Samsung and AMD are partnering to make a ray tracing Exynos mobile chip
The implications of this announcement could be big.
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What you need to know
All the hype over ray tracing in thebest PC and Xbox gamesis about to spread to mobile in a big way, thanks to AMD’s team-up with Samsung. AMD announced today at Computex 2021 that it will be developing a next-gen Exynos SoC (system-on-a-chip) that’ll give Samsung’s flagship mobile devices the power necessary for ray tracing and variable rate shading.
You can see the full slate of Computex 2021 announcements atAMD’s site, though the Samsung partnership note is brief and simply says, “AMD is partnering with Samsung on its next generation Exynos SoC, which will feature custom AMD RDNA 2 architecture-based graphics IP that brings raytracing and variable rate shading capabilities to flagship mobile devices.”
In case you need a refresher, here’s what ray tracing and variable rate shading bring to the table:
These two features are big with hardcore gaming audiences and especially with PC players who’ve grown accustomed to the visual and performance benefits over the years thanks to having hadgraphics cards that support ray tracingfor a long time. Even consoles have caught up recently, with ray tracing becoming something of a buzzword for techy consumers. And now, at long last, it looks like mobile devices will be able to join in on the fun.
The timeline for the partnership between AMD and Samsung has not been disclosed, so when we might see the new Exynos chip cropping up in devices is to be determined. Still, if the companies are making the news public, we can’t be too far off from more information.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
