Daily Tech News 2 February 2023

• AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D lineup has prices and schedules, with the top-of-the-line 7950X3D due on February 28th at a price of $699. (AnandTech)
  
  If you've been following along, you might notice that this is exactly the same MSRP as the regular 7950X, making the X3D version something of a bargain. But if you've been following along, you might notice that Micro Center will sell you a 7950X and 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM for under $600. Assuming you live somewhere with a Micro Center because that's an offer designed to get you into the store, and not available for delivery.
  
  Still, it's basically a stealth price cut - AMD trying to avoid sabotaging its perceived value while tacitly acknowledging that the market ain't what it was and won't be for a while.
  
  And it's likely to be the fastest desktop CPU around for a couple of years. Intel's Meteor Lake range should be out this year but may be only for laptops, and AMD isn't expecting Zen 5 to be ready until next year.
  
  
  
• Mission accomplished. (BBC)
  
  That tiny deadly radioactive thingy - a quarter inch wide lost in a state encompassing a million square miles - has been found. 120 miles from its starting point it fell out of the truck and rolled off the road.
  
  Fortunately with suitably sensitive detectors it glows like a furnace and it had not in fact lodged in the tyres of a passing car and disappeared to parts unknown, so a few days scouring the highway waiting for the clicks to turn into a scream was enough to hunt it down.

• Intel may be planning to cut prices on its Alder Lake chips by 20%. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, that's good news, particularly after they raised the... Wait, Alder Lake? The one that launched in 2021?
  
  Never mind.
  
  
  
• On the other hand Intel actually did cut the price of the Arc A750 graphics card to $249. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And released new drivers that offer improved gaming performance, particularly on older titles.
  
  Intel does seem to be committed to its graphics card range - something I doubted at launch time - and at $249 this card is not a bad deal.
  
  
  
• Loading a game from a good PCIe 3 SSD takes 3 seconds longer than the not-even-released-yet PCIe 5 models. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  PCIe 5 - even PCIe 4 - is not worth a huge price increase for most users. If the difference between two similar models is 20%, sure, go for PCIe 4 and enjoy your three seconds; the drive will likely have smarter software and might last longer, all else being equal.
  
  But if you have a perfectly good PCIe 3 drive there's no reason to replace it.
  
  (The new servers that I was going to deploy last month before I decided to spend the whole month being sick instead have PCIe 3 drives.)
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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