VSyncGamer

Thank you John!

Maybe I'm missing something here but, a unified memory pool (RAM and VRAM) is one of the things Mantle will bring to the table, no more spoon feeding the GPU.

If I remember correctly lol.

Nope. Release: December. We will have more information November 11th though IIRC.

You won't see any difference going from 8 to 8.1, the difference is from Windows 7 to Windows 8+. DirectX11.2 won't make any difference in performance mate, its focus is on Tiled Resources + a couple of new features, you can read more about it here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmsdn.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Flibrary%2Fwindows%2Fdesktop%2Fdn312084(v%3Dvs.85).aspx&ei=J9lzUsbKFarh2wXs8YHICA&usg=AFQjCNHra3H0fvvxLguDPoP_ifbvRXd-8A&sig2=X-URGlO183EBElohq7UVyA&bvm=bv.55819444,d.b2I DirectX11.1 did brought some needed CPU performance improvements, DirectX11.2 just adds some new features. And XBOX One is not going to be running 11.2 as far as I know, Microsoft names the API on the XBOX One as 11.X. So we really don't know what's running there.

There's a reason behind this you guys... It's not that Windows 8 is magically faster in comparison to Windows 7 when in comes to games, well it does provide higher Min FPS, but the average should be the same, if not a tiny bit lower vs Windows 7. The reason Battlefield 4 runs so much better on Windows 8+, is that Battlefield 4 is the 1st game to natively use DirectX11.1. DirectX11.1 brought some much needed CPU performance improvements vs older DirectX APIs (according to DICE's rendering architect), so people running DirectX11.1 enabled OSes (Windows 8 and Windows 8.1) should definitely see increased performance. Having that said, I can't wait for Battlefield 4 to get updated for Mantle (:

What I would like to know is the following: Would G-Sync be able to get rid of the stuttering/hitching that we see today in some game engines that were poorly optimized? (Far Cry 3 for example). If that's a definite Yes, then It would make G-Sync a bit more relevant to me (I play on a 144Hz BenQ XL2411T). But I still stand firm that these two technologies shouldn't me named in the same sentence, they're completely different things. What I find interesting is that repi (Johan Andersson) mentioned several times over the weekend that Mantle would bring "the robust stable performance that we have on consoles today", so if Mantle is able to close the gap significantly between Min FPS and Max FPS, then it would make something like G-Sync less relevant in Mantle enabled games. I for one I'm excited for BOTH technologies, but given that I just spent ~300 EUR on my BenQ XL2411T 144Hz monitor, and ~$370 on a Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Vapor X edition, I don't see myself going out and spending ~$800 more for a problem that might not even exist on my current situation (Mantle enabled GPU and a 144Hz monitor).

Awesome giveaway as always, this is getting a bit silly hahaha. I run both a SSD and a HDD. The SSD is a Plextor M3 Pro 128GB: Windows install + a couple of Origin/Steam games, runs like a freaking champ. HDD is a WD Caviar Blue 500GB: Backup and secondary apps, etc. I really like the SSD/HDD setup, but one more drive would be perfect since the Caviar Blue is at least 5 years old now IIRC.

This is my entry you guys. Awesome giveaway(s) as always.

Windows 8 is a better OS, the UI might be something that some people can't look past, but as an OS, it's better than 7 in MANY cases.

Another epic giveaway thanks!!

This is good and everything but at the same time one have to wonder whether this will indeed translate to games releasing on Linux any time soon. Devs have already come out saying that it's much easier to develop on DirectX than OpenGL, that wasn't the case in the past. Just don't get your hopes up.

This is my entry.

Looking forward to it (:

To the OP: It's not an issue that you might be testing games that doesn't benefit from Windows 8/8.1, it's just that you're testing ONE GAME. There are several reviews out there showing that most games do in fact see increased performance when moving to Windows 8.