Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
First AMD Ryzen 2 Desktop Processor Spotted – The Six Core Ryzen 5 2600 Along With ASUS’s Crosshair VII HERO X470 Motherboard
While AMD has confirmed that they will be introducing Ryzen 2 and boards based on the X470 chipset in April, this is the first time the processor has appeared in public..
The processor leaked out in SiSoftware Database [benchmark testing]..
While most of the specifications are the same as previous generation Ryzen 5 chips, the key thing here to note is the frequency. With the new 12nm LP process, AMD has managed to squeeze out an extra 200 MHz from the Ryzen 2 part compared to Ryzen 1. .. [tested chip] could still be an engineering sample .. [might have] higherr clock speeds .. in April.
AMD will keep support for Ryzen 2 processors on the previous X370 boards but for those who want the extended optimizations for Ryzen 2 along with the power savings and new features, X470 will be the obvious choice..
These leaks indicate one thing which is that AMD is well on their way to launching Ryzen 2 on time along with the X470 platform..
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Originally Posted by BlueHeron
X470? I thought we'd be able to use our existing X370's with new Ryzen chips...?
AMD says: You will be able to. Our current X370s and all the other current Ryzen MBs will work with Ryzen CPUs and upcoming Ryzen APUs -- for at least two or three years into the future.
One of AMD's selling points is that new CPUs do not need new Motherboards. With Ryzen they enhanced that to include their APUs on the same MB as their CPUs. So upgrades and moving components around among one's computers will be fairly easy and cheaper than it might have been.
The exception is Threadripper -- the Threadripper CPU is so large, it needs a special motherboard socket for Threadrippers. However, I assume that today's Threadripper MBs will work with Threadrippers coming out in 2020 or thereabouts.
I'm planning on getting a Ryzen 2800X to replace my Ryzen 1800X -- and just switch it out in my current system (for fun -- it won't be a lot faster -- maybe 10 percent). My wife gets my current Ryzen 1800X -- if all goes to plan.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
I like Nvidia's plan. Hope it actually works (as opposed to "appear" to work).
Quote
NVIDIA Asks Retailers To Stop Selling To Miners & Sell To Gamers Instead
The company wants its cards to go to gamers instead and it’s trying to do so by directly selling on its website and asking its retail partners to limit orders to two cards per person..
GPUs Are Money Printing Machines And Miners Are Taking Full Advantage
[Some miners] are so desperate to get as many cards as possible in as short amount of a time as possible to the point where they’re renting entire Boeing 747s to ship GPUs to their mining farms..
History has shown us what happens when the cyrpto market crashes, or mining no longer becomes as profitable. Miners end up dumping all of their hardware in the gray market for pennies on the dollar .
[Against that cheap competition the] GPU manufacturer is unable to sell their inventory and end up having to write it off, like AMD did back in 2014.
There's an idea. AMD opens a retail site that sells cards at list price -- to gamers only. I imagine such a direction has multiple associated problems -- probably not as simple as it sounds.
For example, I imagine many miners would find a way to create 100 separate orders -- that seemed separate -- that seemed from 100 different gamers-- but, were from one miner guy/gal. Hey, they want cards cheaper too -- its all about "bang per buck" with them.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Ryzen 7 1800X (8core/16thread) "on sale" at Newegg $340. They are still showing the "old" $500 list price -- maybe this is old stock that they paid more for. However, the new official list price is supposed to be only $350.
Installed my $100 (overpriced) RX550 2GB half height GPU in the HTPC yesterday. It works -- runs cool and quiet. No surprise there.
I installed Steam in the HTPC and will try a couple games to see what it can do -- but this is not a gaming setup. We use the HTPC in our ballroom to study advanced Dancesport technique.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Intel warns about installing its chip patch
..Intel has warned users not to upgrade..
According to Executive Vice President Navin Shenoy, on the Intel Newsroom site, the current advice is: “We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and unpredictable system behaviour."..
Hopefully, this is not bleeding over to AMD CPU performance. So far, in what I do, I haven't noticed anything.
To check for slowdown due to a Windows patch, I run a quick benchmark everyday. But it's only a quick one (CPU-Z) that checks local CPU speed. So far, no change. 466 single thread, 5005 16 thread, 10.74 ratio is normal on my machine.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD unveils more Ryzen with Radeon Vega APU details
AMD has released full specifications for its upcoming Ryzen desktop CPUs with Radeon Vega Graphics, or simply upcoming Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G APUs that will pack Radeon Vega 8 and Radeon Vega 11 GPUs..
The US $99.99 priced Ryzen 3 2200G will pack a quad-core CPU part without SMT (four-threads), clocked at 3.5GHz base and 3.7GHz Turbo clocks, and feature the Radeon Vega 8 IGP (8 CUs) with 512 Stream Processors and a 1100MHz GPU clock.
The US $169.99 priced Ryzen 5 2400G is a bit more interesting as while it is also a quad-core CPU it comes with enabled SMT for eight-threads, works at 3.6GHz base and 3.9GHz Turbo clocks and features Radeon Vega 11 GPU (11 CUs) with 704 Stream Processors and a GPU clock of 1250MHz.
