desktop Discrete GPUs | Notebook Discrete GPUs

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, debuts the first Intel Braswell based Mini-ITX ECO motherboards; the MSI N3050I ECO, N3150I ECO and N3700I ECO. With a rich feature set and all new onboard 14nm Dual & Quad Core Intel Celeron and Pentium Processor with next generation Intel HD graphics up to 2x faster, the new passively cooled MSI Braswell ECO motherboards are the perfect solution for HTPC or industrial devices. MSI's revolutionary power-saving design featured on its new ECO series motherboards, together with Intel's newly designed ultra-low power consuming SoC using only up to 6W, make these motherboards the next step in efficiency. Featuring a fully passive cooling solution, the new Braswell based ECO motherboards run cool, silent & efficient.

Futuremark is excited to introduce our new 3DMark API Overhead feature test - the world's first independent test for measuring differences in DirectX 12, DirectX 11 and Mantle API performance. It's also the very first public application to use DirectX 12 full stop. This is cutting edge stuff! Developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of our Benchmark Development Program, the 3DMark API Overhead feature test lets you compare the performance of DirectX 12, DirectX 11, and Mantle.

The purpose of the test is to compare the relative performance of different APIs on a single system, rather than the absolute performance of different systems. The API Overhead feature test is not a general-purpose GPU benchmark, and it should not be used to compare graphics cards from different vendors. (We are working on a DirectX 12 benchmark with game-like workloads, which we expect to release soon after the public launch of Windows 10.)

DOWNLOAD: Futuremark 3DMark v1.5.884

In an industry presentation on why the company is excited about Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 12 API, AMD revealed its most important feature that could impact on not only its graphics business, but also potentially revive its CPU business among gamers. DirectX 12 will make its debut with Windows 10, Microsoft's next big operating system, which will be given away as a free upgrade for _all_ current Windows 8 and Windows 7 users. The OS will come with a usable Start menu, and could lure gamers who stood their ground on Windows 7.

In its presentation, AMD touched upon two key features of the DirectX 12, starting with its most important, Multi-threaded command buffer recording; and Asynchronous compute scheduling/execution. A command buffer is a list of tasks for the CPU to execute, when drawing a 3D scene. There are some elements of 3D graphics that are still better suited for serial processing, and no single SIMD unit from any GPU architecture has managed to gain performance throughput parity with a modern CPU core. DirectX 11 and its predecessors are still largely single-threaded on the CPU, in the way it schedules command buffer.

AMD announced that it published the complete 450-page programming guide for its Mantle 3D graphics API, and the reference API itself. The two can be accessed from here. In the run up to its GDC 2015 presentation, in a blog post written by the company's top technology exec Raja Koduri, the company said it will talk about the future of Mantle in its GDC presentation. The company intends to develop, maintain and support Mantle and its eco-system, while maintaining that it will participate in the development and support of industry-standard APIs such as DirectX 12 and GLnext (the next major version of OpenGL).

AMD gave us a technical preview of its next-generation "Carrizo" APU, which is perhaps the company's biggest design leap since "Trinity." Built on the 28 nm silicon fab process, this chip offers big energy-efficiency gains over the current-generation "Kaveri" silicon, thanks to some major under-the-hood changes.

The biggest of these is the "Excavator" CPU module. 23 percent smaller in area than "Steamroller," (same 28 nm process), Excavator features a new high-density library design, which reduces die-area of the module. Most components are compacted. The floating-point scheduler is 38% smaller, fused multiply-accumulate (FMAC) units compacted by 35%, and instruction-cache controller compacted by another 35%. The "Carrizo" silicon itself uses GPU-optimized high-density metal stack, which helps with the compaction. Each "Excavator" module features two x86-64 CPU cores, which are structured much in the same way as AMD's previous three CPU core generations.

In what could be a fundamental shift in how Microsoft monetizes its flagship product, the Windows operating system, the company decided to offer its upcoming Windows 10 as a free upgrade for existing users of Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. This offer will be applicable only for the first year following Windows 10 launch (after which, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 users will have to pay to upgrade to Windows 10). Windows 10 will see the return of the Start Menu, a productive Desktop environment, and cutting-edge new API features such as DirectX 12.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, has released a new model, the PowerColor R9 290X with an advanced frame buffer memory of 8GB. Designed to fully support future graphically demanding titles at 4k resolution, the PCS+ R9 290X 8GB GDDR5 comes packed with an 8gb memory size, as well as latest GCN architecture innovations such as DirectX 12 and Mantle API. Offering gamers an incredibly immersive HD gaming experience at unrivaled performance.

The new PCS+ model utilizes 8GB of GDDR5 memory with 2816 stream processors. The larger 8GB frame buffer caters to latest applications and games that are getting more memory intensive. Clocks speeds are 1030MHz for the core and 1375MHz for the memory, which is connected via a new high speed 512-bit memory interface delivering excellent performance. To maintain higher OC performance with stability, PowerColor uses their own exclusive Gold Power Kit, including a Digital PWM to decrease the ripple and enhance power efficiency; the PowIRstage enables the Peak Efficiency up to 93.2% and the Multi Phases Design can enhance power efficiency and stability.

AMD announced its most important GPU for the season, the Radeon R9 285. The chip is designed to compete with the GeForce GTX 760 from NVIDIA at not just performance, but also energy-efficiency, and low component costs, so AMD can price it better. Based on a brand new 28 nm silicon by the company, codenamed "Tonga," the R9 285 features 1,792 Graphics CoreNext 1.2 stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory.

AMD partners are free to come up with 4 GB variants. The card supports DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.4, and Mantle. It features new AMD innovations, such as XDMA CrossFire, TrueAudio DSP, and 4-display Eyefinity by plugging into every connector on the card (two dual-link DVI, one DisplayPort 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a). The card draws power from a pair of 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Available now, the Radeon R9 285, from various AMD partners starts at US $249.