2021 hasn't been the most exciting year for AMD. The company didn't have a ton of new products, and even the introduction of new products wasn't enough to alleviate the supply shortages and scalping issues that had already made 2020 such a bleak year at this. Marlet.
There were still some notable moves, though, so let's dig deeper and say what AMD has in store for us this year and get some context for what lies ahead.
AMD unveiled its latest products at CES 2021
We had a pretty good idea that AMD was going to showcase additional mobile processors and Navi cards at CES 2021, and that's exactly what the chipmaker did. AMD has lined up its Ryzen 5000 mobile processors that would face Intel's dominance in the mobile market. These highly efficient core processors also hit the laptop market quickly as they arrived in late January. AMD also gave a preview of what to expect with its Big Navi graphics cards.
More cards and APUs from Big Navi
During 2021, AMD added other Big Navi graphics cards to complete its product line. While the top of its range was already launched in 2020, AMD supplemented it with low-end cards like the Radeon RX 6700XT in March and the RX 6600 last October. Along the way, AMD also showcased the mobile series of its GPUs.
AMD also had a support option for newer PCs that did not require dedicated graphics cards in the form of their new Ryzen 5000 series APUs. These chips combine the processor and GPU on the same chip. Where other processors would require a dedicated video card to get any graphics output from a system, AMD APUs allow video output over a motherboard's video connection and can even handle light gaming.
The endless shortage of chips is not over
Although AMD has introduced more products, especially with the launch of lower-end models, it hasn't been much easier for PC enthusiasts to get their hands on the parts. The continuing shortage of chips and the rise of cryptocurrencies have kept demand high and supply low. You only need to take a look at online product listings or brick-and-mortar store shelves to see that the products are simply not available or are selling well above the recommended retail price, especially for GPUs, because processor availability began to equalize.
Nor is it a shortage that should end soon. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said that while she believes there is an end in sight, it will not come until the end of 2022. To achieve this, AMD plans to increase its manufacturing capacity, but it is not a process that can happen in a dime.
FidelityFX Super Resolution is finally here
When Team Red introduced the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT alongside the rest of the Big Navi family, we were impressed with the performance available for standard rasterization, but when it comes to ray tracing and 4K, Nvidia kept it one step ahead. Much of this was the availability of DLSS, Nvidia's AI-powered supersampling technique that offered better performance when rendering at a lower resolution while maintaining near-native quality. AMD had an answer to that with FidelityFX Super Resolution, but it took almost a year for it to happen.
In June, when FidelityFX Super Resolution finally came out, it wasn't available in that many games. However, it appears regularly in more titles, including the recent Far Cry 6 and the upcoming God of War PC port. We didn't find FSR to be superior to DLSS, so it doesn't help Team Red catch up with Nvidia as much as it could have, but it lacks a requirement for dedicated Tensor cores for machine learning on a single graphics card (required for running DLSS) could slowly help you stand out in terms of higher availability.
By the way, direct storage was one of the other important features that was expected to improve the performance of this generation of graphics cards (for Nvidia and AMD), but we have yet to see it significantly.
The expected XT variants never came
Although AMD released new graphics cards, APUs, and mobile processors, it didn't end up bringing the long-awaited XT processor variants. While some older processor generations have benefited from performance-enhancing updates, such as the Ryzen 3600X followed by the 3600XT, these newer models have not appeared. AMD may be focusing its efforts and manufacturing on Ryzen 6000 instead.
AMD Partners with Nvidia for Cloud Gaming
You may think of AMD and Nvidia as enemies, but there are still ways for their companies to work together, and this is demonstrated by their cloud gaming partnership. AMD is conspicuously absent from the cloud gaming market, and Nvidia is absent from the processor market, leaving the two companies in an area where they can partner.
And that's exactly what happened in October when the two companies announced that AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors would power Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service. Nvidia runs the service on GeForce SuperPods, and although they use Nvidia graphics, the processor's job is entirely AMD.
The story of AMD's return continues
It's no secret that AMD has long been the underdog, but it has come back since the introduction of its Ryzen processors and Zen architecture. This was important not only for its popularity, but also for its activity, in turn. This year, AMD experienced its sixth consecutive quarter of revenue share growth in the processor market. In the third quarter of 2021, it had 24,6% of the x86 processor market (a key segment), its largest share since 2006. It also had its largest share of the mobile computing market. According to the Steam Hardware Survey throughout the year, AMD has also made consistent progress over Intel.
AMD DDR5 system benchmark leaks
While it's not exactly something that's coming in 2021, some leaks have shown what AMD may have in store. The benchmark leaks show an AMD processor with DDR5 memory, which places an 8-core chip alongside two 8GB DDR5 4800MHz RAM devices. However, this should come as no surprise, as Intel has already introduced DDR5 support with its Alder Lake chips.
Conclusive thoughts
While 2021 may have been a slow year for AMD, it makes 2022 even more exciting. Since we haven't made great strides in the processor or graphics department, we're expecting more from AMD next year. If 2021 was aimed at supplementing its lineup with low- and mid-range products, 2022 should be a year for the next generation of flagship parts, such as the Ryzen 6000, RDNA 3, and the new Threadripper processors.