• There's never been a better time to get into Fallout 76.  (Ars Technica)
  
  There's never been a worse time to get into Fallout 76 either.  There's never been a time to get into Fallout 76.

  Fallout 76 is good now.  Actually, it’s always been good.

  Oh, really?

  Two weeks in, Fallout 76 is a lonely, glitchy, flawed mess.  (Ars Technica)

  But baby that was years ago.  I've left it all behind.

  Redownloaded it - like an idiot I got it at launch - to see if it had aged well.
  
  Went though character creation, all good, then my character couldn’t move. At all.
  
  Looked it up online and the fix was — SIX YEARS after launch — to manually edit some config files.
  
  Nope.
  
  Uninstalled.
  
  Still trash.

  As strong as the rest of your reporting, huh Ars Technica?
  
  

• Speaking of which, if you're bored you can watch the Ars commentariat tie itself into knots explaining why Germany's move from clean, safe, reliable nuclear power to the dirtiest of dirty coal - they burn lignite - is good for the environment.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Or not.  Actually, I'd recommend not.  Though some of the comments are good:

  Not sure what these numbers mean.  According to Wikipedia consumed energy in Germany was 76 percent fossil in 2023 (including a lot of lignite which is amongst the dirtiest coals).  Also to note, over the years Germany has imported more and more energy from France (biggest nuclear park) to compensate for the closure of their own nuclear plants so in a way they have just outsourced their nuclear.  And last, electricity prices in Germany are amongst the most expensive in Europe.  All this sounds a little less shiny than the article?

  They could try burning Ars readers but they're probably too wet.
  
  
  
• The Eurocom 780W AC Power Adapter review.  (AnandTech)
  
  780W is unremarkable for a computer power supply these days, though this has some nice features like running on mains power anywhere from 90 to 264 volts, and being able to sustain a 25% overload - right on 1000W of power draw - almost indefinitely.
  
  That's 20 volts out at 50 amps.
  
  Because this is a laptop power supply.
  
  
  
• Proxmox 8.2 is out.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Proxmox VE is a pretty neat server virtualisation and management system based on a customised Ubuntu kernel.  I've been meaning to set it up at home for a long time, but it's been a while since I had a standalone server that wasn't in use.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, I've spent the weekend engaging in necromancy.
  
  Apart from the new Asus laptop (the one that refused to talk to the nice 2TB Team MP44 I bought for it) and the three cheap Beelink mini-PCs I bought to build a Linux cluster, I also had four old laptops sitting around.
  
  So I got everything assembled in what is nominally the music room (and in fact does contain an Akai midi keyboard) and I'm working through a long list of hardware upgrades that I already have the parts for, and an even longer list of software upgrades.
  
  At the end of it I'll have eight - probably nine, actually - working computers instead of just the one.
  
  It's all fun and games as usual.  I couldn't remember the password on one of the laptops, so I stuck in the Windows 10 install drive and told it to reinstall.
  
  The Windows installer reported that it couldn't find the SSD.
  
  Fortunately I had another identical laptop that I could log in to, so I created a recovery drive from that, and with that I could reinstall Windows.
  
  Those two will soon have 64GB of RAM and 4TB of SSD each.  The laptops and their upgrades have been sitting around waiting for me to have time to attend to them since February.
  
  Of 2022.
  
  
  
• The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down.  (The Verge)
  
  You do know that you could just not buy iPhones, right?
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, I also set up my Moto G14 today.
  
  Great screen.
  
  Works well.
  
  1080x2400 screen, 50 megapixel camera, two A75 plus six A55 cores, which is fine for me, though I'd avoid anything that was A55 only, and a headphone jack and microSD slot, which many phones at ten times the price don't have.
  
  Dirt cheap - I paid about $110 on sale for the 4GB / 128GB model.
  
  This is to replace the Oppo phone I've been using as my on-call pager because that one died of battery bloat.
  
  I'd recommend it but it's not available in the US.
  
  Also it talks when you boot it up, which I could do without.
  
