Futuremark just released 3DMark v2.3.3663 with support for Vulkan in their API overhead test, we ran some quick tests to see what is happeing.

This means you can now compare the API performance of Vulkan, DirectX 12, and DirectX 11 with one easy-to-use test. Vulkan is a new graphics API that provides high-efficiency, low-level access to modern GPUs in a wide variety of devices from PCs to smartphones. APIs like Vulkan and DirectX 12 make better use of multi-core CPUs to streamline code execution and eliminate software bottlenecks, particularly for draw calls. Games typically make thousands of draw calls per frame, but each one creates performance-limiting overhead for the CPU. Vulkan and DirectX 12 reduce that overhead, which means more objects, textures and effects can be drawn to the screen. The 3DMark API Overhead feature test measures API performance by making a steadily increasing number of draw calls. The result of the test is the number of draw calls per second achieved by each API before the frame rate drops below 30 FPS. The Vulkan test replaces the Mantle test found in previous versions. Now I did chart up some results, see below:







The purpose of the test is to compare the relative performance of different APIs on a single system. 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. It more for you to see how much faster or slower DX12 is compared to Vulkan. You'll notice that the AMD Radeon card scores are way off. Again, this is not a graphics GPU test, but a test that shows your system API renderer performance in relation towards your setup. I have no clue about the AMD results as they are, I did run them three times and even re-installed drivers and re-seated the cards into another slot. I also have to mention that in the past we stepped away from the API test as the results back then also showed a lot of platform inconsistency.

Though overall Vulkan might be a notch slower compared to D3D12, it certainly is shaping up to become a very fast API. Talking about platforms, I figured why not quickly compare Ryzen 7 1700 versus Core i7 5960X (both 8-cores / 16-threads).

You will notice that Core i7 5960X is clocked at 4.3 GHz. The Ryzen 7 1700 is clocked at 4.1 GHz, it is the highest frequency we can obtain stable. Not bad really, the 1200 USD Intel processor is faster, especially combined with quad-channel and a 200 MHz x8 cores advantage. That 329 USD Ryzen 7 is holding up nicely.

Now I also ran the Ryzen Platform with the Fury X to be certain there isn't a bug on the X99 platform causing this behaviour:







So moving the Radeon Fury X towards a completely different system did not change the performance bracket at all. There might be a bug in the current AMD drivers, Futuremark still has some fixing to do or it just is what it is.





