Technology Android

[Jokerman]

So I just got the iPhone 12. Had the 11, wanted the 12 because it improved the few slight gripes I had with the 11. The 12 weighs almost an ounce less and the phone is slightly smaller with same size display, which is something I wanted to see. They flat-edged the sides, and we'll see how that works. They upgraded the display to OLED, finally. Not up to the Galaxy's pixels, of course, but better than the 11, which still looked adequate. Plus, I got a close friend who just broke her XR (accidentally went in a pool with it having a cracked screen), so I thought perfect, I can give her my 11 and have another excuse to get the 12.

I like it. They say the A14 Bionic is faster, though can't really tell the difference at this point. I doubt I'll go 5G for a while and I'm not concerned with it draining the battery, that's expected. I like the Mag charging, which will work on the 11 too. The color choices this year, though, kind of suck.

I plan to keep it for 2 years, but of course there's always going to be something more out there that your phone doesn't have, and it's going to nag at you all year until it makes you feel like you have a piece of junk. I'm sure the 12 only having a 60Hz display and not 120 will do that to me, and I'll be hankering for next year's model by the time it comes (if we survive Trump and covid). We'll see. Not even thinking about going back to Android. Apple has bitten me on the neck and I've turned.

 

[dilla]

So I just got the iPhone 12. Had the 11, wanted the 12 because it improved the few slight gripes I had with the 11. The 12 weighs almost an ounce less and the phone is slightly smaller with same size display, which is something I wanted to see. They flat-edged the sides, and we'll see how that works. They upgraded the display to OLED, finally. Not up to the Galaxy's pixels, of course, but better than the 11, which still looked adequate. Plus, I got a close friend who just broke her XR (accidentally went in a pool with it having a cracked screen), so I thought perfect, I can give her my 11 and have another excuse to get the 12.

I like it. They say the A14 Bionic is faster, though can't really tell the difference at this point. I doubt I'll go 5G for a while and I'm not concerned with it draining the battery, that's expected. I like the Mag charging, which will work on the 11 too. The color choices this year, though, kind of suck.

I plan to keep it for 2 years, but of course there's always going to be something more out there that your phone doesn't have, and it's going to nag at you all year until it makes you feel like you have a piece of junk. I'm sure the 12 only having a 60Hz display and not 120 will do that to me, and I'll be hankering for next year's model by the time it comes (if we survive Trump and covid). We'll see. Not even thinking about going back to Android. Apple has bitten me on the neck and I've turned.

The iPhone has had OLED since the X.

They could've at least bumped it up to 90hz like the Pixel if they didn't want to go balls-deep in to 120hz. It's not like they haven't done it since the iPad Pro and its 120 hz. Maybe it's different for LCD on the iPads than it is for OLED on the iPhones.

 

[Pittsey]

Another Google service bites the dust. So glad we didn't go the Nest Secure route and went Ring instead.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/19/21523967/google-discontinues-nest-secure-alarm-system

Whatever they plan to do with ADT, it's probably not what many of its subscribers opted for later on down the line. I know we left ADT's monthly plan to self-monitor with Ring, but had we gone Google's route we would be going right back to ADT, in some sense.

I'm bought into the nest ecosystem. Next doorbell etc. But I'd never have bought their house alarm, it was shit, which is why I'm guessing it was discontinued. I use the Yale security products, which work with Google assistant. They are cheap and do the job

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I think Nest offers better quality and AI, and Ring offers a better range of products. If Nest can offer a few more product options then that would be great. I also find the Ring chime quite annoying.

 

[dilla]

Facebook strikes again! https://www.ign.com/articles/you-wi...your-linked-facebook-account?sf131110221=1tps

I know one reviewer has been hyped about getting the Quest 2 for a few weeks now but this is garbage. At the same time, it's expected for a product from facebook but it still sucks.

