Even AMD uses Intel CPUs to play Doom

As I wrote yesterday, id Software rolled a patch to add Vulkan API support to Doom. AMD released a new Radeon Software driver and uploaded a page where it talks about how Vulkan can give you up to 27 percent more performance on a Radeon RX 480 versus the OpenGL version of the game. Support for new features like Asynchronous Shaders, Shader Intrinsic Functions and Frame Flip Optimizations all contribute to higher performance.



If we ignore all the marketing fluff, perhaps one of the most interesting things on the page is how AMD obtained these scores. Yes, they're using a $1,000 chip from Intel:

1. Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of July 6th, 2016 on the AMD Radeon™ RX 480, on a test system comprising Intel i7 5960X CPU, 16GB DDR4-2666 Mhz system memory, Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver 16.7.1 and Windows 10 x64 using the game DOOM on the ultra preset. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. At 1920×1080, Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.1 running DOOM OpenGL scored 106.40 and Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.1 running DOOM Vulkan scored 135.65 on AMD Radeon™ RX 480, which is 27.5% faster performance. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. Test results are not average and may vary. RS-43

2. Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of July 6th, 2016 on the AMD Radeon™ RX 480, on a test system comprising Intel i7 5960X CPU, 16GB DDR4-2666 Mhz system memory, Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver 16.7.1 and Windows 10 x64 using the game DOOM on the ultra preset. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. At 2560×1440, Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.1 running DOOM OpenGL scored 68.51 and Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.1 running DOOM Vulkan scored 84.34 on AMD Radeon™ RX 480, which is 23.1% faster performance. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. Test results are not average and may vary. RS-44

H/T: HardOCP