steve burke | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 30 Mar 2023 11:24:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png steve burke | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 AMD Special Edition – Leo Says Episode 39 https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/dominic-moass/amd-special-edition-leo-says-episode-39/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/dominic-moass/amd-special-edition-leo-says-episode-39/#respond Mon, 17 Jun 2019 11:42:10 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=415774 The last few weeks in the computing world have been dominated by AMD - the company stole the show at Computex with its Ryzen 3000 processors and accompanying X570 motherboards, while at E3 we got our first looking at the upcoming RX 5700 graphics cards. You can bet our grumpy hero, Mr Leo Waldock, has a lot to say on these two topics, so here he is with an AMD Special Edition of 'Leo Says'.

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The last few weeks in the computing world have been dominated by AMD – the company stole the show at Computex with its Ryzen 3000 processors and accompanying X570 motherboards, while at E3 we got our first looking at the upcoming RX 5700 graphics cards. You can bet our grumpy hero, Mr Leo Waldock, has a lot to say on these two topics, so here he is with an AMD Special Edition of ‘Leo Says'.

0:10 Introduction
0:28 Computex – the recap of 2019
3:18 We met Hardware Unboxed, Gamers Nexus and Gordon from PC World (NOT the UK store!)
5:00 The launches of AMD Zen 2, Ryzen 3000 and Navi are set for launch on 7th July
5:29 AMD X570 chipset is designed by AMD rather than ASMedia and MORE info!
6:55 X470 still useful for a lot of people
8:11 AMD Board details, pricing etc
11:30 New controllers for PCI Express Gen 4 M.2 SSD’s
13:42 Gigabyte with Infineon 16-phase VRM controller
14:41 MSI MEG X570 Godlike – ‘8-phase controller with 18-phase VRMs’ ?!
15:40 ASRock news / Mini ITX
17:00 AMD is no longer the budget option!
18:35 Zen 2 desktop Matisse details – cores, prices, advantages?
25:54 AMD EPYC Rome – clock speeds seem very modest indeed
27:39 Intel Cascade Lake-AP with dual dies on a single socket looks like a white elephant
29:04 AMD Navi Details emerged
31:23 Nvidia Super is coming soon
34:08 Hot chips Conference in August
34:39 Threadripper 3000 and other processor discussion
39:18 Intel – not dead yet – positive thoughts!

Notes for Leo Says Ep.39:

AMD X570 and Zen 2 were the centrepieces of Computex 2019.

Thankfully for us Intel and Nvidia were silent all week as AMD kept us busy, busy, busy.
We met Hardware Unboxed, Gamers Nexus and Gordon from PC World (NOT the UK store!)

The launches of AMD Zen 2, Ryzen 3000 and Navi are set for launch on 7th July.

AMD X570 chipset is designed by AMD rather than ASMedia. It runs at 11-15W and uses active fan cooling in almost every instance. B series chipsets will follow in time, very likely Q1 2020, rather than 2019.

If you are more interested in a 6-core or 8-core CPU and don’t need PCIe Gen4 storage or graphics you would be well advised to look at the existing X470 and B450 motherboards.

With X570 the mainstream configuration will be 16+4 PCIe Gen4 as multiple Gen4 graphics slots are complicated, expensive and unnecessary.

Video from Gigabyte Components event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nym-4ti4ds8

Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme: https://www.aorus.com/X570-AORUS-XTREME-rev-10
Gigabyte showed an Infineon 16-phase VRM controller at Computex with 14 CPU phases and the ability to deliver 1000W to the CPU.

MSI MEG X570 Godlike continues to use IR35201 8-phase controller with 18-phase VRMs but supports multiple PCI Express slots.

ASRock came up with AMD boards with Thunderbolt 3 and also a Mini-ITX AMD board with Intel cooler mounts. Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3

AMD is no longer the budget option.

Zen 2 desktop Matisse details
With Ryzen 9 3950X
https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3950x

and 3900X
https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3900x
we see the core count climbing to 16- and 12- respectively. Prices are steep for desktop parts however we are in new territory and don’t have a reference point.

