Hardware

AMD has been teasing the Ryzen 9000X3D Zen 5 CPUs with 3D V-Cache and today they formally announced the specs of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor that will begin shipping 7 November.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is AMD's 8-core / 16-thread processor with 64MB of 3D V-Cache. This uses 2nd Gen AMD 3D V-Cache where the 64MB of cache is now underneath the processor cores so that the CCD is positioned closer to the heatsink/cooler. The intent is that the new 3D V-Cache processors will run cooler than prior generation 3D V-Cache processors.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D will boost up to 5.2GHz and feature a 4.7GHz while total it provides 104MB of cache. This 120 Watt processor will have a suggested retail price of $479 USD. Again, expect retail availability on 7 November.

RISC-V firm Milk-V demonstrated that it can get AMD’s RX 7900 XTX graphics card to work on one of its RISC-V boards. The PC shown in the video uses Milk-V’s Megrez board, which is equipped with Chinese RISC-V chip maker Eswin’s EIC7700X, a system-on-chip (SoC) that hosts four P550 CPU cores designed by SiFive. The P550 core has been around since 2021, so it’s nothing cutting-edge at the tail end of 2024. The SoC sport H.265 encoding and decoding at 8K, and has a 20 TOPS NPU, which are both reasonably robust for PCs.

Intel’s work on developing a PCIe Cooling Driver for Linux users has reached a significant milestone. According to a report published by Phoronix, the driver is ready to merge with the upcoming Linux 6.13 kernel. That means Linux systems packing PCIe storage with thermal challenges should handle better when the updated OS becomes available sometime in November. Such measures will probably become all the more important with PCIe 6.0 on the horizon.

We previously reported that Intel’s dev team was preparing this PCIe Cooling Driver for Linux in May, and now we have the first harvestable fruit from their labor. Tom’s Hardware readers will be aware of the ramp-up in thermal issues with the move from PCIe 3.0 to the current pinnacle of PCIe 5.0 storage. The best SSDs available for PCs and consoles, like the PS5, use PCIe 5.0 technology – but cooling needs to be considered.

RISC-V International, the global standards organization, today announced that the RVA23 Profile is now ratified. RVA Profiles align implementations of RISC-V 64-bit application processors that will run rich operating systems (OS) stacks from standard binary OS distributions. RVA Profiles are essential to software portability across many hardware implementations and help to avoid vendor lock-in. The newly ratified RVA23 Profile is a major release for the RISC-V software ecosystem and will help accelerate widespread implementation among toolchains and operating systems.

Each Profile specifies which ISA features are mandatory or optional, providing a common target for software developers. Mandatory extensions can be assumed to be present, and optional extensions can be discovered at runtime and leveraged by optimized middleware, libraries, and applications.

Key Components of RVA23 Include:

• Vector Extension: The Vector extension accelerates math-intensive workloads, including AI/ML, cryptography, and compression / decompression. Vector extensions yield better performance in mobile and computing applications with RVA23 as the baseline requirement for the Android RISC-V ABI.
• Hypervisor Extension: The Hypervisor extension will enable virtualization for enterprise workloads in both on-premises server and cloud computing applications. This will accelerate the development of RISC-V-based enterprise hardware, operating systems, and software workloads. The Hypervisor extension will also provide better security for mobile applications by separating secure and non-secure components.

Was watching this video on the "tri-fold" phone by MKBHD and that thing is thicc! I don't care about folds, but I can't find a single phone without a fold ~~phone~~ that is that thick. The battery life would be amazing...

Hello fellow lemmings!

Cross posted from pcmasterrace and techsupport

I am in need of some advice on how to expand my workstation.

I currently have 2 monitors and 2 laptops with 1 docking station that I switch back and forth between (I do have a second Bluetooth mouse that I connect to the laptop that is not currently connected to the docking station, if I need to).

I would like to have 4 monitors by the upcoming tax season. Also, I would like the option to expand to a total of 3 laptops within a couple years.

I have looked into KVM switches and the only one that I can find for 4 monitors and 2 computers is upwards of $800. Is there a KVM switch out there for 4 monitors and 3 computers, or is this just a pipedream?

What other solutions should I consider? When I expand to 3 computers in the upcoming years, would having 2 workstations be cheaper/more efficient?

