Fable Legends DX12 Benchmark Show AMD Gains

Ever since the first AOTS DX12 benchmark showed major gains for AMD, many have been waiting for another benchmark. Today, Microsoft released a DX12 benchmark for their new Fable Legends game. Once again, it looks like AMD has managed to secure some strong gains in DX12, with cards throughout the lineup showing good relative gains compared to their Nvidia counterparts.

Comparing stock reference cards, the R9 290X/390X shows significant improvement, being able to secure a strong lead over the GTX 980. The 290/390 also leads significantly over its GTX970 competitor and even manages to edge past the GTX 980. These figures hold true across multiple resolutions which shows that the differences are more architectural rather than CPU bound. One reason for this is likely the ASync Compute that Fable developers have noted is nearly free to implement on AMD’s GCN.

Higher up the product stack, the GTX 980 Ti manages to hold onto its crown against the Fury X, with the two cards trading blows. This really shows how strong GM200 has been for Nvidia and also how the current GCN architecture is bottlenecked. Lower down the 380 takes a commanding lead over the 960 tough not quite enough to match the GTX 970. For older cards like the 7970 and the 680, AMD also managed to post a strong lead, showing off how GCN really was forward looking.

One variation to look out for between benchmarks is that some sites are using non-reference  factory OC models that clock more and are not labelling them. Once you consider overclocking the numbers go flying and Maxwell’s ability to OC would likely narrow some of the gains showed by AMD. However, it’s still early days for DX12 so there may yet be more changes until the ecosystem stabilizes. The biggest takeaway is how 290/290X owners will be loving their cards more and more as DX12 games roll out. With many DX12 to be associated with AMD, who knows if this trend will continue?

Thank you ExtremeTech for providing us with this information