UltraMega

Yea I did, around black Friday last year I think. Still works great. Definitely a purchase I don't regret. https://a.co/d/09z0HHz

Update: AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D full specifications have leaked, and it’s great news for gamers and overclockers alike

https://www.techspot.com/news/105318-samsung-speeds-up-development-new-breed-memory-combines.html I had to look up the term "chalcogenide material". Definitely something that could have a big impact if it comes to fruition.

So just an update, I've been looking for a way to disable auto exposure but so far I haven't been able to find any usable config files for the game pass version. I sort of doubt there is a way to disable it and if there isn't I don't know if will get back to it. Maybe an update will mitigate the issue because it feels broken as is.

If you're looking for a list, you could use pcpartpicker.com to get a good list of what you're looking for.

I haven't played COD in a long time either. So far I'm not enjoying it much because it just doesn't really let you actually play the game. So many cutscenes and videos. For every 10 minutes of the game, you get to actually play the game for maybe 2 of those minutes. Hopefully it picks up. Edit: The game uses "auto exposure" to a really broken feeling degree. I can't see things right in front of me if the camera angle is a little too low, but from a slightly different angle it's nice and bright. Super annoying. The last game I played that did this was Homefront 2.

So I started up BO6 and after a total mess of an install-update process, I got it to launch. Seems to be further than a lot of people have gotten so far. Was confused for a while because you have to load up the campaign before you can get to the graphics settings.

That would be nice, but those kind of OC gains ended a long time ago.

Highly doubt this socket will be more than 2 gens for obvious reasons. Your logic about "why would I choose Intel" seems to be the same logic I'd expect most consumers to go with. AMD has been beating Intel for a few generations now and I think any hope that Intel was going to turn things around is completely gone at this point. It feels like a shifting point in the sense that; Intel is at a pretty low point in terms of public perception AND their chips are mostly worse than the competition. So at this point I'd expect AMD to gain more traction. If there is any hope that Intel would ever do the same socket for more than 2 gens going forward, it would only be due to pressure form AMD. I think Intel is now riding on its long term public perception. How long can they do that before the larger market starts taking AMD more seriously?

It does best in workloads, but it's vastly less efficient than AMD in those areas.

This

Lots to go over in the articles, so instead of quoting anything, I'll just give a brief TLDR: The 285K does well in workstation tasks, but for gaming it's all over the place. In a few titles it performs very well, but it most it performs pretty poorly. I suspect some updates to games or windows could eventually help with this, but so far it looks like there's a lot of mess to sort through. I don't think hardly anyone will be buying these just for gaming in the near future. https://www.techspot.com/review/2911-intel-core-ultra-9-285k/

My days off are Tuesday/Wednesday now. IDK why I'm on this UK rap fix, but here it is:

https://www.guru3d.com/story/amd-set-to-launch-ryzen-9000x3d-desktop-processor-on-november-7/ https://www.guru3d.com/story/amd-reduces-prices-for-ryzen-9000-series-desktop-processors/ Definitely curious to see how the X3D chips shake out.

Next month MSFS2024, Stalker 2, and COD:BO6 all come out within a 5-day time span. I'm definitely going to play all three. It'll be a good week for Xbox. Maybe game pass will finally gain a little traction. Separately, Could Imperium just dropped an hour of Squadron 42 gameplay.

There is actually one other aspect to this, which is AI. I suspect most of Nvidia's reasons for skimping on ram are just based on greed and planned obsolescence, but there is a argument that Nvidia is also trying to prevent the market from being flooded with cheap and effective AI capable GPUs. Most AI applications require a lot of Vram, 12GBs is sort of the minimum just to get started with basic stuff like image gen. Selling relatively cheap GPUs with AI capabilities and enough Vram to back up said capabilities could cut in to their non-gaming related sales, and it could give China an easy way around some of the chip embargos. Vram was never really an issue before AI enabled GPUs, and it's been an issue ever since. I wonder if AMD might release GPUs with less Vram if/when they catch up to Nvidia on AI enabled GPUs for similar reasons.

Even with all that in mind, Nvidia wasn't skimping on ram until ray tracing became a thing. It was sort of forgivable for the first RT gen because the cards were actually doing something new, and the 2000 series felt more like a 1000 series refresh with RT added on. At the time, the ram situation was generally fine as it was anyway. The difference now is that only the two most expensive cards, at a price range that is only for die hard enthusiasts, have enough Vram that users won't be forced to upgrade again soon just to keep up with Vram requirements. I bet it also has to do with DLSS. If GPUs had enough Vram, there would probably be a good amount of people who would delay upgrading and just switch to a lower DLSS mode for a while. DLSS is a great way to mitigate a lack of GPU power, but running low on Vram is much more detrimental to the overall experience. If the 3080 had 16GBs or more, I bet it would still be a pretty popular card today. Planned obsolescence, pure and simple.

It seems like Nvidia is taking the Rockstar approach and selling the same product twice. Just like how Rockstar always does this "will they-won't they" thing with PC releases which causes a lot of people to buy the game twice, Nvidia wants people to have a reason to upgrade twice in one gen if possible. Even Apple doesn't get away with this kind of thing anymore. Going from 70 series cards with 8GBs to 70 series cards with 12GBs over the course of 5 generations pure anti-consumer BS.

Source 5090 - 32GB 5080 - 16GB 5070 - 12GB Nvidia continuing the trend of gimping their GPUs on Vram to force buyers to pay more if they want to avoid Vram issues. 12GB is not enough for modern gaming.

https://www.techspot.com/news/105130-google-purging-ad-blocking-extension-ublock-origin-chrome.html#commentsOffset I have been using Edge for years now. Since it's chromium based, I see no reason to use chrome instead. Edge works perfectly fine. Edge Canary on mobile can support any extensions the desktop version can now, in developer mode.

Definitely a good looking game. Have you tried a lower upscaling setting than ultra quality? For a game like this, I might go down as far as "Balanced" mode if it got me to 60FPS in 4K. Do you prefer XeSS to FSR?

AMD Introduces Ryzen AI 300 PRO Series with Enhanced CPU and GPU Capabilities (guru3d.com) First x86 CPUs that will meet Windows NPU requirements.

Intel Announcement Preview: Intel Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake CPUs (guru3d.com) Not sure what the NPUs are even there for with how weak they are. Will be interesting to see how ditching hyper-threading impacts performance.