• Computex is over for another year.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  We got some interesting video cards that aren't for you from Intel, a video card that are for you but you don't want from Nvidia, a video card that all things considered is about as good as you're likely to get right now from AMD, and some high-end CPUs that are the price of only of a cheap second-hand car and not a new car also from AMD.
  
  And a bunch of cases, coolers, and storage devices, and displays that go inside your computer case because RGB isn't cool enough anymore.
  
  Also shown off were $10 10Gb Ethernet cards - a device whose time truly has come considering how long it's been since 1Gb arrived, and prototypes of PCIe 6.0, whose time definitely has not come given that PCIe 5.0 graphics cards have only been on the market for six months and for four of those you couldn't buy them anyway.

• Also at Computex, major system assembler Pegatron showed off a 1 exaflop AMD computer thingy.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's a full-height rack, but an exaflop in a single rack is a lot of computing power.
  
  It's based on AMD's latest AI GPUs, and offers 36.8TB of VRAM.
  
  Almost enough to play Cities: Skylines II.
  
  
  
• The world of Japan's PC-98 systems wait that is definitely NSFW.
  
  Instead I suggest you watch the documentary series 16bit Sensation.
  
  
  
• Generecising an entire class of programming language features features with algebraic effects.  (AnteLang)
  
  I'm going to need to read this one again, more slowly.
  
  
  
• Programming site Glitch is shutting down.  (The Verge)
  
  I spend all my time programming - or doing programming-related work like beating my head against a wall - and I've never heard of Glitch.
  
  Which is probably why it's shutting down.
  
  
  
• Do you really need a graphics card?  (Hot Hardware)
  
  The Ryzen 5600G featured in this article is a few years old and has a similar speed to my laptop (because it's actually the same chip), and it can it can run Civilization VI at 1080p at 40 fps.
  
  And that's running with slower DDR4 RAM.  AMD's current desktop chips with integrated graphics like the 8700G are three times as fast.  (And also cost twice as much.)
  
  If you don't have a burning need to play the latest games at high resolutions, a 5600G, or its close cousins the 5500G and 5600GT, will do quite well.
  
  
  
• Is 8GB enough for graphics cards?  (Hot Hardware)
  
  If you're buying something like the Radeon 9060 XT - which you can't just yet because it won't be out for another week - the 8GB model is a terrible purchase because some games will already fail on it at high settings, and the 16GB model is only $50 more and will last a lot longer.
  
  And while recent graphics cards are much faster than integrated graphics, you can easily and cheaply upgrade the memory in your PC to give the integrated graphics more memory.  That's the point of AMD's Ryzen 395, except they messed up and you can't upgrade the RAM.
  
  If you have an older GPU - or you buy a $90 card like my Radeon 580 - 8GB is fine.  But if you're shopping for a current model that costs over $200, don't settle for 8GB if there are any alternatives.
  
  
  
• If you divide everything into needlessly specific arbitrary food groups, only one country in the world is self-sufficient in every category.  (Science Focus)
  
  It's Guyana, by the way.
  
  
  
• Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels.  (404 Media)
  
  $10 to have an AI write your novel for you.
  
  $1000 to have an AI make it look like another AI did not write your novel for you.
  
  Profit!
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, May 25 2025 02:56 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, May 25 2025 04:21 AM (ZLF73)

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