AMD announces Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 CPUs

Uh huh. Point on the doll where SATA and cheap data storage hurt you. Some people might want more than a 1-2TB nvme drive for data.
It’s called a NAS. One machine in the house - ideal use case for a SATA expansion card
 
It’s called a NAS. One machine in the house - ideal use case for a SATA expansion card

Yes I have a NAS, several actually but even in my itx builds I usually want room for 1 3.5'' HDD or a 2.5'' drive, ssd or hdd let alone an atx or matx build. Local storage is king for any number of reasons. Laptops are the only thing that I have gone to ssd only with.
 
In the past, parts of the CPU that we now take for granted, like FPU and L3 cache, were separate components that could be replaced or omitted as desired. Though it reduces flexibility, I for one am glad that all those things are now integrated. I'm sympathetic to the desire for simplicity, but integrating all these things actually makes things simpler by reducing the number of parts that are needed to implement those features (no need for connectors, wires, extra voltage regulators etc. that expansion cards need), as well as simplifying manufacturing.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, integrating something like a GPU sets a baseline that developers can aim for when writing software. Just like in the past a lot of software would avoid floating-point calculations because CPUs didn't have FPUs built in, so GPU acceleration today is considered an extra special feature because you can't rely on a given machine supporting the GPU features that you want to use. Once every PC has a basic GPU, it can be used as if it was just another instruction set, like SSE or AVX. In fact it might end up replacing those instruction sets, making CPUs simpler overall.
 
Clients get NVME drives only.

Mass storage goes on the NAS server, and on that I'm not trusting any on board SATA. LSI SAS HBA's are the way to go.
Depends on the nas.

1: dual LSI with 16 SSD (currently 8, borrowed the other 8 for another use case)
2: LSI in RAID + Adaptec in raid (mix of spinning and enterprise flash).
3: onboard sata with 4x SSD
4: PERC card in HBA mode.
5: Onboard LSI using data for boot and sas for pass through.



I might have too much storage. And yeah, most use real HBA too. Damn.
 
Clients get NVME drives only.

Mass storage goes on the NAS server, and on that I'm not trusting any on board SATA. LSI SAS HBA's are the way to go.
Agreed, if your storage server isn’t running active scans to ensure data integrity and raid health then you are just asking for problems. SATA on some consumer board isn’t doing that. It’s the wrong tool for the job.
 
In the past, parts of the CPU that we now take for granted, like FPU and L3 cache, were separate components that could be replaced or omitted as desired. Though it reduces flexibility, I for one am glad that all those things are now integrated. I'm sympathetic to the desire for simplicity, but integrating all these things actually makes things simpler by reducing the number of parts that are needed to implement those features (no need for connectors, wires, extra voltage regulators etc. that expansion cards need), as well as simplifying manufacturing.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, integrating something like a GPU sets a baseline that developers can aim for when writing software. Just like in the past a lot of software would avoid floating-point calculations because CPUs didn't have FPUs built in, so GPU acceleration today is considered an extra special feature because you can't rely on a given machine supporting the GPU features that you want to use. Once every PC has a basic GPU, it can be used as if it was just another instruction set, like SSE or AVX. In fact it might end up replacing those instruction sets, making CPUs simpler overall.
Exactly. A common base or feature set simplifies software development. The ability to customize every facet of a PC sounds great until the moment of realization that it won't boot an operating system.

That isn't to say I don't have my share of complaints. Manufacturers produce enough motherboards for mainstream chipsets that a decoder ring is necessary to decipher the model numbers, so there's room for more diversity in offerings if the demand is there. It's probably not necessary to put RGB LEDs on every motherboard, for example.

On the CPU side, some extra PCIe lanes would be nice, especially now that all "desktops" are almost by definition "high end". That should be possible without encroaching on the enterprise workstation segment. The increased bandwidth from PCIe version bumps helps to some extent, but doesn't provide the same flexibility as more lanes.

ECC memory is an example of a feature that depends on both the CPU and motherboard for support, and while I want that support, others don't care. Meaning... be careful what you wish for. ;)

I do wish the software world would adopt the KISS principle instead of reinventing the wheel every two weeks in fourteen different languages, and rearranging the UI in the process.
 
I had no idea about this. I often see people talk about turning BGR screens upside down and rotating the desktop in orger to get RGB ClearType., but if that breaks VRR, that's a non-starter.