Moving down to the 8-core mainstream, what advantage has Ryzen 7 3800X gained from the move to 7nm? The price looks OK at USD$399 but what about clock speeds?
If the all-core clock speed is north of 4.2GHz we should see a useful improvement over Ryzen 7 2700X but right now it looks like a replacement that trades on IPC and memory speed.

EPYC Rome clock speeds appear to be very low.
Reports have surfaced of 32-core parts with 1.7GHz Base and 2.4GHz Boost speeds.
64-core Rome is even slower with a Base speed of 1.4GHz that Boosts to 2.2GHz.
If we make allowances for those being engineering parts and add on a chunk of extra ‘development’ clock speed we might get to 3.0GHz when many people were hoping to see 3.5GHz or 4.0GHz. We can be confident EPYC Rome will deliver a massive increase in core count over Intel Xeon along with a huge amount of cache and PCI Express but how well will these new wonder CPUs perform?

EPYC Rome looks like a significant move while Intel Cascade Lake-AP with dual dies on a single socket looks like a white elephant. There are two 32-core SKUs with 250W TDP and a 48-core model at 350W. SemiAccurate reports there is also a 56-core model that is rated at 400W.

AMD Next Horizon event at E3 followed after Computex.

Navi will launch as Radeon 5700 XT at USD$449 and 5700 at USD$379
The gold and black 5700 XT 50th Anniversary will sell for USD$499 direct from AMD

AMD Navi comes with RDNA architecture that updates GCN. All those millions of consoles means AMD cannot simply forget about legacy support.

Nvidia Super is coming soon
Existing RTX 2080, 2070 and 2060 are expected to get a price cut.
The Super versions are expected to be launched at the prices of the current RTX cards (say £300, £450 and £650) with more CUDA cores and faster memory.
RTX 2060/Super will still use TU106 and RTX 2090/Super will stick with TU104.
RTX 2070 is interesting as the regular GPU uses TU106 while the Super version will use TU104.
The big question is, what will be the new price for RTX 2070?
Navi looks unimpressive on paper and makes no attempt to compete on price so it’s function in life is to drive down Nvidia’s prices. In that respect, job done.

Hot Chips conference is in August.
We expect deeper details of Zen 2 plus Intel Cascade Lake and AMD Threadripper, among others.
When will Intel talk about Cascade Lake X for HEDT?

Threadripper 3000 has been quiet however we now hope to see a Q3 launch with up to 48 cores (8x 6-cores per CCX) and 4GHz, and possibly 64-cores.
Intel Xeon W-375X, will you ever see the retail light of day?

At present the biggest problem with Threadripper for workstations seems to be the Windows 10 scheduler. We don’t yet know the impact of the Windows 1903 update

Where on earth will those Threadripper parts sit in a world that includes a 16-core Ryzen 9, Intel HEDT parts and Threadripper that spans 12-, 16-, 24- and 32-cores.
Will the 16-core continue as a high end multiple PCI Express lane part?
If not, can AMD really support a platform with three or four SKUs?
A line-up of 2nd Gen 24-core and 32-core plus a 3rd Gen 48-core and maybe a 3rd Gen 64-core would be bizarre.
Each part would merit a specific motherboard and memory configuration and the spread of prices could be enormous.

Perhaps the sole purpose of Threadripper is to torment Intel.

It is tempting to give Intel a good kicking and to write them off as a dead company walking. Intel has a long list of problems but most laptops run on Intel and Apple uses their silicon too, including those brutally expensive Apple Mac Pros and iMac Pros.

