Despite the launch of new processors and graphics cards at the end of last year, 2021 is already shaping up to be a pretty busy year for PC gaming hardware. Not only do we have new 11th generation Intel Rocket Lake processors before the end of March, but 2021 will also be the year that Intel finally enters the graphics card arena with their new Xe desktop GPUs. That’s not all, either, as we’re likely to see Nvidia’s RTX 30 series GPUs heading to gaming laptops, plus significantly longer game loading times thanks to Microsoft DirectStorage technology. So, to help you keep up with everything that follows, we’ve put together this handy guide for all the exciting new hardware we’re most excited about in 2021.
Most of this year’s new gaming hardware announcements are likely to come next week, when CES 2021 (aka: Technological Christmas) begins on January 11th. This is where hardware manufacturers will unveil the exact range of new game monitors, laptops, SSDs and the like, and I’ll cover all of these announcements in detail next week. For now, however, here are those general lines of what is happening in the hardware field for 2021, and the living man looks pretty interesting. If you’ve recently considered upgrading your computer, it will almost certainly be the year you do it.
In fact, I can buy the best hardware from last year
Between the launches of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 processors, their ray-capable Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards and Nvidia’s state-of-the-art RTX 30 series GPUs, the end of last year should have been a great time to upgrade your computer. If only I had managed to buy the damn thing before it was all broken by the robots.
AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X, for example, outperformed Intel in my CPU gaming tests when it first appeared in early November, and the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 GPUs from Nvidia showed huge performance gains over RTX 20 – the predecessors of the series. The only problem was that they all sold out in seconds, and the prices have been amazing since then.
However, as in the case of the great GPU drought of 2017/2018, the lack of stocks that affected the back half of 2020 (hopefully) will finally settle in 2021, although even when we still do not know. While price increases in 2017/2018 were driven by an increase in cryptocurrency mines, many of the current stock issues stem from delays related to Covid early last year. AMD and Nvidia have both said they are working hard to meet demand, but it could take a few more months for everything to settle down again. Once that happens, however, potential upgrades will have an old time and they have prepared their new PC.
Of course, I’ll be keeping an eye out every week for new stock arrivals in our regularly updated offerings of graphics cards and CPU deals, so make sure you take care of those if you want to get your hands on one.
11th generation Intel Rocket Lake processors
Of course, if you’re thinking of upgrading your CPU and motherboard this year, then it’s probably best to wait until Intel releases their new 11th-generation Rocket Lake CPUs anyway, which are currently expired some time before the end of March 2021
While Intel’s existing crop of 10th-generation Comet Lake processors offers some excellent performance gains over 8th- and 9th-generation Coffee Lake chips, Rocket Lake introduces some crucial bits of technology that will makes a much better basis for a “next generation” PC. than what came before. The main one is PCIe 4.0 support, which doubles the amount of bandwidth available on your computer to go through all this data. For several years it has been a staple on the AMD side of the fence, but 2021 will eventually bring Intel to speed as well, allowing you to take full advantage of new PCIe 4.0 SSDs, such as the Samsung 980 WD Pro and Black SN850, as well as PCIe 4.0 compatible graphics cards.
PCIe 4.0 support will also be key to unlocking the potential of Microsoft DirectStorage technology (more on the following), which is set to, among other things, dramatically reduce game loading times to further align them with their super counterparts. -rapizi. You’ll probably need a PCIe 4.0 SSD to take advantage of it, but at least it won’t be limited to AMD systems.
To make sure everyone gets everything PCIe 4.0 has to offer, Intel has confirmed that their Rocket Lake processors will be accompanied by a new chipset for the 500 Series motherboard. It is possible that their existing Z490 motherboards receive a BIOS update to add PCIe 4.0 support at a later date (assuming Intel doesn’t switch to another new type of socket for Rocket Lake, of course), but if you didn’t buy in Comet Lake last year and are desperate to upgrade again, I would advise you to wait for a suitable 500 series board to ensure full compatibility.
