It would still only be a benefit for AMD. More Mantle=more useful AMD CPUs plus more Mantle games with Intel as backer.
So the issue may rather be that Mantle is more tired to GCN than told.
Yeah. You might be right. Don't know. I certainly don't know why they did it, and don't really like it. One of the most important things to me preferring AMD (slightly, have actually had more Nvidia GPUs over the years) is the open standard support, and I have to say that hearing the rumour Intel was interested and was rejected did bother me. Well, won't buy a new GPU until 390X/GM200 so it doesn't matter right now.
On topic, can't wait for a review. Have been planning a new monitor for a while now, and one of these techs would be great. Would prefer a fast response/low lag IPS even though new high end TN panels are not bad saw the Samsung/Asus 4K panel in both flavours and it is definitely not bad. The colours were not far from my Catleap (granted it's not a high end IPS).