Three of the leading CPU / GPU chip design companies will hold a conference on the same day next January.
The release of new graphics cards - GeForce RTX 3000 and Radeon RX 6000 - in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic has largely contributed to the dire situation in this segment of the semiconductor industry. Shortages affect all sectors, but the world of graphics cards is by far the most handicapped: product availability is extremely low, prices are skyrocketing and the second-hand market is rife with scams and profiteers of all kinds. A situation that began around the summer of 2020 and has continued since without any real improvement.
For many players, the situation is not expected to begin to ease and availability to improve until the second half of 2022. Indeed, CES 2022 in Las Vegas - January 5-8 - could be seen as a kind of pulse check before this hypothetical return to a more "normal" situation. Three of the industry's leading companies are obviously planning to make a big splash at what remains one of the most important events for consumer electronics.
One after the other, the Americans AMD, Intel and NVIDIA have announced a press conference before the event, on January 4, 2022. AMD will open the ball with a keynote streaming of its president, Lisa Su, from 7 am Los Angeles time. In France, you'll have to connect at 3pm to get the scoop on information that should particularly affect the world of laptops with, in particular, the presentation of the Ryzen 6000H series engraved in 6nm: they should combine the Zen3+ and RNDA2 micro architectures.
Intel's agenda is particularly rich with the probable presentation of the Alder Lake-P range, again for laptops. But that's not all, as Intel will be presenting a new CPU range for desktops, but also, and above all, will be unveiling its ARC Alchemist graphics card range. After presenting the architecture in detail, Intel should put forward the cards with, perhaps, the first information on performance, prices and availability dates. To find out more, we will have to connect on January 4, but at 10 am local time, so 6 pm in France.
Finally, if NVIDIA is the last to have announced its conference, it will come between AMD and Intel. Probably presented by Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and president of NVIDIA, the keynote is scheduled for January 4 still, but at 8 am local time. There have been many rumors about possible announcements for NVIDIA and many denials. In the end, it seems that the main thing is to present a refresh "from the top" of the GeForce RTX 3000 range: the new RTX 3090 Ti should put everyone in agreement with its top performance. It remains to be seen whether NVIDIA will have any other, more affordable cartridges to present.
