Computex 2021 | AMD Confirms Zen 4, Mobile GPUs, FSR Release Date, Partnership with Samsung

As expected, AMD’s presentation at 2021 Computex was packed to the brim with exciting announcements and, needless to say, they’re all worth our time and undivided attention! Simply put: AMD hit a home run! We’re talking new hardware, software, and even a couple of surprising partnerships that no one saw coming.

There’s quite a lot of ground to cover, so let’s not waste any more time than necessary!

AMD Zen 4 CPUs Announced at Computex 2021

The rumor mill has been in full effect lately but now we have official confirmation: Zen 4 Ryzen processors will be hitting the market in 2022! Moreover, they’ll feature numerous technological advancements and cutting-edge innovation that the folks over at AMD have been able to engineer.

How big of a performance uplift this will result in still remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain: the gains will be absolutely massive.

You can check out a quick rundown of AMD’s 3D Chiplet Technology down below:

The fact that a Zen 3-based CPU was used to demo it on stage means that we might be getting a more potent refresh in a couple of months’ time. As for Zen 4 processors, they’re bound to upend the market in all the right ways. The rumors were, indeed, correct. Zen 4 CPUs will be manufactured on the 5nm node with 6nm I/O dies, they’ll support Dual-Channel DDR5 RAM, 28 PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes, and will draw between 105-120W, with the upper bound range being a lofty 170W.

Talk about sheer horsepower! All of this will result in up to a 25% IPC gain over Zen 3-based processors, along with clock speeds of (around) 5 Ghz.

All of this should result in increased performance across the board — gaming, production workloads, better overclocking, higher clock speeds, higher core counts, improved performance-per-watt, and so on. It’ll also cost a pretty penny, but you probably knew as much.

Computex 2021 | AMD FSR Coming Sooner Than Expected

AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (or FSR for short) now has an official release date: June 22nd! While there were rumors of FSR being released in June, they seemed somewhat optimistic. Fortunately, the rumors were, in fact, correct — to the delight of literally everyone!

Will FSR be enough to compete with NVIDIA’s DLSS? The odds aren’t exactly on AMD’s side, but at least they’ve entered the arena and are willing to compete. Commendable, certainly. Moreover, we mustn’t forget that DLSS failed to create much of a stir back when it was first released. It took NVIDIA well over a year to get to where they’re at right now, so it’s only natural to give AMD ample time as well.

On the one hand, they’ll face an uphill battle seeing how NVIDIA had quite a solid head start (and they certainly maximized their advantage). On the other, FSR will be “universal” in nature which is undeniably its bigger allure. If it can provide even the slightest boost in performance, it’ll surely revel in much faster adoption rates than DLSS — heck, we’re putting it mildly here.

And, by the looks of it, AMD have delivered big time with some seriously impressive gains, although you should definitely take their claims and benchmarks with a grain of salt until we can see FSR in action ourselves.

How big of a performance uplift are we talking about?

We can notice a significant drop-off in visual fidelity as the frame rate increases, but this is still a mighty impressive result given FSR’s overall infancy. Moreover, this granular level of control is seriously appreciated as it will allow gamers to tweak and tune things to their liking.

The best part about FSR, however, is that it’ll be supported by over 100 CPUs and GPUs, including those from NVIDIA. Here’s an example with the NVIDIA GTX 1060 which just so happens to be the most popular (or most used, rather) graphics card in the world.

We’re talking about a +41% increase in performance here — impressive stuff! And yes, the drop-off in quality is quite obvious, but we’d argue that it’s well worth it given the sheer boost in FPS. Plus, AMD will surely enhance FSR over time which means it’ll only get better and better in the months and years ahead.

Over 10 game studios have already started implementing FSR into their titles, and we can expect that number to greatly increase as time goes on. Which titles will be supported, however, is still a mystery. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to find out!

Computex 2021 | Potent Mobile GPUs Coming from AMD

As if all of the above wasn’t enough, AMD also announced a slew of exciting new RX 6000M GPUs! These mobile graphics cards will power some seriously potent (and surprisingly affordable) notebooks and will, by all means, provide gamers with all the graphics horsepower they need to reach those oh-so-alluring frame rates and resolutions!

The flagship model is, naturally, the RX 6800M, with the 6700M and 6600M being a bit less powerful in comparison (but still more than sufficient). The most important thing that needs to be mentioned about this whole announcement is that these mobile GPUs will retail for far less than NVIDIA’s offerings while offering pretty much the exact same performance. If you’re someone who’s looking to game on-the-go, these AMD-powered laptops should definitely be on the top of your list of priorities!

There’s simply nothing better on the market from a price-to-performance standpoint although, to be fair, you won’t be getting the “magic” of DLSS. AMD’s FSR looks promising, but it’ll still pale in comparison to what NVIDIA has to offer. So just have that in mind — you can still make a case for “Team Green” having the superior product (especially if you need video decoding/encoding), but the price delta is no longer justifiable given what AMD has to offer at this point in time.

Computex 2021 | AMD + Samsung

Finally, to close things out, we have a rather interesting bit of news: Samsung’s upcoming Exynos SoCs will feature AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics, along with ray tracing and variable rate shading support. This isn’t what anyone expected, but we’re definitely intrigued beyond measure!

The sheer thought of AMD’s potent RDNA 2 graphics coming to mobile devices is enough to get our blood pumping. On paper, it’s a slice of the future. Whether that’s actually true or not still remains to be seen. Regardless, it’s an endlessly interesting combination. We’ll have to wait a while before seeing the result of this oh-so-peculiar partnership, though, as Samsung plans on unveiling their upcoming SoC in the first half of 2022 — so we’re still a ways off.

Either way, it’s hard not to commend AMD for their spectacular showing at this year’s Computex. To say that they exceeded expectations would truly be an understatement! And, needless to say, if you’re a fan of “Team Red” you definitely have a reason to celebrate!