Despite a flurry of new CPU and video card releases at the end of last year, 2021 already looks like a very busy year for PC gaming hardware. Not only do we have Intel’s new 11th Generation Rocket Lake processors due before the end of March, but 2021 will also be the year that Intel will finally enter the video card arena with its new desktop Xe GPUs. That’s not all, either, as we are also likely to see Nvidia’s RTX 30 series GPUs arriving at gaming laptops, as well as significantly faster game load times thanks to Microsoft’s DirectStorage technology. So to help you stay up to date on everything to come, I’ve put together this practical guide to all the exciting new hardware that we’re most excited about in 2021.
Most of this year’s new PC gaming hardware announcements are likely to come next week, when CES 2021 (also known as tech Christmas) starts on January 11th. It will be here that hardware manufacturers will reveal the precise line of new game monitors, laptops, SSDs and the like, and I will be covering all of these announcements in detail next week. For now, though, here are the general outlines of what’s to come in the land of hardware for 2021, and man, it looks very exciting. If you have been thinking about upgrading your PC recently, it is almost certain that this will be the year to do so.
Being able to buy the best hardware from last year
Among the releases of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs, its Radeon RX 6000 graphics card with lightning tracking capability and Nvidia’s next generation RTX 30 series GPUs, the end of last year should have been a great time to upgrade your PC … if only we had the truth, he was able to buy the damn things before they were all snapped up by bots.
Ryzen 5 5600X from AMD, for example, obliterated its Intel competition in my CPU gaming tests when it launched in early November, and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 GPUs showed huge performance gains over to the RTX 20 -series predecessors. The only problem was that they all sold out in seconds and prices have remained incredibly high ever since.
However, as with the 2017/2018 GPU drought, the stock shortages that plagued the second half of 2020 will (hopefully) calm down in 2021, although that is when we still don’t know. While the price increases in 2017/2018 were caused by an increase in cryptocurrency mining, many of today’s inventory problems stem from Covid-related delays early last year. AMD and Nvidia said they are working as hard as they can to meet demand, but it may take a few more months for things to settle down again. Once that happens, however, aspiring upgraders will spend a lot of time building their new PC.
Of course, I will keep my eyes open every week for new stock launches on our regularly updated video card offerings and CPU offerings posts, so be sure to look at them if you are looking for one.
Intel’s 11th generation Rocket Lake CPUs
Of course, if you are considering upgrading your CPU and motherboard this year, then it is probably best to wait until Intel launches its new 11th Generation Rocket Lake CPUs, which are expected to be launched sometime before the end of March 2021 .
While the existing crop of Intel’s 10th Generation Comet Lake CPUs offers huge performance increases over the 8th and 9th Generation Coffee Lake chips, Rocket Lake introduces some crucial new bits of technology that will make it a much better foundation for a high-end PC. ‘next generation’ than what came before. The main one is PCIe 4.0 support, which doubles the amount of bandwidth available on your PC to go through all this data. It’s been a staple on AMD’s fence side for a few years, but 2021 will finally bring Intel to speed on that too, allowing you to make the most of new PCIe 4.0 SSDs, like Samsung’s 980 Pro and WD’s black SN850 , as well as PCIe 4.0 compatible graphics cards.
PCIe 4.0 support will also be instrumental in unlocking the potential of Microsoft’s DirectStorage technology (more on that below), which should, among other things, dramatically reduce game load times to make them more aligned with super-fast consoles . . You will probably need a PCIe 4.0 SSD to take advantage of this, but at least it will no longer be limited to AMD systems only.
To help ensure everyone gets what PCIe 4.0 has to offer, Intel has confirmed that its Rocket Lake CPUs will be accompanied by a new 500 series motherboard chipset as well. It is possible that your existing Z490 motherboards may obtain a BIOS update to add support for PCIe 4.0 at a later date (assuming Intel also does not switch to another new socket type for Rocket Lake, of course), but unless that you purchased at Comet Lake last year and are desperate to upgrade again, I advise you to wait for a suitable 500 series card to ensure full compatibility.
