It's still very early days for DirectX 12 and Vulkan, the main graphics APIs fighting for superiority. It's not quite Blu-ray versus HD-DVD; even if one does pull ahead with developers, the other won't suddenly vanish. A lot of factors can decide the battle, with one of the more interesting being support for mixed hardware, multi-GPU setups. On this front, Microsoft scored points with DirectX 12, but Vulkan has done one better by supporting multi-GPU on all the important platforms, not just Windows 10.

The last few months saw the release of grunty video hardware from major GPU vendors NVIDIA and AMD. The only problem has been finding games to help stretch their legs. Well, Eidos Montreal has just added Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to the growing list of games with DirectX 12 support, though its implementation is currently an opt-in "preview".

Rise of the Tomb Raider has had a steady stream of updates since it hit Steam in February, with the fifth patch released just yesterday. However, along with the expected packet of fixes and tweaks, it introduced DirectX 12 support for the rather gorgeous title.

The onslaught of new 3D APIs, including Metal, Vulkan and Direct3D 12 is busting preconceptions along with performance barriers. This time around it's Microsoft's contender, showing that you'll not only be able to run mixed GPUs in a quasi-SLI / Crossfire configuration, but they can run faster than single vendor setups.

You guys remember Mantle, right? It was AMD's effort to inject life into what was once a languishing area of improvement: 3D graphics APIs, the software that powers modern, real-time 3D. However, it appears the company is shelving its creation a mere two years after its inception.

We can all agree Slightly Mad Studios' Project CARS is visually stunning. Graphics that impressive however don't come cheap and while the game runs well enough on consoles, it's hard to say no to free frames. In the case of the Xbox One, will the DirectX 12 update provide that boost?

DirectX 12 should be one of the more exciting updates to Microsoft's multimedia API since DirectX 9. Along with vastly reduced CPU overhead and a focus on giving developers more control, it might be possible to mix GPUs from different vendors in the same machine, if recent rumours are to be believed.

Yes, of course that's what Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of Xbox would say in a fluff video promoting the company's latest console and upcoming operating system. The thing is, Windows 10 has to be a better deal for gamers, given the mess that Vista was (despite the inclusion of DirectX 10) and the unpalatable, though improved, experience of Windows 8 / 8.1.

It goes without saying that Intel is unanimously on-board with Direct3D 12, the next revision of Microsoft's graphics API destined for release in the latter half of 2015. Until then, we won't see benchmarks from the enthusiast sites, so we'll have to be happy with numbers from Redmond itself or, in this case, chip maker Intel.