Next Samsung Exynos Flagship To Have AMD GPU

Back in mid-2019, Samsung and AMD announced a partnership that, to this day, has born no visible or tangible fruit. Given one of AMD's specializations, it was pretty much speculated that Samsung would eventually utilize AMD's expertise on the GPU front to give Samsung's Exynos chips a graphics boost, probably even in two year's time. Those two years are almost up and as if on cue, Samsung itself has actually confirmed that, perhaps by the end of the year or next year, your next premium Galaxy phone could have graphics muscles to rival some mobile PCs.

Samsung just announces the Exynos 2100 that will power this year's Samsung flagships so it might seem odd to already be gushing over what's to come next year. Samsung itself, however, was the one who is building up the hype, though perhaps only in passing. At its CES 2021 announcement, Samsung LSI president Inyup Kang clearly stated that they are working with AMD for a next-generation mobile GPU in their next flagship.

To be clear, Samsung's silicon business chief is referring to the next Exynos flagship chip, not the next Samsung flagship phone. This practically means that the timeline for the appearance of this Exynos with AMD GPU won't be until 2022 at the earliest, in time for the Galaxy S22.

Presuming all goes well, this next-gen Exynos could give both Samsung and AMD a huge lead in the mobile market, potentially dethroning Qualcomm in that space. AMD will undoubtedly also flaunt this achievement in Intel's face, considering the latter has pretty much failed to leave a mark in mobile devices.

That said, it will all still depend on how this future Exynos performs, both in benchmarks but more importantly in real-world scenarios. The Samsung Exynos has been the subject of some controversy and even drama over its performance gap with Qualcomm's Snapdragons. The Exynos 2100 seems to be poised to close that gap but it still remains to be seen whether real-world experiences in actual devices will confirm that.