AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics technology isn’t just coming to Windows laptops. The company is also preparing to bring the GPU architecture to Samsung’s smartphone chips.
“The next place you’ll find RDNA 2 is the high-performance mobile phone market,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said during this year’s virtual Computex show.
The partnership will involve packing RDNA 2 into Samsung’s ARM-based Exynos mobile chips, which the company primarily sells on Galaxy phones in Europe and parts of Asia. (In the US, the Galaxy phones use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips.)
“We’re happy to announce that we will bring custom graphics IP to Samsung’s next flagship mobile SoC (system-on-chip) with ray tracing and variable rate shading capabilities,” Su added.
In addition to PC gaming, RDNA 2 is also powering the graphics featured in Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X. So you can expect the GPU architecture to push the 3D-rendering capabilities and lighting effects on Samsung’s Exynos chips to another level.
AMD’s CEO mentioned that the partnership is only dealing with mobile phones. Nevertheless, the announcement does make us wonder if the upcoming ARM-based Exynos chips will ever be used to power a Windows laptop. According to rumors, Samsung is working on a product called the Galaxy Book Go, which will use an ARM-based chip, but current leaks suggest the processor will come from Qualcomm.
According to AMD, Samsung plans to provide more details on the partnership later this year. In the meantime, Apple has already been using ARM-based chips to create a new generation of MacBooks that ditch Intel processors. The products have gone on to receive rave reviews for their long battery life and impressive performance.