 

[dilla]

I'm bought into the nest ecosystem. Next doorbell etc. But I'd never have bought their house alarm, it was shit, which is why I'm guessing it was discontinued. I use the Yale security products, which work with Google assistant. They are cheap and do the job

Yeah I use Yale locks in my house as well. Different variants of Yale locks support different alarm systems or tech. Like mine is a Z Wave lock to work with Ring and Smart things. There's a WiFi variant and an August variant. They work fine but I still wish there was an app just for the locks instead of me having to go through my Ring app to lock or unlock them.

 

[Jokerman]

The iPhone has had OLED since the X.

I wasn't talking about the Pro. The regular iPhone just got the OLED with the 12.

 

[dilla]

I wasn't talking about the Pro. The regular iPhone just got the OLED with the 12.

Holy shit, only the 11 Pros had it. Never knew that.

 

[dilla]

Does anyone have the new Chromecast? I think Casey said he did? Google is sending me one for having YT TV. I didn't realize that not all apps on webOS stream in HD. I think Hulu was capped at 720p if using the built-in app? But it can do 1080/60 on Chromecast and even on consoles.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Does anyone have the new Chromecast? I think Casey said he did? Google is sending me one for having YT TV. I didn't realize that not all apps on webOS stream in HD. I think Hulu was capped at 720p if using the built-in app? But it can do 1080/60 on Chromecast and even on consoles.

How much do you pay for YouTube TV? Do you have this alongside cable/satellite or standalone?

 

[dilla]

@masta247 New AMDs got revealed today. Think AMD does to Nvidia what Ryzen did to Intel?

 

[ARon]

@masta247 New AMDs got revealed today. Think AMD does to Nvidia what Ryzen did to Intel?

Similar, if not better, performance. Lower price. If they can make them easily accessible to the actual customer then yeah, they're winning this gen

 

[masta247]

@masta247 New AMDs got revealed today. Think AMD does to Nvidia what Ryzen did to Intel?

ARon is right, except this might be like a first gen Ryzen moment - a lot of people will still go with Nvidia out of caution - Nvidia is still the much bigger player in the GPU space. I myself bought the RTX 3080. It could have been different if I had patience to wait until late November.
And speaking of Ryzen, the 5000 series just took another dump on Intel. ~20% more performance at the same frequency. Now AMD is the one pushing the performance envelope in the CPU world.

 

[dilla]

Similar, if not better, performance. Lower price. If they can make them easily accessible to the actual customer then yeah, they're winning this gen

That will be interesting to see. Masta's words from a few years ago still echo in my head when Ryzen was first unveiled. He said it would take years for Intel to catch up. I knew nothing of hardware back then, and still don't but I know a bit more now and it's crazy. Intel is still fumbling around for an answer to Ryzen and its price to performance ratio. And now AMD is setting it's sights on Nvidia after we just assumed Nvidia was king for the past decade. Maybe even longer than that.

Also, I got the Chromecast in the mail the other day from the YTV offer. It's nice and fills in the gaps of the missing apps from webOS but that's really just HBO Max which isn't in LG TVs nor on Roku. Also, I didn't know a Chromecast needed an external power source. I always saw it in pictures as just sticking out from a TV's HDMI port like a USB drive. But I had to make some room for this one lol.

 

[dilla]

ARon is right, except this might be like a first gen Ryzen moment - a lot of people will still go with Nvidia out of caution - Nvidia is still the much bigger player in the GPU space. I myself bought the RTX 3080. It could have been different if I had patience to wait until late November.
And speaking of Ryzen, the 5000 series just took another dump on Intel. ~20% more performance at the same frequency. Now AMD is the one pushing the performance envelope in the CPU world.

Wow you got your hands on the 3080? Last I heard, bots were buying them up and they were being scalped for over a grand.

I didn't know you were that's serious of a PC gamer. If figured you to be a console gamer on Xbox despite the heavy interest and knowledge of PC hardware.

 

[masta247]

Wow you got your hands on the 3080? Last I heard, bots were buying them up and they were being scalped for over a grand.

I didn't know you were that's serious of a PC gamer. If figured you to be a console gamer on Xbox despite the heavy interest and knowledge of PC hardware.

