Daily Tech News 8 October 2021

• Me: I need to clear my desk for these new monitors so I'll save money and choose three-day shipping, which will leave me time to-
  Courier: Zoom zoom beep beep package for, uh, Pixy Misa?
  
  Good work by Scorptec. Haven't ordered from them in a couple of years but likely will as I build out my new development lab.
  
  
  
• The Ampere Altra Max is the fastest server processor in the world - or kind of meh - depending on your workload. (AnandTech)
  
  They've managed to cram 128 cores onto a single piece of silicon, where AMD's 64 core server CPUs are spread across 9 chiplets.
  
  The downside of this design is that the entire chip is used for cores. AMD has room for 32MB of L2 cache and 256MB of L3 cache, where the Ampere chip has only 16MB total.
  
  If your workload fits well in that cache, you get good performance. If not, it's going to suck.
  
  With future chips built on a 5nm process, or with stacked memory similar to AMD's new designs, they might be able to produce a more balanced design that unleashes all those cores.
  
  
  
  

• Samsung expects to be in production on their 2nm process node in 2025. (AnandTech)
  
  3nm will be in production by the end of next year.
  
  The company also announced a 17nm node.
  
  This is the old reliable 28nm node updated with FinFET. That keeps a lot of the advantages (robust, cheap) while making chips smaller and reducing power.
  
  It's not for leading-edge chips like CPUs and GPUs, but for microcontrollers, which are also in short supply.
  
  
  
• TSMC to USG: Bite me. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The US government demanded details of the types of products TSMC produces for each of its customers, inventories, lead times, and more.
  
  TSMC told them to fuck off.
  
  The list of questions the Commerce Department is asking is absurd, but typical of government overreach in all areas these days.
  
  
  
• Far Cry 6 requires 11GB of VRAM for its high resolution textures. (WCCFTech)
  
  Nvidia's 3060 Ti, 3070, 3070 Ti, and 3080 all have less than 11GB of VRAM.
  
  AMD's 6700 XT and up all have at least 12GB.
  
  
  
• Google and Apple are both being investigated by Japan over anti-competitive bullshit. (WCCFTech)
  
  You know, the usual.
  
  
  
• Everything new is old again: Intel's new low power laptop CPUs will go back to two cores. (WCCFTech)
  
  They'll call then 10 core parts, but that's eight slow cores and just two fast cores. AMD at the same power envelope has 8 fast cores
  
  It comes down to pricing and how fast the slow cores are.
  
  
  
• CDNs don't contribute to copyright infringement just by the act of distributing your content. (Ars Technica)
  
  A judge ruled in favour of Cloudflare in a case accusing them of contributory infringement.
  
  
  
• WSL for Windows 11 runs Linux GUI apps out of the box. (Ars Technica)
  
  Although not Gnome, which will install, but dies on startup.
  
  If I wanted to run Linux GUI apps this would present a reason to upgrade.
  
  
  
• Intel is no longer seeking a fab site in the UK after Brexit. (BBC)
  
  Because continental Europe offers bigger bribes. CEO Pat Gelsinger was quite explicit on that point.
  
  
  
• Google is going all-in on censorship. Latest target is anyone not following the party line on global warming. (The Verge)
  
  Anything mandatory is forbidden. Anything forbidden is mandatory.
  
  
  
• Stable coins should maybe, you know, actually be stable. (Bloomberg)
  
  If you want to pin your cryptocurrency to real dollars, you goddam better have real dollars.
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:16 AM

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