AMD targets both Intel chips as well as systems that come with entry-level discrete graphics cards, suggesting that the Ryzen 5 2400G is both faster and cheaper at the same time.
Looking at the price and the specifications -- my RX550 with separate CPU for my HTPC is out classed. In the future, I'll be using AMD APUs for HTPC and other non-high-end-gaming PCs.
Moderate graphics stress games (or high stress games with medium settings) can be played on the Ryzen 5 2400G (on paper, it looks faster than my RX550 performance).
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Bitcoin crashes as South Korea confirms crackdown on anonymous crypto trading
..traders in South Korea will be required to identify themselves with their real names to make deposits into virtual coin wallets, and have those details matched with information at local banks..
"Specifically, for users to make virtual currency transactions more than 10 million won per day or more than 20 million won for 7 days when depositing and withdrawing funds, this is the type of financial transaction you suspect for money laundering.".
Bitcoin is currently trading at $10,500 (£7,525), according to CoinDesk..
It was $11250 at the moment I wrote this. So, this new news does not necessarily mean Bitcoin will truly crash. But, it was $17,000+ just over 2 weeks ago.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD Replaces Raja Koduri With Two Heavyweights To Lead Graphics At RTG
Koduri will be replaced not by one but by two heavyweights to lead the business side of the Radeon Technologies Group as well as the engineering side of the business..
Koduri had to essentially carry alone as Chief Architect of RTG, leading both the engineering and business side of the group. It had clearly taken a toll on Koduri and the business group as a whole,.
In a nutshell, they say Koduri was excellent but overwhelmed by doing two jobs. Now, to replace Koduri, they have two very experienced talents to do those two jobs.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Intel Assures Silicon-Based Changes For Next-Gen CPUs Arriving in Late 2018 – Will Address Spectre and Meltdown Threats
"Security is a top priority for Intel, foundational to our products and it’s critical to the success of our data-centric strategy. Our near term focus is on delivering high quality mitigations to protect our customers infrastructure from these exploits. We’re working to incorporate silicon-based changed to future products that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year."
Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel
Intel is being up front. At first, they downplayed the issue. The solution comes at the end of 2018 for some new products -- older CPUs (up to 10+ years older) can't be fixed (only worked around).
Depending on how the industry handles this (example, a Windows 10 change that does not discriminate among CPUs), current AMD CPUs and APUs may be strongly affected or little affected.
However, the Intel problems seem minimal during game play that does not access the internet, LAN, or hard drive frequently (i.e., you'll never "see" a problem). So, high boost frequency Intel CPUs are probably still the best choice for older single or dual core games played single-player -- if highest possible measured FPS is the goal.
For higher core count games, AMD Ryzen gives more cores per dollar (usually) that are competitive with Intel at similar clocks (i.e. Intel lead in final FPS normally not visible -- per core per clock).
But, the issue has not settled down, yet. So, we'll see what the "future" holds for AMD regarding this issue.
The likelihood of this being exploited is so low... First someone would have to compromise your system, then know what system environment you're running, and lastly know what even to look for.
The browsers have already been patched, and they would be the weakest link in getting hacked.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Originally Posted by ArgonV
The likelihood of this being exploited is so low... First someone would have to compromise your system, then know what system environment you're running, and lastly know what even to look for.
The browsers have already been patched, and they would be the weakest link in getting hacked.
Agree. This is not really a problem for normal, everyday PC users. I think the only thing that will make it a problem for folks like us is the "fix" demanded by the "commercial" users. It may cut our performance unnecessarily.
Had the whole thing been "kept secret", probably nothing needed doing. But, the CPU users with "big money on the line" won't take the chance some bad folks would figure things out. Can't blame them.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Another Cryptocurrency Exchange Hit – Coincheck Confirms Theft Bigger Than Mt Gox
..they are putting their losses at 58 billion yen (approx. $533 million at the time of theft). .. Mt Gox (another Japanese exchange) hack of 2014 behind. Mt. Gox had seen $450 million worth of bitcoin gone missing. The full amount, however, may not be known..
Evidently, cryptocurrencies are easier to steal in quantity. As usual, I'm interested in how cryptocurrencies are doing because I want the price of GPUs for gamers to drop back to "list or lower".
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Threadripper And EPYC Are Not One And The Same, Mostly. Der8auer Confirms.
[AMD Comment} "Threadripper is not a Epyc processor. Different substrate, different dies. 2 dies work, other 2 have no path to operation. Basically rocks."
EPYC is AMD's high core count server CPU. AMD said Threadripper was not merely a "cut down" EPYC. Threadripper was special.
One AMD aficionado was not sure. So, he disassembled and x-rayed (literally) a Threadripper and an EPYC.
He confirmed, they are two different CPUs (mostly). They have some packaging similarities. But, the silicon looks significantly different.
I personally assume AMD could double the Threadripper to 32cores/64Threads "overnight" (in a manner of speaking). The room to do so is there in the package. So, the future looks good for much higher core counts.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Britain's first Bitcoin heist sees cryptocurrency trader held at gunpoint
DIGITAL CURRENCY just got physical as Britain has experienced its first Bitcoin robbery, with a trader being forced at gunpoint to transfer cryptocurrency.
The robbers reportedly kicked in the .. door .. tied up [his] 31-year-old girlfriend and held their baby outside .. to force the 30-year-old trader to handover his digital money.
Given [he] traded using a pseudonym and cryptocurrency can be difficult to track, it's yet unknown how the four burglars were able to find [his] home..
Interesting because its a relatively new phase of cryptocurrency crime. Also because guns were involved -- in Britain.
In addition, more articles about GPUs and cryptocurrency. But, they're all sounding alike -- GPUs will be very expensive for a very long time. Too bad for me, I wanted to buy one soon.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD revenues grow by a third
..major vendors – like Dell and HP for example – are voting “yes” for AMD by being in the supply chain, commonly called in vendorspeak “the channel”..
Intel has a gross margin of nearly 64 percent on its products, while underdog AMD might manage 40 percent. But it is also a question of costs. Chipzilla [Intel] has an enormous wage bill, while AMD – as always – has been a bit stingy, one might say careful, on every front.
That's quite a sea change in fortunes – or misfortunes, as Intel might describe it.
Intel seems to have made miss upon miss over the last 10 years or so - particularly on the mobile front - and has all the symptoms of a company retrenching from its formerly dominant position..
AMD's future is looking up.
Its notable that Intel's higher prices are somewhat due to lower Intel company efficiency -- not because they are that much better than AMD, the writer says.
The industry is starting to notice (e.g. Dell, HP) because lower component costs mean more sales and higher profits for their pockets.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
Samsung is making ASIC chips for crypto mining to solidify its lead over Intel
Samsung is the new top dog in the chip-making game, having bumped Intel into second place, and confirmed it will make cryptocurrency mining chips to solidify its lead..
"Samsung's foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips. However we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customers," a Samsung spokesperson told TechCrunch..
..using gaming GPUs for mining ends up with graphics card prices being bumped up out of the reach of PC gaming enthusiasts...
From a PC gaming enthusiast perspective, I hope Samsung and the companies they sell to come up with a cheaper (than a GPU) custom cryptocurrency chip device soon -- for the obvious reason that the miners would switch to that (all about money to them) -- making GPUs affordable to us gamers again.
The words used were "currently engaged in the manufacturing". Hopefully, the means they are being built today and the non-GPU mining-devices will arrive "soon" (probably still months away).
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD Ramping GPU Production, Confirms Memory Is Behind Shortage
Throughout the past several months graphics cards have been so incredibly hard to find, and when they were in fact available on rare occasion they were overpriced to the moon and back..
CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that the company is in fact ramping GPU production to meet the increasingly high demand..
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su – 30-1-2018 – AMD Q4 2017 Earnings Call: “The GPU channel is lower than we would like it to be. So, we are ramping up production. At this point we’re not limited by Silicon per se, so our foundry partners are supplying us. There are shortages in memory and I think that is true across the board whether you’re talking about GDDR5 or talking about High Bandwidth Memory [HBM]. We continue to work through that with our memory partners and that will be certainly one of the key factors going into 2018.”
The companies see that cryptocurrency mining is probably here to stay for much longer than they anticipated. So, they are increasing production of cryptocurrency mining cards. Not all are GPUs -- example, the Samsung note above.
Dr. Su says memory is the issue. No doubt memory production does lag demand significantly these days -- even I notice that when I've bought memory recently. But, might that observation also be a way to deflect a little criticism from gamers (rhetorically).
In any case, as many articles have pointed out, silicon chips must be ordered many months in advance. Moreover, many modern memory types are affected by the shortage, articles say. So, the needed memory may be hard to get until the second half of this year (or longer). Just depends on when they ordered it (if they ordered it).
The GPU shortage and high prices will continue for now.
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD Q4 2017 Earnings Analysis: Profitable Fiscal Year Ends With Cautious Optimism As Fundamentals Start To Take Flight
Verdict: We believe that the bullish indicators currently outweigh the bearish indicators for AMD and expect that the stock will show significant growth in 2018. Key indicators of strength and weakness that investors need to look out for are: signs of cryptocurrency market collapsing, launch of Ryzen refresh, EPYC design wins as well as Ryzen Mobility OEM numbers.
A long and mostly positive article regarding AMDs Q4 earnings report. The stock seems up over 700 percent in the last 3 years or so. Wish I had some
Allen
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,856
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD Raven Ridge APU Graphics Performance Tested – Ryzen 5 2400G With Vega 11 iGPU On Par With RX 550 and GT 1030 GPUs
AMD Raven Ridge “Ryzen With Vega iGPU” Graphics Performance Results Revealed – A Fast and Budget Oriented Replacement That Tackles Entry Level Discrete ‘eSports’ GPUs
As one can see in the first chart, the AMD Ryzen APU can be substantially cheaper than an Intel/Nvidia system of the same performance (in Timespy benchmark) -- and use less power. More detail in the Article -- with independent tests.
For accuracy, Newegg shows the i5-8400 at $190 today, and the GT 1030 lowest price as $80 -- $270 total. Ryzen 5 2400G to list at $170 -- not out yet.