AMD and Bethesda announce “strategic partnership”
A long-term strategic relationship was announced today between AMD and Bethesda. AMD is currently in the process of launching new line of processors, Ryzen, which is supposed to rival Intel’s at much lower prices. New i7-level CPUs are set to release tomorrow, and we will keep our eye on their gaming capabilities. AMD is also producing Radeon GPUs, while APUs are currently powering PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and the future console that is Project Scorpio.
Bethesda, on the other hand, is currently busy with the new expansion for Elder Scroll Online, dubbed Morrowind, coming out in June. The recent years have seen the team in solid form, releasing Fallout 4 to critical acclaim and great sales, as well as the Skyrim Special Edition, bringing an improved version of the game to current-gen consoles.
Although the partnership has not been talked about in detail, Bethesda stated that it will “produce unprecedented performance” for fans, while official AMD Twitter says that they will be “working together to deliver amazing gaming experiences”.
Excited to be working w/ @AMDGaming on a long-term strategic partnership that will produce unprecedented performance for our fans. #GDC2017 pic.twitter.com/RBg2qLJs7Y
— Bethesda Softworks (@bethesda) February 28, 2017
Many Bethesda fans will probably expect this to mean that they will have less things to worry about when their games launch, as they have gained quite a notoriety for launch issues. This might mean better support for Vulkan, the open-source API that has been supported by AMD, in turn achieving better results with the same hardware, as it is meant to be a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API.
This announcement might have been set for a day before AMD launches Ryzen for maximum effect and exposure, but expect to hear more about it in the future. Strong AMD competition to Intel could also drive the prices down, so it might be time to consider that new PC you’ve been daydreaming about for a while now.
