Didn't think we would see a iGPU in mainstream AMD CPU any time soon and here we are with a RDNA 2 GPU built in and DDR5. Interested to see how the GPU performs in games.. Hopefully something on par or faster than a 1050. Excited to see what Phoenix is capable as well.. If GPD or someone else makes a new handheld based on that that would be awesome.

The game looks great! But I'll need time to get used to that UI, showing your selected units on the left side of the screen as simple icons isn't very intuitive.

As for the rumor about AMD's next CPUs, I saw that a few days ago when you posted another leaked roadmap or something like that, but I decided against posting it due to lack of credibility. Looks like I was wrong.

It will be interesting to see how they perform by themselves and compared to Intel's iGPU.

Yea I think overall, the exclusion of the iGPU on AMD CPUs was to cut costs until they proved themselves to be a true competitor to Intel in all fronts. Now that they are, having the iGPU makes sense as I am sure companies like Dell wants to make PCs with only the iGPUs and the CPU instead of dGPU. And while AMD does have APUs, those do have less cache and etc and not to mention they come out later. This will also help in situations like what we have today where you can get a CPU relatively easily but have to wait for the GPU. So people could choose Intel cpus for their iGPU while they wait for an actual dGPU.

This does mean that CPUs will only get more expensive. The question will be just how much more.

Just finished watching both previews and my thoughts so far are:

looks alrightish I guess. Buildings look quite nice, but units look rather cartoony and less detailed, as well as being rather large (human units I mean) when standing next to buildings.

not a big fan of the UI though, kinda reminds me of Halo Wars (Also can't shake the feeling like it's being designed with Xbox in mind, not PC entirely, which would make porting to Xbox pointless as most RTS games have in the past).

Also found it a bit odd how they showed off China vs Mongols instead of any other nation in the franchise, but I guess Chinese marketing?.

After what Relic did to DoW 3, I'm quite sceptical on how they handle this, but visually, it could do with some more paint (like I said, the buildings are fine, but the units and animations need more polish, esp since this remains the last AAA RTS left standing, it needs to stand tall, coming from a trillion dollar company like MS). 

Yea graphically it doesn't look all that care worthy. Looks like an RTS game from a decade ago but then again, there haven't exactly been many big RTS games. I am assuming they are trying to keep it simple for esports as they'd want low end computers to play it. But yea, graphics and UI could be better.

Hopefully when it comes out, it will be good as my current RTS, Starcraft 2, has been dying for a long time. And while I applaud Blizzard for keeping it alive for this long, especially with new map updates every season, we all know Activision is just awaiting to pull the plug.

Well, I was expecting it to happen to come with DDR5, as they really benefit a lot from the increased bandwidth. And with the chiplet design, including a GPU chiplet somewhere under the heatspreader was something I was expecting to see with Zen 4, and it looks like it is happening.

It's also a big deal for AMD and very bad news for Intel, as companies are more and more switching to integrated GPUs and ditching the entry-level GPUs as pixel-pushers they had used for the last ~20 years now. Integrating a GPU chip(let) on the chip will open the doors to deal with many companies and their suppliers. And if AMD is still leading in SPEC benchmarks, then Intel will see many integrators starting to offer and push AMD systems to their old clients.

Now with Ice-Lake SP also only going for 1p and 2p server sockets and foregoing the 4p/8p options, the only markets that AMD would then still need to tap into are the sub-15W chips and a own variant of intel's NUC computers, which also become increasingly popular in companies.

Maybe Van Gogh and Dragon Crest will be set to fight in the sub-15W segment; an almost halved mobile Zen2 die (so with 4c/8t and only 4 CU but still with dual-channel RAM) would certainly do well in that segment and could punch Intels new Tremont Atoms into oblivion.

So I'll probably get Mass Effect Legendary Edition at some point. What's it like to play EA games on Steam these days? Is it kinda like it is with Ubisoft titles and Uplay? More involved? Less? Are the games accessible via both clients?

Just wondering which client to buy it on.

I'm looking at PC gamer subreddit, and yeah, sems like a bit of a mixed bag, but a lot over there are also taking issue with the visuals of the units, colour palette, unit size, arrows, animations and framerate, all of the things I was also concerned about myself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/mo7vjz/age_of_empires_iv_gameplay_trailer/

You're right though, there haven't been that many big RTS games for quite a long time. I still remember when Petro tried to market Grey Goo as being big, then it flopped quite hard, they tried with 8-bit armies, again flopped, and then they tried a third time with Forged Battalion, and that just went out with a whimper. 

I would have thought that an insanely rich company like MS, that's supposed to be for real this time, dedicated to PC, was going to put in the whole effort into making a big RTS, to be the one company to bring the near dormant genre back to life. I mean, Blizz was the last big player that officially left it (that investor earnings call last year pretty much confirms they've dropped RTS at this point, and with bobby's new plans, RTS is dead to Blizz forever), and MS could be the one to revitalise it, but you gotta put your back into something like bringing a genre back to it's feet.

They probably do have some esports in mind, but personally speaking, they really shouldn't try and force it like Blizz did with SC2, because their esports scene did go on for some years, but it died almost instantly when it waned. I'd just focus on the campaign, map editor/scenario creator groups, but of course keep the PVP guys there for balance changes.

I'm surprised you're still with SC2. I loved all the expacs for it and Left 2 die game mode, but I recently got back into RA2/Yuris revenge and Red Alert 3 big time (mostly thanks to cool new mods for RA3, and the fact that some kind souls created an app to run RA2/YR, that you can also play online via C&Cnet, and it even supports the mods for it).  

Yea I think the irony is that I'd say something like Red Alert 3 that came out in 2008 might actually look better than AoE IV. The water reflections in that game looked so damn good for it's time.

I think the main problem is that they got Relic to do it. Relic is an okaysh developer but they haven't made anything care worthy in a long time but I suppose that is the problem since neither has most other developers in terms of RTS.

And yea, I am still playing SC2 but mainly 4v4 and Arcade maps like Desert Strike since those are still pretty fun. I am not playing it competitively anymore, that's for sure. Maybe with the success of Command and Conquer Remaster, EA or all people might bring it back properly. Or at least, give us a remaster of some of the more modern versions. C&C3 is still great to this day. Then again, it is EA...