Mantle case

nVidia has released a beta driver version 337.5 claiming it can outperform Mantle in DirectX 11 games.

Maximum PC consequently has published an article testing nVidias claims. What Maximum PC found was that there were no significant performance improvements in games they tested except for those title's AMD has used to showcase Mantle even on tests using Multi-GPU scaling.

What could all this mean? It is difficult to say but questions on peoples minds probably are:

1. Has AMD tricked everybody by making special enhancements to their drivers to allow their graphics cards to work better with these games? 
2. Could 1. above be why nVidia decided to show that they can do the same for specific games?
3. Is this similar to many years ago when the then ATi and nVidia were accused of interfering with gpu benchmarking makers through payouts to make their gpu look better?
4. Can nVidia cards actually perform better but they have been holding it back?

It is very hard to say anything without subscribing to conspiracy theory, and Maximum PC has done a great job keeping their article free from any inference of that nature. It does beg those questions though doesn't it?

For Point 1, however, I believe that it is possible to make such enhancements because nVidia has just proved that, however Mantle is a new API so it does exist, and then you also have TrueAudio, you cant make a driver adjustment to produce that. So while yes it is possible to do such enhancement, I believe that AMD's results are more genuine. Particularly when according to Maximm PC nVidia has claimed improvements in all games; something Maximum PC reports they were unable to substantiate in their own testing.

This leaves just point 4, well nVidia? How did you manage to pull such a feat on only those games that AMD is using to showcase Mantle?
Is nVidia saying "Anything AMD can do, we can do better"? If so, why hasn't this happened in other DirectX 11 titles as tested by Maximum PC? Infact what is so special about only those games?

I have been an nVidia fan since their inception, therefore while it appears I am disfavouring nVidia, this is not the case at all and therefore my questions are unbiased. I am equally as puzzled as is portrayed by Maximum PC.

The mind boggles.