Here we go. Old is Gold @ryan @Mr. Fox @electrosoft @Talon +++ 

A whopping 37% of Steam users' playtime in 2024 was spent on titles released eight or more years ago

When it comes to our cumulative gaming habits, it's clear that the old reliables reign supreme....

Linux need better gaming support. That would help people/gamers to migrate over from Windows to Linux. 

20 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I am excited to see how much it drops your temps as well.

It always has been unnecessary and a bad idea. ASUS is the worst about bundling it in the BIOS cancer updates rather than letting computer owners decide if they want the new ME cancer. It's stupefying and baffling that there are people that go out deliberately looking for ME updates to manually upgrade to the newest feces to slow down their computers.

Now we live in modern times.  You'll need the latest and greatest for your gaming experience. Yup, spyware as an helper for performance uplift. Fantastic idea. Clever done.

And Intel want that you go with the new and shiny OS from Redmond to get most out of your 200 series processors. Sure.

Here's more from the modern tech world. 5090 - 5090Ti - 5090 Super and finally 5090Ti Super. What to get?🥴 Yup, not all will be released but what a sick sick tech world. May we also see an 5000 series RTX Titan on top?

10 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

There is a method that System76 uses to disable the ME altogether in firmware. I am not sure if there is a measureable performance difference but it is a nice to have feature. You can also choose any microcode patch desired or none at all. There is a cost to that configurability as they usually charge $500 over the cost of the same machine from Sager.

In short... Now you need to disable/enable ME to get the best performance to play games. Isn't that nice? Maybe a toggle switch in the OS to stop the need for going into bios or reboot every time you start a game would be smart.

And for the records... Some code in the ME firmware will still run even if you disable it. Without some needed code you can't boot from what I know.. Aka Intel governments vs gamers consumers = 1-0

Many ways to make modern worse than it has to be. But the tech trend continue. I'm quite fed up of modern ways to make thing more complicated to get what you paid for. 

10 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

EVGA Dark and Classified motherboardd included an option in the BIOS to disable the Intel ME  and I always disabled it because it is totally worthless and unnecessary. It should be a standard BIOS feature on all motherboards, all price ranges. A side-benefit that some people care about is computers with Intel ME disabled are more secure. EVGA did, and ASUS does, provide an option to select micro-code versions in the BIOS on their enthusiast-tier consumer motherboards. I would hope the same should be applied on HEDT boards. If not, there should be. I do not remember seeing options to choose micro-code version in the BIOS prior to LGA-1700.

15 hours ago, Reciever said:

Should be resolved now

Thanks 🙂

Not much flesh on the bone here. And aren't mc 0x114 already out in beta with not much gain? How will this give performance parity with older 14th gen chips in games? We'll see when the reviewers and gamers test with all so called performance improvement patches. As Intel mentioned in the cheat sheet... Minimum 6% performance gain... This should be enough to beat previous gen Intel chips. Is Santa Claus real?

Intel vs Intel: Core Ultra 9 285K vs Core i9 14900K

So, there you have it – confirmation of what we discovered when first testing the Core Ultra 285K. It's around 5% slower than the 14900K for gaming, but at times, it can be much slower than that. In terms of overall gaming performance, the 285K sits between the 12900K and 14900K, which is a decent result given how little power it uses in comparison.

5 hours ago, Eban said:

WTF did I just watch?

Madness

https://www.dagbladet.no/video/eurovision-hap-sjokkerer-hva-faen/dZQITTh1

Mozilla Seemingly Prepares For Google Anti-Trust Lawsuit Fallout With New Search Partner

O&O ShutUp10++ 1.9.1441 released 12/18/2024

O&O ShutUp10++ 1.9.1441 released 12/18/2024

4 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I don't use it anyhow. No need for silly bloat like that IMHO. I felt the same way about GeFarts Experience and do not install it. There is nothing I can identify to suggest a good reason for me to install the new NVIDIA App or GeFarts Experience. I am very sad with the thought that the no-nonsense legacy NVIDIA Control Panel will be going away. It's going to suck having to install the App trash

Nvidia Control panel (cpanel) as standalone. Portable version. Click and run. No need for the new, fancy and modern.

The forum is slow to respond today. Also the same yesterday but worse  @Reciever

AVX512 throttling, clock stretching or something completely different?! – 9800X3D with up to 35% less performance at the same clock speed | Investigativ

Please always make sure that you don't set a static core voltage (Vcore) above 1.3 V! Otherwise, your sensitive 9800X3D CPU, of which there are already far too few examples, could potentially die.

New is always better.... Also Intel's brand new app for their GPU's have exactly same problems. 

3 hours ago, tps3443 said:

Yes, the Intel B580 was a home run. The native performance is VERY GOOD! It starts to make even bigger strides at 1440P, and then even larger gaps at 4K. The Intel scaling really works, and their XeSS frame gen puts some abnormally large gaps between the 4060. I’m so impressed such a GPU can even perform this well for $250. I had to buy one and be a part of the movement. So I hope it makes Intel a viable option.

Yep, the native performance is comparable and even can beat similar priced 2 years old (yet more expensive) Nvidia and AMD card. Just sad they are fiddled with some weirdo problems. Forget overclocking for now. If and when Intel will fix it... I don't know. But the need for iGPU or a spare GPU to come on track again with the Battlemage GPU (back to working state) isn't an great experience. And this become the norm everytime you want to push the GPU above it's default settings. I have no time for this. So once again a unfinished product from Intel. The modern tech trend continue.  

Intel has throttled Arc Battlemage graphics: they physically support PCIe 5.0, but function as PCIe 4.0
https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2024/12/intel-capado-arc-battlemage-pcie-5a-pcie-4/

Second rant for the weekend....

