DirectX 12 promises both dramatically increased performance in games, thanks to reduced CPU overhead and better support for multithreading, and significantly reduced power consumption, a real boon for owners of gaming laptops. It will of course be built into Windows 10 and compatible with Windows 8 as well, but the news isn't so good for Windows 7 diehards.
Speaking at a PDXLAN presentation earlier this month, AMD's Chief Gaming Scientist Richard Huddy said Windows 7 remains Microsoft's most popular operating system: 52 percent of all Microsoft OS users are still on Windows 7, and that number is actually growing. "It's a very, very popular operating system," he said in comments starting around the 20:30 mark of the video.