• AMD's 9070 XT is here and it's (read through nine pages of review) good.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At $600 MSRP it's a hair slower than Nvidia's $750 5070 Ti on non-ray-traced titles.  On ray tracing it's a hair slower than Nvidia's $800 4070 from last year.
  
  Now a 5070 Ti will cost you around $900 at retail if you can find one - which you actually can right now - and the 4070 Ti super is completely gone.  But we don't know yet what the supply will be like for MSRP 9070 XT cards, so it's not clear if Nvidia costs 20% more for similar performance, or 50% more.
  
  Reviewers have also noticed that the performance is very consistent, holding steady throughout a benchmark and also between benchmark runs.  That matters because a card that peaks at 80 fps but often drops down to 50 fps can feel worse than one that delivers 60 fps all the time.
  
  It's also 50% faster than my 7800 XT in non-ray-traced games, and 60% faster in ray tracing.  It will probably offer worse performance per dollar because I got my card at 20% under MSRP, but if you can't find a deal like that it should look much better.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Apple has updated the Mac Studio desktop system to the M3 chip, with up to an M3 Ultra with 32 cores and 512GB of RAM.  (WCCFTech)
  
  And it's reasonably priced too, with a 28 core model with 96GB of RAM competing with Framwork's 128GB Desktop model.
  
  Wait, I'm on the US site, aren't I?  Never mind, it costs twice as much.
  
  Though it is effectively a 512GB graphics card, so I'm sure someone will buy it.
  
  
  
• Google says to the DOJ, "Please don't throw us into that briar patch."  (Yahoo)
  
  I don't think Google quite grasped how that story is supposed to go.
  
  
  
• The latest winners of the Turing Award have warned again of the dangers of AI.  (The Verge)

  "It might say something stupid", they said.

  I'm sure we'll survive.
  
  Somehow.
  
  
  
• The AOOSTAR WTR MAX is a 7 bay NAS with an AMD Ryzen 8040HS series CPU.  (Liliputing)
  
  That's not the very latest but with up to 8 Zen 4 core and 12 RDNA3 graphics cores it should be quite capable as a combination storage device and app server.
  
  It takes up to 6 5.25" drives and 6 M.2 SSDs, though how those all fit into seven bays is not yet clear.
  
  
  
• Cyclone Alfred has been rescheduled for - at last update - Saturday.  It's just sitting there for now.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, March 07 2025 02:36 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, March 07 2025 04:24 AM (mpgTo)

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