Pixel shaders can operate in parallel even with blending as blending occurs outside the PS. ROVs change this a little but there's still opportunity for overlap.
CSI PC. You're hung up on studios like DICE. They work on PC titles so they recieve help from AMD. If the knowledge gained or code received can be adapted to consoles great. If a studio only works on consoles they won't receive formal assistance from AMD. AMD visits UbiSoft from time to time because they develop for the PC. A console team may attend meetings and learn something but devrel folks won't contribute code as they might with a PC title.
And again what about the games that are console ports that do not utilise the primary development team and can even be outsourced to another studio?
At what point would the R&D team in a large AAA studio be engaged with AMD if the development is initially for console release?
You missed out Square Enix or are you saying their primary development of their game-rendering engine and integral post processing effects is only PC and console ports do not exist
What about Watch Dogs 2 that has the console as primary development focus and already talk that it is heavily optimised for AMD?
I only used Square Enix and Dice because both have mentioned working with AMD in all aspects both PC and console,
But yeah I will drop it even though I have quotes from those studios, and that most of modern AAA multi-platform gaming are console ports.
Cheers
Edit:
To emphasise just as recent as Capsaicin and not using other information I have but still pretty clear.
AMD to both: "Can you explain in particular for PC gamers how the GPU hardware on PC could benefit from what you have today on consoles?"
Dice: "There are a lot of console features that not yet have been exposed to the PC, for example shader extensions, in GPUOpen we get access to the scalar processor and that will allow us to squeeze last bit of performance out of existing hardware".
Square Enix: "PC games are very important to <mentions all their studios>, and we team up with world renowned company called Nixxes to ensure we provide the best solution to our customers.
We are relying upon them that we have the best PC game out there and any bridge and any time those platforms are getting closer it is for the benefit of every gamer".
The two involved were Arne Schober and Jean-Nomand Bucci.
And yes Square Enix does work with AMD directly, no idea about Nixxes.
And this falls into consideration when a game has primary development and focus for consoles followed up by PCs.
Cheers