In the end, according Mantle will allow AMD to help entry-level systems, to enable developers to better predict the behavior and performance of their engines as well as sharing optimizations between PC and next gen consoles, and more long term to allow the introduction of new rendering techniques.
To do this, however, AMD need effective tools and indicates that everything is on track. In addition, AMD has integrated a large part of its debugging features and validation directly in the API, which facilitates the creation of efficient and accurate tools on possible bottlenecks. Developers can also integrate directly access to various counters GPU in their own tools, a more comprehensive manner than at present.
AMD says its next development is progressing well and the timing for the December patch Mantle Battlefield 4 remains valid. Currently, Mantle is available in alpha release to a handful of developers, but next month a beta version should be available to all developers who request it. For public documentation, it will probably take the GDC in March 2014 while the availability of the final version of Mantle is scheduled for the second half of next year. In the meantime, the API support will of course included in all drivers.
AMD insists that Mantle was not intended to be limited to architecture. The base Mantle merely relatively generic functions that could be supported by other architectures while a extended Mantle level adds support for specific functions currently Radeon. Mantle and could potentially become a standard with extensions, but nothing says that interest Nvidia or AMD that management will not cause it difficult to accept conditions.
Note that the AMD forum being closed to anyone, the output of the presentation linked to Mantle, we have crossed several employees of NVIDIA, one of the main architects of the GeForce GPU. AMD's competitor appears visibly as curious as us about Mantle!