  
  
• Tech gadgets are adding AI whether you like it or not.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Actually, the case cited doesn't even involve adding AI.  It's a new Logitech mouse with a dedicated AI button...  Which pops up a menu on Windows.
  
  That's it.
  
  
  
• Poisoned myself with tonight's dinner - beef with black bean sauce.  I checked the allergens list for the sauce on the supermarket website, but I didn't check the label itself, and it turned out to have gluten in it.
  
  Result: Very minor stomach grumbles.  Clearly not much gluten.  If I hadn't thought of it I'd have just assumed I ate too much.
  
  Good to know my sensitivity level though, since I strictly exclude gluten from my normal diet.

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, April 28 2024 11:13 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Brendan at Sunday, April 28 2024 11:46 PM (V8yYW)

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• DOS 4 is now open source.  (Hanselman)
  
  I never owned a DOS PC, but I know that DOS 4 was the one everyone hated.
  
  Anyway, you can now download it yourself.  Warning: It does uses as much as 92k of RAM.

• 90% of Java services have critical or severe security vulnerabilities...  (JVM Weekly)
  
  ... Or security reporting is a pile of crap.
  
  This article explains why it's mostly the latter.  Not entirely, but mostly.
  
  
  
• A long-dead worm is still active on at least 2.5 million PCs worldwide.  (Ars Technica)
  
  The worm, created by China, was tied to a single specific IP address as its command-and-control hub.
  
  For reasons that remain unclear, whatever server was originally attached to that IP address was shut down.  So security researchers bought the address, granting them complete control over every one of the infected systems.
  
  All they are doing so far is watching.
  
  All they are doing so far.
  
  
  
• China's annoying little brother North Korea is targeting developers with fake job interviews that involve downloading and running malware.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Again.
  
  
  
• Leaving Rust game development.  (Loglog)
  
  When you point out that a building is on fire, and the universal response is "That sounds like a you problem", it's time to get out of Dodge.
  
  Not that Rust is bad.  Just that the people creating Rust are.
  
  
  
• The Second Circuit has upheld a New York law forcing ISPs to offer 25mbps broadband for $15.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Cut the entire state off from the internet and let them eat each other.
  
  
  
• Columbia has a Nazi problem.  (The Verge)

  "Why didn't anyone tell us that genocide had consequences", cried sophomore Adolfia Hertler.  "We're not hurting anyone, we just want to kill Jews."

  Well, the article doesn't actually say that, but it should.
  
  
  
• Apple stopped increasing the base RAM in its desktop systems...  In 2012.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Back then, of course, you could upgrade the memory yourself.
  
  This is no longer the case, and Apple charges ten times retail price for its own upgrades.
  
  
  
• TSMC is bringing optical interconnect to multi-chip modules starting next year.  (AnandTech)
  
  The first version will run at 1.6 terabits per second - 200 gigabytes per second, or about three times the speed of a full-size PCIe 5 slot - and will increase to 6.4 terabits per second the following year.
  
  
  
• Swapped out the 2TB Team MP44 I bought for my new laptop with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus (also 2TB) and Windows installed without complaints, though I had to do it twice to get rid of the forced Microsoft sign-in.
  
  In theory the MP44 is a better drive - it's PCIe 4.0 rather than 3.0 and offers twice the read and write transfer rates of the 970, though that doesn't actually matter in this case because this laptop only has PCIe 3.0, and I only bought it with future reuse in mind - but while the laptop recognises and formats the drive, any attempt to install Windows dies in the first few seconds.
  
  I corralled all my old laptops while I was doing this setup, and one of them has a 4TB SSD because I happened to have a spare one back in 2022.  Since the new laptop is much faster and has much more RAM, I might pull that drive out and put it into the new laptop.  Which means, yay, reinstalling Windows on both of them.
  
  
  
• All my Hololive plushies have arrived: The CouncilRyS BEEGsmol ones designed by Sana, and the re-issues of the Myth plushies and Myth mascot plushies.
  
  These came in two small boxes and one enormous one.  I thought they'd messed up my order.
  