I’m also eager to see how Rocket Lake’s gaming performance compares to AMD’s recently released Ryzen 5000 processors. While the new AMD processors were a few miles ahead of the 10th generation Intel Comet Lake chips when we tested them late last year, I’ll be impressed if Intel manages to claim its Rocket Lake range crown, as it will. Being not only means substantial improvements in gen-on-gen speed, but an even more solid game base that will prepare you for years to come.
Intel Xe graphics cards
2021 is also the year that Intel’s long-awaited Xe GPUs will arrive, bringing much-needed competition to Nvidia and AMD in the old graphics card arena. There are still many things we don’t know about Intel Xe GPUs, such as how much they will produce and how much they will cost, but we know that they will come with GDDR6 memory and will have accelerated beam tracking to support.
This should put them on a fairly level playing field with Nvidia’s RTX 30 GPUs and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 cards, and I can’t wait to see how they stack up against each other. Fingers we will hear more about what Intel is reserving for Xe GPUs at the CES 2021 press conference next week, Monday, January 11, at 13:00 PST (21:00 GMT).
Nvidia’s RTX 30 GPUs come on gaming laptops
It’s not 100% confirmed yet, but I’ll eat my RTX 3080 if the new Nvidia GPUs don’t make it to gaming laptops this year. It’s one of those inevitable hardware upgrades that you know will happen at some point, and I’m excited to see what they’ll do for all the displays with a refresh rate of more than 300Hz, which will be beating these days, as well as for tracking rays.
That is, since the world is still what it is at the moment, it is not as many of us are need High power laptops to play games away from home, but if 2020 taught me anything, is that being able to play games in a different room in my house is an absolute reference to the god when you work from home all the time. Sometimes it’s nice to have this separation, and a gaming laptop is a great way to do it if you don’t want another computer clogging up your living room.
Again, we’ll probably hear more about which of Nvidia’s RTX 30 series will receive the laptop treatment during the CES press conference next week, Tuesday, January 12, at 9:00 PST (17:00 GMT), so stay tuned for more information then.
Cheaper Nvidia RTX 30 and AMD RX 6000 desktop GPUs
Speaking of Nvidia’s CES 2021 press conference, here’s hoping to see a look at what they’ve lined up for their RTX 30 main office family as well. RTX 3060 Ti is a graphics card for 369 GBP / 399 USD, but it’s still quite expensive as things go, and it would be great to see Nvidia’s RTX line expand even further into potential RTX 3050 territory. Of course, only the name RTX 3060 Ti suggests that there will be at least one RTX 3060 common at one time, but the dream is for these RT cores to run through the entire next generation line of Nvidia.
The same goes for the rest of the AMD RX 6000 family. I’ve already seen what the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT can do for the 1440p and 4K end of the market and I’m excited to see what their budget line is (probably) RX 6700 and maybe even RX 6600 and RX 6500 cards can be used for the end of the 1080p spectrum. Again, it would be great if we had support for tracking the rays everywhere, but we will have to wait and see if this is really done.
Lisa AMD CEO Lisa Su is due to give a keynote address at CES 2021 on Tuesday, January 12, at 11:00 PST (16:00 GMT) next week, so fingers crossed we will receive some juicier announcements then.
Microsoft DirectStorage technology
Admittedly, this is considerably less sexy than a bunch of new graphics cards, but the implications of Microsoft’s new storage API are likely to have a huge impact on future games. This is interesting because it means that we should be able to start reaping the full benefits of those very fast charging times that people on the console continue to beat, as well as better and more efficient performance overall.
Based on the super-fast Xbox Velocity architecture of the Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, DirectStorage is set to streamline the entire computer’s IO (or input-output) system when it finally arrives, allowing the computer to load things into RAM and GPU banks much faster than before and, consequently, dramatically reduce loading time.
Microsoft also hopes that DirectStorage will theoretically give developers the opportunity to create bigger and more detailed worlds than ever before, because the old blockages that prevented them from realizing their huge visions of the open world will no longer be there. I’ll believe that when I see her, of course, but choir, it’s nice to dream what it could be, right?
Unfortunately, you will probably need a NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD to take full advantage of it, as it is what is on both new Xboxes, but hopefully older PCIe 3.0 SSDs will still be able to to take advantage of him. We should know more once Microsoft releases their developer preview of DirectStorage later this year.