Recent content by Alvar "Miles" Udell

  1. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Linus Torvalds still uses an AMD RX 580 from 2017 — also ditches Apple Silicon for an Intel laptop

    Is that supposed to be an insult to people who use things that're perfectly fine for their purpose instead of upgrading to the latest and greatest?
  2. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News RDNA 4's Unreal Engine 4 ray-tracing stutters may not be AMD-specific

    Perhaps YOU could do the testing?
  3. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Yes, you can store data on a bird — enthusiast converts PNG to bird-shaped waveform, teaches young starling to recall file at up to 2MB/s

    Not really, it's been a thing for a while, since slow scan TV was developed in the 50s and then seemingly re-invented and improved ever since. See also the article on another Future PLC site last year. Doing it via bird is slightly more impressive but not really so considering how adept some...
  4. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Edge browser's new Copilot Mode lets you talk to AI about your tabs if you opt in — but it's only free for 'a limited time

    And that's the problem with all "AI" right now: getting people to pay for it, and people aren't.
  5. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    Apple's M4 Macbook Air plunges to its lowest ever price in the ultimate back to school deal — Amazon's $799 price tag trounces Apple's official dea...

    Hate to tell you but it was that price at B&H for a while at launch, and with their store card you get sales tax credited instantly, so it is not anything that it hasn't been before, especially since they can be found for $850 on a regular basis (with the $15" for $1050).
  6. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Wuchang: Fallen Feathers' latest patch accused of faking internal render resolution to boost FPS — game runs at 'Quality' upscaling even when the r...

    While it's shady to not just have "subsample" tick box, it's not a big deal, especially if this can't be replicated by other testers using appropriate hardware for the selected settings to ensure this isn't some kind of "dynamic resolution" feature, and if this isn't changed in the next patch to...
  7. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Veteran reviewer’s RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU falls victim to 16-pin meltdown — user admits it could have been user error despite having tested...

    No, the new spec is needed due to increased power loads, but the design needs to be tweaked to either incorporate thicker cables and monitoring capabilities, or, in my opinion, changed to a single, thicker copper wire and locking coax/BNC type connector.
  8. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB SSD only costs 11 cents per GB — one of its best prices to date

    Anything over $100/TB for a consumer grade NVMe SSD isn't a good deal...And a 4.5% discount on anything isn't even a deal at all...
  9. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Amazon sells a legacy MSI CPU air cooler for $5,340 — the Core Frozr L launched in 2016 with a $50 MSRP

    They'll also do that so they can cut the price to the regular price and advertise it as something like an 80% price cut, but even for the Amazon Resale listing price I'd grab an AIO before I'd grab that.
  10. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Veteran reviewer’s RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU falls victim to 16-pin meltdown — user admits it could have been user error despite having tested...

    It's not user error when the wires can break inside the sleeves and leave all the current to be drawn from as little as one wire, which will cause a meltdown even if it's fully inserted. It's a faulty design with insufficient safety margins.
  11. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News AMD Strix Halo gaming handheld lacks an internal battery — GPD Win 5 requires an external battery or be plugged into the wall

    A win for consumers if it connects though a standard USB-C connection so as to allow for quick swapping of batteries. Sadly the author of this article failed to mention if the "Battery to Host Dedicated Connector" was simply a C-to-C cord or something proprietary.
  12. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Hacker plants three strains of malware in a Steam Early Access game called Chemia — security company found crypto-jacking infostealers and a backdo...

    And as a helpful reminder that Steam, much like Google, Apple, and everyone else that owns and operates a digital store, doesn't care if the products they host contain malware.
  13. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News AMD CEO says U.S.-made TSMC chips are more expensive, but worth it — costs 'more than 5% but less than 20%' higher than Taiwan-sourced alternative

    Even if they were 30% more most people don't buy them until they go on a big sale anyway and system builders get tray pack volume discounts so the actual price difference is far less.
  14. Alvar "Miles" Udell

    News Next-gen Wi-Fi 8 focuses on reliability instead of speed — "Ultra High Reliability" initiative boosts performance, lowers latency and packet loss...

    Standardized in 2028, starts appearing in 2029, widespread in new devices in 2032, and widespread in the userbase in 2035 in time for Wi-Fi 9 no doubt.