  No.
  
  The Myth and BEEGsmol plushies are about the size of your hand.  The mascot plushies are the size (and approximate shape) of a basketball.
  
  
  
• Also found my Pi 5 while I was sweeping the house for computer components.
  
  At least least I didn't misplace my Pi Pico; I would never have found it again.
  
  And I found a USB Blu-Ray drive I didn't know I had.  Apparently I bought the exact same model twice, because I have two identical drives still in their boxes.

• Elizabeth Bathory eat your heart out.  Or someone else's.  Probably a peasant's.  Three women have contracted HIV after receiving "vampire facials" at an unlicensed spa in New Mexico.  (Ars Technica)

  The woman's case led investigators to VIP Spa, which was unlicensed, had no appointment scheduling system, and did not store client contact information. In an inspection in the fall of 2018, health investigators found shocking conditions: unwrapped syringes in drawers and counters, unlabeled tubes of blood sitting out on a kitchen counter, more unlabeled blood and medical injectables alongside food in a kitchen fridge, and disposable equipment-electric desiccator tips-that were reused. The facility also did not have an autoclave-a pressurized oven-for sterilizing equipment.

  I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
  
  Twice.

• HMD, the company that manufactures Nokia phones these days, has released three new models under its own brand, all under $200.  (Ars Technica)
  
  In Europe.
  
  Unfortunately they all have 720p screens, which may or may not be an issue for you.
  
  I recently picked up a Moto G54 - 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, and a 1080p screen - for around $130.  That model is also not available in the US.
  
  
  
• TSMC has announced it 1.6nm process, called A16, due late 2026.  (AnandTech)
  
  It's not a huge advance over the company's second-generation 2nm process due in 2025, but I'm not sure how much we can ask when new processes are coming out every few months.
  
  
  
• Gigabyte has a new "baseline" option in its latest BIOS version that keeps Intel CPUs running within specs to make sure they are stable for gaming.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It reduces performance by 30%.
  
  And your electric bill by a similar amount.
  
  
  
• Australia's police and spy agencies want backdoors in encryption protocols.  (The Register)
  
  Because of course they do.
  
  
  
• Best I can do is a backdoor into Chinese keyboard apps.  (The Register)
  
  And estimated 750 million people could have their data stolen...  If they are using a Chinese keyboard on their phone.
  
  Learn a real language.

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 26 2024 11:17 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Zendo Deb at Saturday, April 27 2024 12:41 PM (/Wb6G)

Posted by: Zendo Deb at Saturday, April 27 2024 12:42 PM (/Wb6G)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, April 27 2024 03:33 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sunday, April 28 2024 01:41 AM (bT2sP)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, April 28 2024 04:01 AM (BMUHC)

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• President Biden has carried out his ceremonial duties as pudding-in-chief and smeared the TikTok divest-or-die bill into law.  (The Verge)
  
  Huzzah, I guess.

• Snap is the worst thing since systemd.
  
  If you are running LXD, and you install it with Snap, MAKE SURE TO PIN THE VERSION OR IT WILL DIE.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, Ubuntu 24.04 is here.  (Techzine)
  
  The beta version was delayed by a week due to the near-catastrophe with the xz hack, while the team at Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) rebuilt every single package to ensure that no trace of the hack was left.
  
  I had expected the release of the live version to be likewise delayed, but it has shipped on time.
  
  While I wouldn't install it on a production server just yet, the 22.04 release was remarkably trouble free.  And I do have a couple of Beelink mini-PCs waiting to be set up.
  
  (Ubuntu releases twice a year, and the even-number year April releases are LTS - guaranteed free support for five years with paid support for another five beyond that.)
  
  
  
• IBM is buying Hashicorp for $6.4 billion.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Hashicorp does...  Stuff.  I dunno.  Docket strangulation, something like that.
  
  
  
• Stellar Blade is here and the perpetually outraged classes have a new game to be perpetually outraged about.  (WCCFTech)
  
  In this case, they're mostly outraged that the game represents impossible standards of feminine beauty, a claim somewhat weakened by the fact that the in-game character looks almost exactly like the motion-capture actress who worked with the animation team.
  
