AMD says customers eager for a new gaming laptop should be able to buy the first RDNA 2 GPU-powered notebooks some time before July, the company revealed today during its CES 2021 press conference. RDNA 2 is AMD’s new graphics chip architecture and the foundation of the custom chipsets in Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S / X, and now it’s coming to laptops.
The Radeon RX 6000 series of GPUs were the first to feature AMD’s new RDNA 2 architecture when they were unveiled in October of last year, but those were top-of-the-line desktop graphics cards designed to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s 3000 series line.
Today at CES, AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company is “on track to launch the first notebooks with RDNA 2 in the first half of the year with our partners,” adding that “you’ll also see new mainstream RDNA 2 desktop graphic card designs in the first half of the year as well.” To showcase the performance of its mobile GPUs, Su showed off Dirt 5 running at 1440p at 60 frames per second.
That said, AMD is also suffering from the same severe supply shortages Nvidia is right now, meaning it may be quite hard to get your hands on any of the new desktop designs if AMD does indeed hit that July deadline to deliver them. Although, perhaps laptops with those new mobile GPUs will be easier to get your hands by then if the desktop GPU shortage persists.