I’m also looking forward to seeing how Rocket Lake’s gaming performance compares to AMD’s newly launched Ryzen 5000 CPUs. Although AMD’s new processors were miles ahead of 10th Generation Intel Comet Lake chips when I tested them at the end of last year, I will be very impressed if Intel manages to regain its crown with its Rocket Lake line, as this will not only mean improvements substantial speed from generation to generation, but an even more robust game base that will set you up for many years to come.
Intel Xe video 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 legacy video card arena. There is still a lot that we don’t know about Intel’s Xe GPUs, how many will produce and how much they will cost, but we do know that they will come with GDDR6 memory and accelerated ray tracing Support, support.
This should put them on a level playing field with Nvidia’s RTX 30 GPUs and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 boards, and I can’t wait to see how they compare. Fingers crossed, let’s hear more about what Intel has in store for its Xe GPUs at its CES 2021 press conference next week on Monday, January 11 at 1 pm PST (9 pm GMT).
Nvidia’s RTX 30 GPUs coming to gaming laptops
It is not yet 100% confirmed, but I will eat my RTX 3080 if the new Nvidia GPUs also do not reach the gaming laptops this year. It’s one of those inevitable hardware improvements that you know will happen at some point, and I’m excited to see what they’ll do for all those monitors with an ever-higher 300 Hz refresh rate that are popping up today, as well as moving beam tracking.
I mean, with the world still being what it is at the moment, it’s not like many of us are need high-powered laptops to play outside the home, but if 2020 taught me something, it is that being able to play in a room other than my home is an absolute blessing when you are working at home all the time. It’s nice to have this separation at times, and a gaming laptop is a great way to achieve this if you don’t want another PC clogging your living room.
Again, we’ll probably hear more about which of Nvidia’s RTX 30 series will receive laptop treatment during CES’s press conference next week on Tuesday, January 12 at 9:00 am PST (5:00 pm GMT), so stay tuned for more information.
Cheaper Nvidia RTX 30 and AMD RX 6000 desktop GPUs
Speaking of Nvidia’s CES 2021 press conference, we also hope to take a look at what they have prepared for their mainstream desktop RTX 30 family. The RTX 3060 Ti is an incredible graphics card for £ 369 / $ 399, but it is still very expensive with these things, and it would be great to see Nvidia’s RTX line extend further into the potential RTX 3050 territory. Sure, the name of the RTX 3060 Ti alone suggests that there will be at least one regular RTX 3060 at some point, but the dream is to have these RT cores running across Nvidia’s next generation line.
The same goes for the rest of AMD’s RX 6000 family. We’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 the budget for (presumably) RX 6700 and maybe even RX 6600 and RX 6500 cards can do for 1080p of the spectrum. Once again, it would be great if we had support for lightning tracking across the entire line here, but we will have to wait and see if this will really materialize.
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su is due to deliver a speech at CES 2021 on Tuesday, January 12, at 11am PST (4pm GMT) next week, so fingers crossed will have more interesting announcements.
Microsoft DirectStorage Technology
This is considerably less attractive than a bunch of new graphics cards, I admit, but the implications of Microsoft’s new storage API are likely to have a big impact on future games. This is exciting because it means that we should be able to begin to reap all the benefits of those super fast load times that console folks keep talking about, as well as, in general, better and more efficient performance across the board.
Based on the super fast architecture of Xbox Velocity on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and S consoles, DirectStorage is configured to optimize your PC’s entire IO (or input-output) system when it arrives, allowing your PC to load things onto your RAM and GPU banks much faster than before and, as a result, dramatically reduce load times.
Microsoft also hopes that DirectStorage will, in theory, give developers the opportunity to create worlds that are bigger and more detailed than ever, as the old bottlenecks that prevent them from realizing their huge open world views will no longer exist. I’ll believe it when I see it, of course, but, it’s good to dream about what can be, huh?
Unfortunately, you will probably need a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD to get the most out of it, as that is what is inside both new Xboxes, but I hope that the older PCIe 3.0 SSDs will still be able to use it too. We should find out more as soon as Microsoft releases its preview of DirectStorage for developers later this year.