AMD announced its Mantle API last year as a method of improving performance in games by allowing them to use your CPU and GPU more efficiently. AMD's Catalyst software lets applications speak directly to the Graphics Core Next architecture in your GPU or APU to help remove load from your CPU.

Although AMD says Mantle will be an open API, the company has yet to make its specification public. For now, Mantle is limited to parts built on AMD's 28nm Graphics Core Next architecture including the Radeon R9 290X, R9 290, R9 280X, R9 270X and R7 260X. We assume older cards will be left behind.

The biggest news for Mantle since being announced has been support from DICE's Frostbite 3 engine (and by extension, Battlefield 4). Given that BF4's cutting-edge graphics raised the benchmark for 3D visuals, it would be of great benefit for AMD to give Radeon owners a free performance boost.