I like playing with hardware, so PC building is the perfect hobby for me. I'm not even that much of a gamer anymore, but all of my screens are 4K and I want that 60fps on Max settings when I do end up picking up that one or two major games per year that I want to experience properly. For instance, I look forward to Cyberpunk and I like the idea of being able to experience it the best way it can be experienced.

As for availability, it sucks, but here in Canada a couple of major stores had a queue backorder system, so I put my name on the list on launch day and the card shipped three days ago but haven't gotten to me yet.

That will be interesting to see. Masta's words from a few years ago still echo in my head when Ryzen was first unveiled. He said it would take years for Intel to catch up. I knew nothing of hardware back then, and still don't but I know a bit more now and it's crazy. Intel is still fumbling around for an answer to Ryzen and its price to performance ratio. And now AMD is setting it's sights on Nvidia after we just assumed Nvidia was king for the past decade. Maybe even longer than that.

Thanks! It's not just price to performance now. The Ryzen 5000 series are much faster than anything Intel has at this point, and likely to be much more power efficient again too since AMD is at 7nm while Intel is still going to be at 14nm throughout 2021. Ryzen 5000 will most likely end up being the fastest CPU cores in the world for the time being, and will most likely remain that until the next Ryzen generation launches.

 

[dilla]

I like playing with hardware, so PC building is the perfect hobby for me. I'm not even that much of a gamer anymore, but all of my screens are 4K and I want that 60fps on Max settings when I do end up picking up that one or two major games per year that I want to experience properly. For instance, I look forward to Cyberpunk and I like the idea of being able to experience it the best way it can be experienced.

As for availability, it sucks, but here in Canada a couple of major stores had a queue backorder system, so I put my name on the list on launch day and the card shipped three days ago but haven't gotten to me yet.



Thanks! It's not just price to performance now. The Ryzen 5000 series are much faster than anything Intel has at this point, and likely to be much more power efficient again too since AMD is at 7nm while Intel is still going to be at 14nm throughout 2021. Ryzen 5000 will most likely end up being the fastest CPU cores in the world for the time being, and will most likely remain that until the next Ryzen generation launches.

Yeah I can understand that. Could the 2080s not do 4K/60? I thought the big thing about the 30 Series was being about to do 4K/120, so I assumed the best from the previous series was 4K/60.

Is there any game out there that a 3080 or 3090 can not run at Max settings at 4K?

About the Intel/AMD thing, so AMD also has the best performing CPU on market right now? I figured the entire AMD lineup performed at a B+ to A level, but that the A+ performer was still some outrageously expensive Intel chip that wouldn't even be found on a consumer-level machine. Like something on the Pro level.

So the best AMD CPU has better peaks than the best Intel one? I figured Intel at least had the peak performance to hang their hats on, albeit at a ridiculous price compared to AMD.

 

[masta247]

Yeah I can understand that. Could the 2080s not do 4K/60? I thought the big thing about the 30 Series was being about to do 4K/120, so I assumed the best from the previous series was 4K/60.

Is there any game out there that a 3080 or 3090 can not run at Max settings at 4K?

There are many games even the 2080 Ti can't run at 4k/60. Either poorly optimized games or games that nobody benchmarks because they aren't AAA titles. For instance, Yakuza Kiwami 2 dropped to below 30fps on the 2080 Super in crowded areas, which was precisely my experience. Even Sleeping Dogs, a game from 2012, can't reach 60fps on the 2080 Super maxed out at 4K, and that game still looks beautiful maxed out. So it happens that these were the two main games I was playing this year. Sadly, reviewers don't test games that aren't new, AAA titles that are perfectly optimized to reach those performance targets on current hardware. The games I play somehow end up requiring more power to run well maxed out in 4K. That's why I got the 3080. By the time high refresh rate 4K monitors become mainstream the 3080 won't be powerful enough to take advantage of that in newest games anyway - I think it's just the first card that's actually capable of hitting 4K/60 in almost every scenario, and 4k/120 in some lighter ones.

About the Intel/AMD thing, so AMD also has the best performing CPU on market right now? I figured the entire AMD lineup performed at a B+ to A level, but that the A+ performer was still some outrageously expensive Intel chip that wouldn't even be found on a consumer-level machine. Like something on the Pro level.

