© PAUL BLACHFORD

IT FEELS LIKE an old and tired mantra at this point, but it’s fair to say that 2020 was an awful and very challenging year. It’s shown us just how dependent we are on that humble transistor. Life has changed, for better or worse, and the world we once knew likely won’t exist in the same way it did when this pandemic ends. If the science comes true, and as population sizes swell, diseases like this will likely become far more commonplace. And with it there’ll no doubt be an even greater shift in how we work, how we enjoy our spare time, and how we connect with our loved ones.

We’re seeing this change happen already: More of us now than ever work from home, and the majority are keen to see that trend continue even after this period in history ends, at least on a flexible basis. In fact, although economies have faltered and gone into sharp recessions across the globe, perhaps unsurprisingly, the one area that hasn’t been negatively impacted by this colossal moment in time is the tech industry. If anything it’s boomed, as more of us have demanded faster processors, better connectivity, and new PCs, and because of that supply can’t keep up with demand.

The technologies that launched this year have been nothing if not impressive. We’ve seen new GPUs from AMD and Nvidia that have begun to really challenge the feasibility of 4K gaming; processor leaps that have disrupted long-time industry kings; more impressive monitor tech at far better prices; and an arsenal of new ergonomically designed peripherals—and even more have made their way into the design stages already.

At any other time in history, these launches would’ve been considered legendary. We’ve been absolutely spoiled with some incredible hardware over the last few months. Yet as the madness that is 2020 has now come to a close, this is truly only the beginning. As always, new trends, demands, and repercussions in innovation and design take time to make it to market, and the effects of COVID-19 on the industry and on the PC enthusiast community as a whole will only begin to be really felt later this year.

So what is coming? What can we expect? And what tech are we likely to see pop into existence? Well we’ve got the whole gang back together to give you the very best lowdown on the future tech of 2021.

THE CPUS OF TOMORROW

INTEL VS AMD, THE BATTLE CONTINUES

▪ 2020 ended with a bang on the CPU front, with AMD’s Zen 3 architecture claiming the overall CPU crown. Looking forward to 2021, Intel hopes to reclaim some of its lost glory, but AMD isn’t resting on its laurels either.

After a busy 2020, AMD doesn’t have plans for a completely new architecture this year. Zen 4 is in the works, but it’s slated for 2022—it will be made using TSMC’s N5 5nm lithography, likely with DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 support, and a new socket. Considering that Zen 3 just launched for desktops at the end of 2020, most of AMD’s 2021 plans will involve rolling out Zen 3 across the rest of the portfolio. That means everything from mobile chips to servers, with additional Ryzen desktop SKUs as needed.

On the server front, AMD’s Milan chips are expected to fill the same niche as the existing Zen 2 Rome chips, and will drop into existing motherboards. They’ll top out at 64-core/128-thread versions, but instead of Zen 2 compute chiplets, they’ll be upgraded to Zen 3 chiplets that have a unified 32MB L3 cache and a single core complex, plus all the other architectural enhancements. Naturally, we’ll see the same designs show up in Threadripper 5000 variants for HEDT builds. A 32-core/64-thread Threadripper 5970X seems a given, and a 64-core 5990X may or may not see the light of day.

At the other end of the spectrum, laptops are due to get not just one but two potential upgrades this year. Cezanne is slated to use an eight-core Zen 3 CPU paired with a Vega 7 GPU, all in a monolithic die. Frankly, we’re a bit tired of seeing the Vega GPUs as the only current option in AMD integrated graphics. Which is why AMD also has Van Gogh in the works—except that will apparently pair Zen 2 CPU cores with a Navi 2x GPU, according to the latest roadmap leaks. It seems likely that Van Gogh will go after the 7.5-18W range, meaning it’s targeting Intel’s Tiger Lake, and will probably have a four-core/eight-thread CPU. As for the Navi 2x graphics, it’s difficult to imagine AMD cramming ray tracing into integrated graphics, so it may be more of a Navi 1x design in a lot of respects.

Flipping over to Intel, the company is looking to strike back at AMD’s Ryzen 5000 chips with Rocket Lake, which will have backported Cypress Cove CPU cores—basically, those are Ice Lake’s Sunny Cove cores, but on 14nm+++ instead of 10nm. It’s a bit of a mess, but Intel claims it will deliver more than a 10 percent IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) increase relative to the current Comet Lake, and could still clock as high as 5GHz. Rocket Lake will also support PCIe Gen4 and feature Intel Xe integrated graphics. The big problem is that it will top out at eight CPU cores, which is a step back from the current 10-core i9-10900K. In short, it won’t be able to touch AMD’s 5900X/5950X multi-threaded performance.