KitGuru uses a variety of equipment to produce content:
As of May 2019:
Panasonic GH5 and GH5s Cameras
Panasonic GH4 Cameras
Panasonic G7 Cameras
DJI OSMO Pocket Cameras
Canon Cameras
Various PC builds

Final output – colour grading/titling etc:
iMac Pro 18 Core/Vega 64/128GB
iMac 2019 9900K Vega 48/64GB/1TB
Adobe Premiere Pro CC (PC)
Davinci Resolve Studio 14/15 (Mac)
iPad Pro 12.9 inch (2018) machines with LumaFusion
Final Cut Pro (Mac)

KitGuru says: Be sure to let us know your thoughts and if you agree (or disagree) with LEO. Love him, or hate him- he says it, cause he means it!

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Leo Says 34: Recap over 2018, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Financials & more ! https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/zardon/leo-says-34-recap-over-2018-intel-amd-nvidia-financials-and-more/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/zardon/leo-says-34-recap-over-2018-intel-amd-nvidia-financials-and-more/#respond Wed, 26 Dec 2018 14:47:31 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=399330 Leo has a lot to say today - in his recap over 2018

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Leo ends the year on a high – he has a lot to say in his last video before he heads to CES with the team to give you guys the best coverage. He discusses Intel, AMD, The Xeon W3175X, Mainstream media and their bad 2018, Cambridge Analytica, The Gatwick Airport Drone fiasco and if you should let technology companies change the way you think. He also gives a shout to Steve Burke at GamersNexus – who get his vote for tech channel of 2018.

00:15 Introduction
00:35 The 2018 Financials
03:50 The Intel Discussion
05:10 Amazon ARM Server Chips – Graviton
07:11 Intel going round and round in circles / Intel Architecture Day
09:28 Intel Xeon W-3175X will be priced around US$5,000
10:15 Mainstream Media – had a bad 2018
11:36 Gatwick airport shut by drones – How did this cause such chaos?
15:04 Cambridge Analytica – recap
17:31 Should tech companies tell you what to think?
18:39 The standard for success or failure will be the result of the 2020 US Presidential Election
19:54 Netgear Orbi kit – Orbi Voice and Alexa
21:02 Best Prospect for 2019 – AMD Processors!
22:12 Best Tech Site 2018- GamersNexus.
Steve Burke and Team
23:05 Biggest laughs of the year!

Leo Says 34

I spent some time at the end of 2018 looking at stock prices and reached the view the following tech companies:

Had a good year
Adobe (ADBE) started at $185, finished at $209, peak $275, Cap $102Bn
AMD started year at $12 and is now $17, peak was $33, Cap $17Bn
Amazon (AMZN) started at $1,229, ended at $1,377, peak $2,013, Cap $674Bn

Had an OK year
Alphabet (GOOGL) started at $1,110, finished at $991, peak $1,253, Cap $685Bn
Intel (INTC) started and finished at $45, peak was $57, Cap $205Bn
Facebook (FB) started $134, ended $125, slid all year, Cap $359Bn
Microsoft (MSFT) started $101, ended $98, peak $103, Cap $754Bn
Seagate (STX) started and ended $36, peak $37, Cap $10Bn
TSMC (TSM) started $42, ended $36, peak $46, Cap $185Bn
Western Digital (WDC) started $37, ended $36, peak $38, Cap $10Bn

Had a bad year
Apple (AAPL) started at $175, finished at $151, peak of $226, Cap $715Bn
Baidu (BIDU) started $245, finished $157, peak $273, Cap $55Bn
Nvidia (NVDA) started year at $215 and is now at $130, peak was $280, Cap $79Bn
Qualcomm (QCOM) started at $66, finished at $55, peak of $75, Cap $66Bn

Apple is no longer a Trillion Dollar company but is now worth around US$715 Billion, which is slightly less than Microsoft at US$754 Billion.

Nvidia stands out in that list as a company that is dominant in its field yet has suffered from the collapse of Crypto mining and a subsequent overstock of 10-series graphics. It seems the buying public is unimpressed by 20-series RTX graphics and in particular by the price of these graphics cards.

