Daily Tech News 25 May 2023

• Another day, another mid-range video card launch. Today it's AMD's Radeon 7600. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This is basically an RDNA3 respin of the previous generation's 6650 XT, with 2048 shaders and 8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus. That's the same memory configuration that hampers yesterday's 4060 Ti from Nvidia, and really isn't acceptable on a video card that costs $399.
  
  The reason I'm willing to cut AMD some slack here is that their card costs $269.
  
  Which even in these trying times is still less than $399.
  
  Personally I'd buy the current 6700 over the 7600 - it's the older RDNA2 architecture, but has 10GB of RAM on a 160-bit bus, giving it a bit of an edge. But the 7600 is an okay card at an okay price.
  
  Which is to say that it's a miracle of modern technology, with 13 billion transistors in a chip smaller than your thumbnail, and we should be amazed that it exists at all, never mind that it's available so readily and so cheaply.
  
  (My first computer had a Motorola 6845 video chip running at 3.5MHz and could be persuaded to display somewhere between 10 and 12 colours if you were really persistent.)
  
  
  

• All Microsoft Surface Pro X cameras stopped working on Tuesday. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  You will own nothing and they really don't care whether you like it.
  
  
  
• A look at the Framework 16 laptop display. (Frame.Work)
  
  Little details like the fact that the (tiny, fragile) cable between the motherboard and the display module is socketed at both ends, so if it breaks you just replace the cable.
  
  Suck it, Apple.
  
  Hope this one comes with a Four Essential Keys module. It's designed for that but I haven't seen one yet.
  
  Or a cursor pad module like HP's Omen 16.
  
  
  
• GitLab is great software but use it in private and was your hands afterwards. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I mean, put it behind your VPN. Yes, that's what I meant.
  
  
  
• Minnesota has passed right-to-repair legislation without having it filleted by the Wicked Witch of the East River. (The Verge)
  
  Kathy Hochul. I'm referring to Kathy Hochul.
  
  
  
• The Beelink GTR7 and GTR7 Pro now have prices and are scheduled for release in less than two weeks. (Liliputing)
  
  These are NUCs / mini-PCs with AMD's latest 7840HS and 7940HS CPUs, with 8 Zen 4 CPU cores and 12 RDNA3 graphics cores. (By comparison, the Radeon 7600 GPU mentioned earlier has 32 RDNA3 cores.)
  
  They're a bit more expensive than the similar Minisforum models but have a few extra features: Dual 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, dual Thunderbolt ports at the back plus a separate USB-C port at the front, and front and rear 1/8" audio jacks. They share the configuration of dual DDR5 SO-DIMM slots and dual M.2 2280 slots.
  
  Plus they come in a choice of of Avocado, Burnt Orange, Ultramarine, and London Fog. No Harvest Gold available at this time.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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