  WCCFTech, which is not a game review site, gives it 9 out of 10.
  
  The actual game review sites hate it because they're all run by the perpetually outraged classes.
  
  
  
• The man who destroyed Google.  (Where's Your Ed)
  
  The man running Google Search for the past five years - replacing the man who built Google Search for the previous 20 - was previously head of search at Yahoo.
  
  Which was such a success that they had to replace it with Bing.

  Raghavan's story is unique, insofar as the damage he's managed to inflict (or, if we're being exceptionally charitable, failed to avoid in the case of Yahoo) on two industry-defining companies, and the fact that he did it without being a CEO or founder.  Perhaps more remarkable, he's achieved this while maintaining a certain degree of anonymity. Everyone knows who Musk and Zuckerberg are, but Raghavan's known only in his corner of the Internet. Or at least he was.

  Did Google Search fall or was it pushed?
  
  A little of both, it seems.

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, April 26 2024 03:21 AM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 26 2024 04:04 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 26 2024 04:08 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, April 26 2024 06:35 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, April 27 2024 10:03 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, April 27 2024 10:26 PM (PiXy!)

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• Legislation to force Bytedance to sell TikTok or shut it down has passed the Senate, lathered in $90 billion of pork, and is headed for President Biden's desk where he is expected to ceremonially smear it with pudding thus passing it into law.  (The Verge)
  
  Expect TikTok to start claiming its first amendment rights to act as a spy and propaganda agency for America's enemies tomorrow.
  
  Also...  TikTok is banned in China.

• The FTC meanwhile has voted 3-2 to ban almost all noncompete agreements.  (NPR)
  
  The minority pointed out that while this might be a worthy idea, it is not within the FTC's mandate and will simply be struck down by the courts.
  
  
  
• Apple has cut its expected sales of the $3500 Vision Pro in half, noting that it is horribly expensive and basically useless.  (MacRumours)
  
  It's unusable for gaming (and far too expensive), has almost no dedicated software, can't be plugged into...  Anything...  And is far too bulky and heavy for AR use (where images are overlaid on the real world).
  
  There are some things even Apple's cult followers won't swallow.
  
  
  
• IBM is expected to acquire Hashicorp.  (CNBC)
  
  Hashicorp makes...  Terraform, that's right, which is for infecting all of your computers with Docker, and Consul, which I have actually used and which sucks.
  
  
  
• Samsung has announced mass production of its 9th generation VNAND flash chips, with a capacity of 1 terabit and a transfer rate of 3.2GHz.  (AnandTech)
  
  This is TLC NAND too - what passes for the good stuff these days.  I think 1 terabit flash chips already existed but only in QLC devices.

Posted by: normal at Thursday, April 25 2024 03:52 AM (bg2DR)

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• Australia has elbowed Brazil out of the way and decided that it is going to be the new global censor.  (MSN)
  
  An Australian federal court has ordered Twitter and Facebook to take down a video wherein a Christian bishop was stabbed in his own church by a Usual Suspect...  Globally.
  
  You are not permitted to know that this happened, because it might, I don't know, look bad for Usual Suspects.
  
  (Note that the other recent stabbing in Sydney that made the news was a random mentally ill man, who, while known to the police, was not a Usual Suspect.)
  
  In the ensuing brouhaha a senator from Tasmania has asserted that Elon Musk should go to jail and Australia's nominally conservative party leader has covered himself in shit and offered full-throated support for the nonsense.
  
  Sorry.  I didn't vote for any of these idiots.
  
  
  
• Journalists for Censorship has also given this their thumbs up.  (The Register)
  
  "I never thought the leopards would eat my face", sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Meanwhile the US government is not only spying on you, it is forcing everyone else to spy on you.  (Ars Technica)
  
  I have a solution: Attach the video of that stabbing in Sydney to every email and tweet you send.
  
