The strategic partnership between Samsung and AMD raised eyebrows when it was formally confirmed again in June 2019. To date, the fruits of the partnership have been considerably underwhelming. Nevertheless, the pair should see a greater future collectively, as Samsung has determined to increase its AMD Radeon licensing cope with a new multi-year settlement (opens in new tab).
After a protracted wait, we began to see Samsung Exynos processors with AMD Radeon graphics that includes in gadgets. Particularly, Samsung leveraged RDNA 2 structure cores, the identical as featured within the Radeon 6000 sequence of graphics chips for PCs, and each the Microsoft Xbox Collection and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles.
Regardless of its PC and console pedigree, the RDNA 2 structure didn’t scale to decrease energy eventualities nicely sufficient, it appears. Thus, Samsung’s Exynos 2200 SoC with AMD RDNA2-based Xclipse graphics processor was >40% slower in 3DMark gaming benchmark assessments (Wild Life) in comparison with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Sister publication Tom’s Information checked out how these two processors in contrast in additional element by way of a Galaxy S22 Plus smartphone battle. The Adreno simply outclassed the Radeon on the very low energy ranges sipped by a cellular SoC. Later in 2022, we noticed Samsung reconfirm its dedication to the RDNA 2 structure, however not like at this time, no timescales have been set out.
Circling again to at this time’s assertion, coming immediately from Samsung, and the settlement with AMD is particularly “a multi-year settlement extension.” It’s hoped over time / generations, that Samsung will “convey console-level graphics high quality and optimized energy consumption to extra cellular gadgets, providing an extremely immersive and long-lasting gaming expertise.”
What extra ought to we count on in future technology Xclipse cellular GPUs? Along with the final boasts about efficiency, it’s hinted that the workforce that “introduced ray tracing functionality to cellular processors for the primary time” will drive additional innovation within the cellular graphics area. We predict that in all probability means shuffling over a few of the developments made on PCs to good gadgets, however do not forget that ray tracing and VSR are already supported by Xclipse. Usually new cellular SoCs boast of AI acceleration, so refined FSR-style upscaling within the cellular area looks as if a promising proposition, amongst a number of others. There already appears to have been some work performed on FSR for mobiles, and it helps that the expertise is open supply.