So the best AMD CPU has better peaks than the best Intel one? I figured Intel at least had the peak performance to hang their hats on, albeit at a ridiculous price compared to AMD.

Ryzen 5000 series are the fastest CPUs in the world bar none. Their overall performance is ahead of Intel by a very healthy margin at this point. Judging by early benchmarks, the difference is so enormous that AMD's 6-core CPU (5600X - $299) is now faster than Intel's fastest 8-core CPU (9900K/10700k):

In SiSoftware's suite, which is where those benchmarks are from, AMD's new 8-core is faster than Intel's fastest 8-core by around 38%. Intel's highest end tops out at 10-cores which performs like AMD's newest 8-core, while AMD's mainstream line-up goes all the way to 16 cores. AMD's CPUs are now just much faster.

They were already faster than Intel's last gen, they just were sort of 'A-' in gaming and *some* single-threaded scenarios - which served as Intel's final bastions. This year's Ryzen 5000 series, however are around 5-20% faster than Intel's very fastest CPU in gaming as well according to their official numbers. All of that at much less power and heat too, and at a still lower price. Intel isn't competitive in anything here.

 

[dilla]

I think it's just the first card that's actually capable of hitting 4K/60 in almost every scenario, and 4k/120 in some lighter ones

See, this is why I asked because there are reports about the next gen gaming consoles and how often and likely it is that we'd actually see 4K/120 on them. Probably the wrong thread to bring it up in, but the PS5 and the SX are both touted as 4K/120 consoles. I was wrong in doing so, but other people fell in to the same trap, and thought that it meant that all new games would run at 4K/120, or close to it. What it seems MS and Sony are saying is that they are "capable" of running it at level. So I asked about the limits of, both, the 20 and 30 Series cards to get an idea the distance between the 30 and the 20 Series and the GPU in the SX and PS5. I figured it would be big since it would be silly to expect a $500 machine to outperform a $2000+ setup with a top of the line GPU, but the stuff being reported about games like Yakuza at 900p and DMC5 with no ray tracing had me curious as to how ridiculous it was for me to assume the next gen consoles would do 4K/120 with no issue, all the time. The SS is a whole different story and it's not being marketed as a true 4K machine but still somehow many of us got the impression that 1440/120 would be the norm; just a step behind the 4K/120 we were expecting from the SX all the time.


So it sounds more and more like the ball is in the developers' courts when it comes to how well these games will run on PC or consoles. I know I'm not the only one lacking any knowledge on how hardware works who was expecting 4K/120 for the SX and PS5 or 1440/120 for the Series S all the time because the hardware simply existed allowing it to do so. It sounds like a locked 60 fps and 4K is going to be standard except for the Series S.

 

[masta247]

Soo... Ryzen 5000 series hit the shelves today and reviews are in:

AMD’s new halo part expands Ryzen 9’s dominating lead in productivity applications and beats Intel’s competing processors in every other metric, including 1080p gaming performance, by surprising margins.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-9-5950x-5900x-zen-3-review

When AMD announced that its new Zen 3 core was a ground-up redesign and offered complete performance leadership, we had to ask them to confirm if that’s exactly what they said. Despite being less than 10% the size of Intel, and very close to folding as a company in 2015, the bets that AMD made in that timeframe with its next generation Zen microarchitecture and Ryzen designs are now coming to fruition. Zen 3 and the new Ryzen 5000 processors, for the desktop market, are the realization of those goals: not only performance per watt and performance per dollar leaders, but absolute performance leadership in every segment. We’ve gone into the new microarchitecture and tested the new processors. AMD is the new king, and we have the data to show it.

Despite being the cheapest and technically the slowest processor of the bunch, I was mightily surprised by the performance of the Ryzen 5 5600X: it completely knocks the socks off of anything Intel has to offer – even Tiger Lake.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1621...ive-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested

Investing in AMD stock was the easiest money I have ever earned, deciding to not buy a new cell phone and invest in this stock instead is now worth a home down payment. I just wish I could invest more back then, and you can't say I wasn't hyping them up back then either: