Game On: PC gaming on the move
By Aditya Deshbandhu The desktop has been the hallowed ground for PC gamers since times immemorial. Well, if you wish to be precise, the last three decades. With every iteration of new silicon design that companies have cast in their foundries, the performance gap with laptops has only widened as components have gotten bigger and […]
By Aditya Deshbandhu
The desktop has been the hallowed ground for PC gamers since times immemorial. Well, if you wish to be precise, the last three decades. With every iteration of new silicon design that companies have cast in their foundries, the performance gap with laptops has only widened as components have gotten bigger and run hotter than ever before. As purists seek to crank out every last pixel from their in stunning detail, it often seems a foregone conclusion that desktops will continue to prevail in this race.
A conclusion, I was quite content with for the longest time as I upgraded my CPU in dedicated two-year windows to stay ahead of the game. However, someone somewhere (maybe half the world, everywhere) seems to be on the move and it became essential to understand what laptops can offer gamers today.
First things first, despite the brilliant strides that Apple has made with its M series of silicon (M1 and M2), the library of games on MacOS is simply too sparse. I hope to someday play a game like Ghostwire Tokyo or the latest Call of Duty on day one on an M series Ultra but then – wishful thinking.
On the Windows front, Intel has been having a tough couple of years and AMD’s chips are the ones that run cooler while giving you larger times on battery packs. The success of ROG’s Zephyrus 14 laptops is well documented and most of them have been powered by AMD’s Ryzen series of chips.
The popularity of Ryzen has been such that longtime Intel exclusive OEMs like Dell have begun to offer the AMD processor on their Alienware line. A development that has essentially created fragmentation in the gaming market for laptops as players can now purchase three unique combinations of CPU and GPU Intel Nvidia, AMD Nvidia and AMD, as manufacturers try and find ways to package the most powerful combinations to attract high-paying gamers.
This year it’s also possible to purchase a Ryzen 7 or 9 series processor with a RTX 3080 or 3090 combination, something that was exclusive to only Intel in last year’s lineup.
While the pairing of Ryzen chips with high-performance GPU cards opens up new possibilities for gamers who also use their laptops for work, I am more excited by what AMD is calling the “AMD Advantage” laptop. One where it provides both the processor and the graphics unit, a development where it can explore synergy and compatibility while eliminating bottlenecks ala Apple. It also promises a native smart switch where the machine can switch power from the CPU to the GPU and vice versa depending on the intensity of the task at hand.
However, the AMD advantage doesn’t just stop there, it goes a step further by mandating specific hardware requirements from laptop manufacturers who wish to be part of the programme.
Something Intel tried with its Ultrabook series a few years ago but AMD is a lot more granular as it does not just mandate silicon-related hardware but also what displays are to be used and so on. In other words, AMD is ensuring its customers feel the most of its “advantage” with the hardware they purchase.
While this might seem to most of you a pitch to purchase AMD gaming laptops, I cannot help but recall back to a time when gaming on Windows devices was ever about synergy. This is a step in a new direction and I like it because for once it will not be about whose fans whir the fastest and whose cards are the biggest.