Greed. All is about greed and maximize profit margins. But I'm sure Intel will regret this move. Almost no chips in some stores (region depent) doesn't mean Intel seell many of their Arrow Lake chips. They simply aren't an option. Neither for gaming or for performance jockey's with desktop builds. The lack of AL chips for desktops is most likely because Intel will try save their Joke Book market share. 

I think the fact that HyperThreading is missing makes this product worse than if it had it. Again, I'm not an architect, but I would assume this choice was based on cost. Adding complexity adds cost to an already expensive, TSMC-made product, and perhaps a choice was made for a little extra margin vs a little extra performance.

I really hope we don't keep seeing companies trending toward decisions like these from the top down. If hyperthreading was there, I am positive reviews would generally be much more complimentary, and the chip would easily be a more viable contender in the space, and we could put Raptor Lake fully behind us.

There you have it. Maximize profits and at same time try to save their best milking cow (laptop market). 

On 12/3/2024 at 4:54 PM, saturnotaku said:

Arc isn't well optimized for older DirectX 9-10 era games. It's a hardware problem more than a software one. That said, assuming your motherboard also supports resizable BAR, I would still probably get the A580 over the 6 GB RTX 3050 purely out of spite for NVIDIA sticking its thumb in the collective eye of the consumer.

 

Today also marks the official launch of Battlemage, with the mid-range B580 ($250) and B570 ($220) coming later this month and in mid-January, respectively. The completely overhauled architecture looks like it will deliver significant performance improvements over Alchemist. B580 seems like it will compete more with the RTX 4060 than the 4060 Ti as was rumored. I think those expectations were a bit too lofty, though.

 

 

Battlemage is a lot better card than the old Arc. So Intel have improved a lot and finally can compete in low/mid end. 

Intel Arc B580 “Battlemage” Graphics Cards Review Roundup

Windows 11 KB5048667 install fails, performance, gaming issues. Windows 11 24H2 affected

O&O ShutUp10++ 1.9.1440 released 12/11/2024

O&O ShutUp10++ 1.9.1440 released 12/11/2024

O&O ShutUp10++ 1.9.1440 released 12/11/2024

You have to be an moron if you trust Microsoft! Hence you need software as etc the one above.

Hmmm. Is this what gamers have waited for the last month? One thinfg for sure... Intel will release security patches at the end of Arrow Lake life. And we all know what to expect right before relase of a new gen chips.

Intel's latest Arrow Lake CPU firmware reportedly offers little to no performance gains

Rumor has it that the upcoming 0x114 microcode is the long-awaited one-stop fix for Arrow Lake, which has leaked online. While we don't recommend flashing microcodes from third-party sources, a few brave souls at Overclock.net did that just for experimentation, and to their dismay, the gains were non-existent. As a user reported, his Core Ultra 9 285K paired with the ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF saw a 6% drop in Cinebench R23 MT scores because of low clock speeds.

Here's yet another failure. The Cpu and the MB use 3x 8 pins connectors nowadays. With this (white) fancy PSU you have abysmal 3x 8 pin + the modern 12+4 pin connector for nvidia graphics cards. So no love for coming AMD and Intel graphics cards. How stupid is that? And you can't power up your nvidia graphics cards if it have 8 pin connectors. Modern means better. Because it's newer and hence has to be better? This type PSU's should have come with only 8-pins connectors instead for the 12+4 pin connector. Just put with 8-pins to 12+4 pin adapter cable. How stupid can some (design) engineers be?

GameMax, an emerging brand of PC gaming components including gaming cases and power supply units, proudly announces the GS SFX Gold Series power supply

GameMax Introduces GS SFX Gold Series PSU with ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 Standards

And who'm would power up the CPU this way? Yes you get an pigtail (4 + 4 Pin) ATX 12V Power cable for powering the Cpu but I don't like this sorts of cheapo made design solution. Ans same idiotic design idea for the more powerful 850W models.

Gamemax.... Yup the prefered PSU. For some newer Nvidia graphics cards.

2 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I will post something when the time comes. They offer a 5 gram tube but it is over $40. That is a ton of liquid metal and a reasonable price considering how much, but I ordered the 1.5g for a whole lot less money just to see how it works before I order a ton of it. I pay less attention to the W/mK ratings than I used to because they are often not an accurate indicator of how the product works.

 

I think some of the companies in China just make stuff up and put it in their product information because they know they'll never need to provide proof to support what they print. I tried some thermal paste recently that had a very high W/mK rating and it was rubbish. I got it at no cost and will use it for temporary application purposes on something I know will be taken apart again.

Yup. Thermal Conductivity numbers at 130 W/m-K is more as a scam fake number. More of the higher conductive matrial Indium won't make magic if you know that Indium can't reach above 86W/mK as standalone metal alloy. And Indium is what's make the high conductive numbers in any Liquid metal. 

See also... A lie or a gray area? How to construct high thermal conductivity.

 Anyway. Looking forwards to results 🙂

2 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I agree. Silly to pay a lot for something like this. I recently ordered these. Looks like they're essentially the same with a different brand name on the outside. They are tightly spun and less fuzzy  than regular cotton swabs.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WDH7TW3

Dang. I know why you wanted these swabs😁

And the list continue grow. When will it be better? 

GN smells blood😬 

4 hours ago, electrosoft said:

GN has its issues. Steve is not the best presenter, long winded and prone to sensationalism but he does get the job done and is thorough in his fact finding and bringing companies and organizations to task.

 

He has a few times stepped over the line a bit and was reeled back in though. Good example is GN vs LTT. He had the momentum but then went a little too far and could feel his crowd turn on him a hair so he dialed it back.

It's hard competitoion between the YouTubers....  NZXT CEO try hard to extinguish the fire. How much is lies, I don't know. But he need to be careful or it will become worse.