Most of us would judge that Intel had a terrible 2018, however they are still the dominant company for x86 CPUs and absolutely rule the laptop market.
Intel rules the server market with Xeon, however AMD EPYC is on the rise and Amazon has begun using its own Graviton ARM chip in servers.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/27/amazon_aws_graviton_specs/
This ARM chip, was supposed to have been delivered by AMD however in 2015 the project failed so Amazon bought Annapurna Labs and did the job itself.
Amazon is a scary company that knows where it is going and has the resources to get there.

By contrast Intel seems to be going round and round in circles.
They have previously failed to put chips in phones, appear to have major problems with 5G and their on-going 10nm drama is holding them back.

Intel Architecture Day
Sunny Cove
10nm Ice Lake in H2 2019?
11th Gen graphics
Intel Xe add-in graphics are due to arrive in 2020.
How swiftly can Intel advance their laptop chips to prevent Apple shifting to ARM?

Intel Xeon W-3175X will be priced around US$5,000 but surely will launch at CES, rather than in 2018 as promised.

Mainstream media had a bad 2018. Here in the UK the BBC is among the best of the broadcasters but pretty much everywhere you look you will see that TV, Radio and newspapers do a fairly lousy job as they adapt to a world where advertising is gulped by Facebook and Google.

In the run-up to Christmas Gatwick airport was impacted by an idiot or idiots using drones to threaten the air space. This caused all flights to be suspended for a whole day
Media coverage showed a series of people stuck at the airport who were missing their holiday, wedding, or some other event while missing the wider picture.

How did this cause such chaos?
DJI released the original Phantom in January 2013 so the idea the authorities could not predict that people would fly drones in the wrong places and prepare counter measures is just depressing. It gives you very little hope that our Government has any ability to tackle technical and privacy issues posed by Amazon Echo/Alexa, Apple HomePod/Siri and Google Home/Assistant.

It is now just over a year since we first heard about Cambridge Analytica apparently swinging the US Election. It is clear a large part of US society was appalled by the result of the 2016 election and wanted an explanation about what had happened. There were many likely answers but the one they chose to go for was that the idiot public had been brainwashed. This has a number of advantages as it allows Facebook, Google and the rest to stand by their claim they are the dominant forces when it comes to forming opinions and therefore deserve their massive income from advertising.

The tech companies in Silicon Valley consider it is their place to guide how we think. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. recently said
The future should belong to those who use technology to build a better, more inclusive and more hopeful world
I believe the most sacred thing each of us is given is our judgement, our morality. Choosing to set that responsibility aside at a moment of trial is a sin.

These may be wise words, but what does that have to do with selling phones, tablets and music downloads?

Presumably their standard for success or failure will be the result of the 2020 US Presidential Election. If they get the result they want they will have proved they can change the direction of America but if they lose they will presumably accept their loss gracefully and give up.

Of course not! they will double down and try even harder to push their views about what is and is not acceptable. I have no intention of asking Alexa or Siri how I should vote but the fact that thought is even possible makes me very uncomfortable.

When I bought my Netgear Orbi kit this year I chose to avoid the option that comes with Orbi Voice and Alexa. This year its an option but when will it become compulsory?

Best prospect for 2019:
AMD with Rome EPYC and Zen 2/Ryzen 3000. Navi graphics may also turn out well.

Best Tech site of the year
Gamers Nexus. Stephen Burke and team.

Biggest laughs of the year
Intel commissioning Principled Technologies to produce a white paper to boost Core i9-9900K.
The Verge's awful PC Build
along with Bit Wit Lyle' s response to both

KitGuru uses a variety of equipment to produce content:
As of 27th November 2018:
Panasonic GH5 Cameras
Panasonic GH4 Cameras
Panasonic G7 Cameras
Canon Cameras
Various PC builds

Final output – colour grading/titling etc:
iMac Pro 18 Core/Vega 64/128GB
Adobe Premiere Pro CC (PC)
Davinci Resolve Studio 14/15 (Mac)
Ipad Pro 12.9 inch (2018) machines with LumaFusion
Final Cut Pro (Mac)

KitGuru says: Be sure to let us know your thoughts and if you agree (or disagree) with LEO. Love him, or hate him- he says it, cause he means it!

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