• AMD just made choosing a CPU much easier.  Or much harder, depending on your perspective.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 9000 series CPUs were - at their launch two months ago - overpriced for their performance relative to the existing 7000 series.  They are actually great on some server-oriented tasks, but the improvement since the last generation for desktop tasks and gaming is relatively small.
  
  AMD has adjusted the pricing to match.  the 9900X is 6% faster than the 7900X on PassMark, for example, and now costs 8% more.
  
  For me, good enough.  That will be my next CPU.
  
  If you're more interested in games or have a specific workload that loves large caches, the 9800X3D is due out this week and should also deliver great performance.
  
  
  

Tech News

• SpaceX's HLS - its lunar lander - is forty feet tall with space for twenty astronauts.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The interior is modular and can be re-arranged as the mission demands, but it is vastly, um, vaster than the Apollo lander, something like ten times the size.  It would not be exactly roomy with twenty astronauts packed in, but it has a bathroom which is an automatic win over Apollo.
  
  
  
• Apple's M4 Max performs quite well if your primary workload is GeekBench.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It will almost certainly perform well in real workloads as well, though not quite as well as it does on GeekBench.
  
  Also, the cheapest Mac model with the M4 Max CPU costs as much as a maxed-out PC with a 9950X and an RTX 4090.
  
  
  
• Speaking of maxed-out PCs the Asus ProArt Display 5K is a 5K display aimed at art professionals.  From Asus.  (TweakTown)
  
  For $799.
  
  That's the exciting part.  That's a lot for a monitor these days, but it's not a lot for a professional-class 5K display.  It's close to twice the price of the 4K model, but also has close to twice the number of pixels.
  
  It's taken a very long time for 5K displays to become affordable.  I have the 2015 Retina iMac (which I don't use much anymore) which has an integrated 5K display, but equivalent displays for PCs have been scarce and horribly expensive.
  
  
  
• Twitter isn't a bank yet!  Emmanuel Goldmusk lied again!  (The Verge)
  
  The meltdown continues apace.
  
  
  
• Why did cloud security startup Wiz turn down a $23 billion offer from Google.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Because they already have a billion dollars of investors' money to burn.  If they can wait out another couple of industry implosions like the CrowdStrike fiasco, they could triple the price.