Hi community!
I'm in the process of building a new office PC for:

• tenths of firefox tabs open some with Microsoft 365 Excel
• some VMs because I will be installing Debian on the host, but in the office we use some Microsoft software and because, since I install, uninstall, create a lot of mess, I like to be able to go back to old snapshots or format and reinstall Windows without impacting my day to day job.

I'm still undecided about the CPU: AMD 9950x, 9700x or 7950x, but where I' completely blind is the motherboard. What I would like:

• more than 2 PCIe slots to:
  • install a PCI USB card to pass the whole controller to a VM
  • install an extra NIC
  • I want to be able to install a graphic card in future if needed
• more than 4 USB-A ports
• more than 1 USB-C port
• a well known and reliable brand

Do you have any suggestion even for an SSD (probably 4TB, in the 2-300€ range, maybe even something more) and RAM (64GB)?

Thanks!

AMD today made public their RDNA 3.5 instruction set architecture (ISA) programming guide for these updated RDNA3 graphics found within new Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" APUs thus far.

I recently bought an external PCIe enclosure so I could make use of a specific PCIe device in an editing setup. One of the nice things about this particular enclosure is that it also happens to come with an m.2 slot for NVME drives as well.

Usually when I edit with my home set up, I'm provided with the storage by the client, and even if not, at the very least, video media, plus backups takes up a lot of room and NVME drives are expensive so I'd usually opt for something cheaper as the actual location for the footage and assets. I figured then that it might be take advantage of an NVME drive of a smaller, more affordable capacity and use it just as a location for video render cache that I just clear after every project wraps. The high speeds of these drives seems like it would be a good fit for this purpose.

However I've heard that SSDs, including NVME are famously short lived and have particularly short life spans in terms of number of write operations. Is that still the case and would the constant writing and clearing of relatively small video files actually be kind of the worst use of one of these drives?

I’m looking to leverage the Thunderbolt port on my desktop to get more USB ports.

Looking around and most Thunderbolt hubs are for laptops and have hdmi and Ethernet and such that I don’t really want.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a simple hub?

Some Type-a and c ports world be lovely.

(I am a noob. I have many misconceptions. I am willing to listen however, so please be kind)

I wonder if:

• a mini PC might be a good thing to lug around (instead of a laptop)
• nice also because it is much cheaper than a laptop (due to different design constraints)
• but whom to trust? Beelink and Minisforum come up in HackerNews discussions, but I have trust issues

My question: which (mini) PC manufacturers are kind, reliable, trustworthy?

My trust issues are:

• I find it difficult to believe that I am buying anything of quality whether or not I am not paying a lot (briefly I had a period of hope where I thought that perhaps paying more in general would be a good thing as far as quality is concerned, and that hypothesis did not hold up)

• I find it difficult to believe that most products created in China/Asia-more-generally are built with kindness in mind (kindness for the worker, kindness for the consumer, kindness for everything in between): e.g. see the plethora of absolute shit that floods Amazon, Temu, etc.)

The second point, on China, deserves clarification:

• I only mention China specifically because computer hardware in general is designed and produced there, and when mini PCs are concerned, most manufacturers are based in China: e.g. Beelink and Minisforum

• it is not an issue of worker skill or product quality: I know I can get excellent goods that are worth far more than what they actually sell for (e.g. Chi-fi earbuds!), and that almost everything is made in Asia

• I work for a company that produces goods in China, and "we" ""make"" (I make nothing) good stuff! Part of our edge comes from comes from the fact that my company's owner is Chinese and puts in a lot of care into working with factories that are kind (to their workers: clothing manufacturers are often shit to women and pay them less, because misogyny is a thing everywhere)

they wouldn't have to put in this care if it wasn't a problem to begin with

• my trust issue is ultimately due to: I think most persons working in the production chain for most goods that western consumers consume are unhappy, regardless of where they live (e.g. from the people who do the final delivery to our doorstep, to the people who initially mine the raw materials)

• most of this anger is well-justified: e.g. my government and companies operating out of my country are in general, callous, but especially when it comes to Asians and Africans; some of this anger is due to how convenient it is for local leaders to make the "other" a problem, as a distraction

• anyway, getting distracted, but my point is that: if a product I buy is being made by unhappy people, then I am going to be cursed for using it: it will be full of toxic chemicals they had to endure while making it, it will be full of their spite they have for me not paying enough for their hard work, etc. the list goes ever on

(Sorry for this insanity.)