The collaboration between Samsung and AMD for the graphics chip of the Galaxy S22 proceeds with encouraging signs: the challenge with the iPhone promises to be compelling
The decade-long challenge between Samsung and Apple in the field of mobile phones is renewed year after year, and is enriched with new elements. Last summer, Samsung and AMD announced their collaboration to increase the graphics performance of smartphones through the use of RDNA technology borrowed from gaming consoles.
Samsung is serious, as always. And with the use of RDNA2 on board of its Galaxy could get ahead of Apple and iPhone in terms of graphics. At this point in time, it's easy to speculate that the graphics accelerator developed by AMD specialists will be part of the next-generation top-of-the-line Exynos chip, known as the Exynos 2200, that will equip the Samsung Galaxy S22. At Computex 2021 in Taipei, AMD updated the industry on the state of evolution of RDNA2, which is already at the base of the AMD RX 6000 graphics chips of Play Station 5 and Xbox Series X, and on its uses in the medium term, making names of the caliber of Tesla and, precisely, Samsung among the companies ready to make use of it.
The fruit of the alliance between Samsung and AMD
RDNA2 will therefore be part of the high-profile technical equipment with which the Samsung Galaxy S22 intend to dominate the competition in the Android field and strike a blow to the arch-enemies of Cupertino.
According to recent rumors, the graphics chip that among others will be used on the Samsung Galaxy S22 will be made with a 4-nanometer LPE manufacturing process, which is a fundamental premise to try to beat the Adreno 730 graphics chip from Qualcomm that will equip the next top of the range SoC of the leader in stars and stripes intended to retire the current Snapdragon 888.
To tell the truth, the feeling of the insiders is that the union between Samsung and AMD, and therefore of Exynos and RDNA2, will prove explosive, and that already now are low the chances of Qualcomm to stand out over the competition even in the graphics field as happened in recent years.
The first tests instill optimism
Some clue on the result of the partnership between Samsung and AMD, however, has already arrived. And it's more than comforting for the two giants: Samsung's Exynos 2200 would in fact have run on GFXBench, and would have already exceeded the graphics performance of Apple's A14 Bionic chip, the one that equips the current iPhone 12.
Samsung, in short, for the moment can toast to the new alliance, waiting, however, to discover the goodness of the A15 Bionic chip of the next generation iPhone: to get the better of a chip with a year of technological evolution behind as A 14 Bionic is a different story than measuring equal development, but the current signals are comforting and the possibility that you can do a good job with Exynos 2200 of Samsung Galaxy S22 allows Samsung and AMD partner to look forward with confidence to the future.