  
  
• DDR5 now officially goes to 11...  Um, 8800.  (AnandTech)
  
  Previously the specification only covered speeds up to 6400MHz, but now there's an official standard for 8800MHz RAM.
  
  Which used to be a lot.
  
  
  
• Huawei wants to take its "home grown" HarmonyOS global.  (The Register)
  
  It's Android.
  
  It's a bad version of Android.
  
  The first review version they shipped still said "Android" in many places.
  
  
  
• Hands on with Tiny11Builder - debloating Windows 11.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  This looks like far too much work given the price of SSDs these days.
  
  Though given that my laptop spat out its new SSD, maybe.
  
  
  
• In lighter news, someone has found a solution to the AI porn bots plaguing Twitter right now: Literally Hitler.  (Twitter)
  
  The bots are using commercially available AI services, and if you post anything relating to Hitler they melt down and instead of being invited to view fifth-rate porn you get a flood of replies saying:

  I'm sorry, but I cannot fulfil this request as it promotes a hateful and negative ideology.  Please let me know how I can assist you with another topic.  #cool

  It's like dealing with vampires, only you use swastikas instead of crosses.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, April 24 2024 12:53 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, April 24 2024 05:00 PM (PiXy!)

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• Is the Minisforum V3 any good?  Yes.  (Notebook Check)
  
  It looks good on paper, and it also looks good in actual use.
  
  The one shortcoming is the battery life, which is only around six hours due the the high idle power draw - about twice that of a Microsoft Surface tablet.
  
  That's likely to be an issue with the BIOS on the review model not putting the CPU into the proper sleep state, but as of today it is something you need to be concerned about.

• If you're worried about the disappearance of the Z80, don't be: There's a project to produce an open-source version.  (GitHub)
  
  It's being produced as part of TinyTapeout and the chip measures 320x200 micrometers when produced on an ancient (and therefore cheap) 130nm process.
  
  
  
• I mean, who doesn't need a 256-core carryon?  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This squishes two 128-core servers each with 2TB of RAM into the size of a regular carry-on bag.
  
  There aren't many people who need to be able to grab that amount of compute power, jump onto a plan, and just plug it in wherever they land, but the people who need it really need it.
  
  
  
• Asus laptop update: It's dead easy to open and upgrade.  Modern laptop covers are held in place with plastic clips as well as screws, and those clips can be a massive pain.  In this case not so much; pry the first one open, and then just keep levering it gently until it's free.
  
  Worth noting that the four short screws all go at the front.
  
  Anyway, installed the extra 32GB of RAM, booted it up with the cover off, and it worked just fine and showed 40GB of RAM (it has 8GB soldered in place and one free slot).
  
  Next up I swapped the SSD.  Powered on and BIOS recognised the new device, so I closed it all back up and plugged in the recovery drive.
  
  Which told be to go jump in a lake.
  
  So I plugged in the Windows 11 install drive.
  
  Which also told me to go jump in a lake.
  
  I have some Windows 11 install tricks to try, and failing that, a couple of spare SSDs.
  
  But why in 2024 does the Windows installer still fail with a generic message and an 8-digit hexadecimal error code?  You're not short of space for proper error messages, guys.

• Workers installing a light pole in Missouri dug into a fiber cable and cut off 911 services in Nebraska - I forgot Missouri has a border with Nebraska, South Dakota, which borders on Nebraska, and, somehow, Nevada.  (AP News)
  
  Nevada is three states away from Missouri three different ways, and routing your emergency calls that distance to a single service provider is not the way I personally would choose to set things up.
  
  I've seen worse things - like the time a mail server couldn't send emails more than 500 miles - but not many.

• Everything we know about Nvidia's next generation Blackwell graphics cards.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Nothing.  We know nothing.  The article is all speculative, and judging by its length the writer was paid by the word.
  
  
  
• NASA veteran's propellantless propulsion drive that physics said shouldn't work, doesn't.  (The Debrief)
  
  This article is even worse nonsense than the previous one.
  
  
  
• The Zilog Z80 is being discontinued after 48 years of production.  (Tech Spot)
  
  Order now if you want to stock up.
  
