AMD's new API - Codenamed: Mantle. It Supposedly Makes Everything Obsolete.

Mantle and Graphics Core Next: Simplifying Cross-Platform Game Development
The award-winning Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture in the AMD Radeon R9 and R7 Series graphics cards continues to serve as a driving force behind the Unified Gaming Strategy, AMD's approach to providing a consistent gaming experience on the PC, in the living room or over the cloud -- all powered by AMD Radeon graphics found in AMD graphics cards and accelerated processing units (APUs). The four pillars of the Unified Gaming Strategy -- console, cloud, content and client -- come together with the introduction of Mantle.

With Mantle, games like DICE's "Battlefield 4" will be empowered with the ability to speak the native language of the Graphics Core Next architecture, presenting a deeper level of hardware optimization no other graphics card manufacturer can match. Mantle also assists game developers in bringing games to life on multiple platforms by leveraging the commonalities between GCN-powered PCs and consoles for a simple game development process.
With the introduction of Mantle, AMD solidifies its position as the leading provider of fast and efficient game development platforms. Mantle will be detailed further at the AMD Developer Summit, APU13, taking place Nov. 11-13 in San Jose, Calif.

Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/191453/amd-gpu14-event-detailed-announces-radeon-r9-290x.html

AMD claims Mantle enables nine times more draw calls per second than other APIs, which is a huge increase in performance.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/54134-amd-launches-mantle-api-to-optimize-pc-gpu-performance.html