14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung and AMD announced an agreement for the integration of “custom AMD Radeon graphics IP into future SoCs for mobile applications,” but both companies remained pretty tight-lipped on any specifics regarding what this surprising collaboration could bring us.
And while some people did suggest this represents one final step towards equipping a Samsung phone with AMD graphics, the confirmation was provided earlier this week during the South Korean company’s Q2 2019 earnings call.
As noted by NotebookCheck, Samsung expects the first phone running on AMD graphics power to see daylight by 2021, and this could be an indication the Galaxy S12 could be the model pioneering this push.
Samsung dropping hints of AMD-powered phone
Specifics are obviously missing, but Samsung itself suggested that its collaboration with AMD should produce the first notable results in approximately two years.
“As you know, AMD has been a leader, especially in the GPU area since the early days of the PC market and is one of the leaders in terms of technology. We think that with this partnership, we will be able to leverage the GPU competitiveness of AMD to enhance the performance of not only our mobile SOCs, but also in other applications,” the South Korean firm explained.
“But considering the usual time it takes to vet out IT technology, we expect that the GPU technology will start being adopted in products that will be launched two years down the road roughly.”
Right now, Samsung phones come with ARM Mali and Adreno graphics depending on the processor that’s being used – flagships are shipped with Exynos or Qualcomm chips depending on the market.
Whether AMD would replace both of them or not is something that remains to be seen, but for the time being, it might be a good idea not to rule out a gaming Samsung phone either. Razer has been pushing hard for this niche to succeed, and if Samsung joins the party with an AMD-powered device, the battle in this industry could get a lot more interesting.