  The eZ80, an updated version that runs up to fifty times faster, will still be available.
  
  
  
• Need more storage?  The Highpoint Rocket 1608A lets you install eight M.2 drives in a single PCIe slot.  (WCCFTech)
  
  And it's PCIe 5.0, so it delivers up to 56GB of bandwidth per second.  Which used to be a lot.
  
  Only downside is that it costs $1500, which also used to be a lot.
  
  
  
• I've started setting up my new laptop.  It's a bit involved because I'm swapping out the 512GB SSD for a 2TB one, which means I have to create a recovery drive, and for some reason it really didn't want to do that with the first USB stick I gave it.
  
  Screen is great, keyboard is fine, speakers are, well, laptop speakers.  Performance seems to be pretty good.  The CPU is a Ryzen 7730U with a top speed of 4.5GHz, and I saw it hitting 4.3GHz while I was doing Windows updates.
  
  That's a problem I have with my current laptop; it's supposed to reach 4.7GHz but I've never seen it exceed 3.6.
  
  Oh, and I did the Shift-F10 / oobe\bypassnro trick to set up Windows without a Microsoft login, and it worked just fine.

Posted by: Frank at Sunday, April 21 2024 06:51 PM (bYgmQ)

Posted by: David Eastman at Monday, April 22 2024 03:01 AM (rmrII)

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• Half of China's major cities are sinking.  (NPR)
  
  Everyone said I was mad to build a city in a swamp, but I built it all the same.
  
  It sank into the swamp.
  
  

• Daniel Dennett, one of the few philosophers of the past hundred years worthy of respect, has passed away.  (Daily Nous)
  
  You may not agree with everything he said, but he was right more often than wrong, which is a stellar feat in philosophy.
  
  For example:

  Postmodernism, the school of "thought" that proclaimed "There are no truths, only interpretations" has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for "conversations" in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.

  He was 82.
  
  
  
• Speaking at the Open Source Summit, Linux creator Linus Torvalds shared his thoughts on AI, security, and everything else.  (ZDNet)
  
  On the AI question, the most useful thing he sees is that Nvidia now talks to the Linux kernel developers so they can work around hardware bugs.
  
  Other than that, he suggested that AI might actually be useful in 10 years.
  
  Maybe.
  
  
  
• To nobody's surprise, Twitter clone Post News is dead.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  If you want to take on Twitter you have to start with a platform that is already useful - and have a way to add Twitter's functionality without driving away all your users.
  
  Even Facebook is struggling with Threads.
  
  
  

• Micron is receiving $6 billion under the CHIPS Act to build $100 billion in memory fabs in New York state.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Micron is at least an American company.

• Grok keeps making up news stories.  (Ars Technica)
  
  So does the entire mainstream media - and the tech media including Ars Technica - but nobody mentions that.
  
  That said, they're not wrong.  I've pointed this out on Twitter myself.  In one case it decided six victims in a murder spree weren't enough and added another nine.
  
  
  
• Testing Intel's Core i5-14400 low-mid-range CPU.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Personally I'd spend the extra few dollars to move up to the 14500 - which has four extra E cores - but for many people it won't make any difference and you might as well save the money.
  
  It's, well, it's fine.  And it runs fine with cheaper DDR4 memory, not just with DDR5.  And when I say fine, I mean spectacularly fast compared to anything even a few years old no matter how expensive.
  
  If you're aiming at gaming performance (and don't already have an Intel motherboard) it's worth paying another $20 for AMD's Ryzen 5700X3D.  It also uses cheaper DDR4 RAM and the performance boost is around 30%.
  
  
  
• What would happen if a USB cable company built a NAS?  (Kickstarter)
  
  In the case of the UGREEN NASync, the answer is...  It's really good.
  
  The software (a fork of Debian) is still in development, but if you just want your NAS to be a NAS, it just works.
  
  You can install your own operating system, but it's currently not easy.  And you might need one of the higher end models that have a separate - removable - SSD for the operating system.