I do this for my gigabyte m27q (edit: unofficially gsync 'compatible')

rotate display via nvidia control panel instead of windows display settings keeps gsync active for me full screen and windowed, confirmed with setting gsync indicator on via nvida control panel and pendulum demo - won't show if you set display rotation via windows, only via nvidia control panel

no clue how it is for amd/freesync/vrr
 
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Agreed, if your storage server isn’t running active scans to ensure data integrity and raid health then you are just asking for problems. SATA on some consumer board isn’t doing that. It’s the wrong tool for the job.
I let the filesystem handle that (generally some version of ZFS, or OnTap, also storage spaces on one box). Controllers (with the exception of the box with adaptec cards) are just access methods.
 
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Agreed, if your storage server isn’t running active scans to ensure data integrity and raid health then you are just asking for problems. SATA on some consumer board isn’t doing that. It’s the wrong tool for the job.
Any storage controller is the wrong tool for the job.
 
I haven’t used SATA in most of my systems for years now — The only system that has SATA drives is my freenas. I put exclusively NVME in everything else, so sata gets disabled and has become dead transistors. It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest to have to buy a SATA controller for my NAS, or buy a specific NAS MB. Wanting SATA in every MB at this point would be similar to wanting a built in IDE controller on your MB…

I disagree. Deleting P-ATA in favor of SATA only gained hotplug, and still allowed for a reasonable number of drives. If you delete SATA - 2 drives just don't do it, especially if you want some form of RAID for redundancy or performance. Or temporarily connect another drive, e.g. for migration.
 
Agreed, if your storage server isn’t running active scans to ensure data integrity and raid health then you are just asking for problems. SATA on some consumer board isn’t doing that. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

You don't need hardware RAID anymore. ZFS has better data protection and redundancy schemes, and something like Linux md RAID is perfectly fine here when scrubbing. I hear Windows now has something similar, although I am not sure you can boot off it.
 
You don't need hardware RAID anymore. ZFS has better data protection and redundancy schemes, and something like Linux md RAID is perfectly fine here when scrubbing. I hear Windows now has something similar, although I am not sure you can boot off it.
You can’t; it’s funky. And storage spaces has an issue with raid 5/6 where you need to do the chunk and column calculations yourself compared to allocation size or performance is garbage. Fortunately the math is easy, but annoying. And 100% CLI for folks not happy with that.
 
In the past, parts of the CPU that we now take for granted, like FPU and L3 cache, were separate components that could be replaced or omitted as desired. Though it reduces flexibility, I for one am glad that all those things are now integrated. I'm sympathetic to the desire for simplicity, but integrating all these things actually makes things simpler by reducing the number of parts that are needed to implement those features (no need for connectors, wires, extra voltage regulators etc. that expansion cards need), as well as simplifying manufacturing.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, integrating something like a GPU sets a baseline that developers can aim for when writing software. Just like in the past a lot of software would avoid floating-point calculations because CPUs didn't have FPUs built in, so GPU acceleration today is considered an extra special feature because you can't rely on a given machine supporting the GPU features that you want to use. Once every PC has a basic GPU, it can be used as if it was just another instruction set, like SSE or AVX. In fact it might end up replacing those instruction sets, making CPUs simpler overall.
They have to be integrated. People forget that when the FPU, CPU cache, etc were all separate on the board the latency was massive.

These things weren't integrated just to screw over consumers and remove options. It was done because the closer you can make this stuff to the CPU, the faster the rest of the system is. So it only makes sense to put as much as possible on the CPU die itself.
 
They have to be integrated. People forget that when the FPU, CPU cache, etc were all separate on the board the latency was massive.

These things weren't integrated just to screw over consumers and remove options. It was done because the closer you can make this stuff to the CPU, the faster the rest of the system is. So it only makes sense to put as much as possible on the CPU die itself.
FPU, Cache, DRam controller, and related items are genuinely useful and improve performance. Integrated junk audio, Realtek lan, obsolete storage tech, low end iGPU, and related items are a different ball of wax.
 
I’ll give you lan as generally crap, but I’ve had to buy 5 GT710s for servers because amd doesn’t have an i GPU. I specifically bought a 10900K because it had one for one of my boxes - same reason. Makes ITX systems viable for my uses. Single slot gets an X550 NIC.

As for SATA? Still useful for a lot of things.

Remember - we represent the edge(s) of the computing landscape. The extremes- even the normal people here. Lots of folks just watch YouTube - or even do audio work that doesn’t need a GPU. Just horsepower. You may not want any of that - but I can use a Realtek integrated NIC for WOL, before feeding a dual port 10G fiber nic to a system, and not having to add a GPU means more slots for controllers and SAS connections - even if the system once had a gaming GPU.
 
Oh. And three of my systems have onboard audio as good as most external affordable DAC; two of them use them (the third ends up using HDMI audio instead). Depends on the use case but I see that as pseudo optional. I’m not a huge fan of headphones though - at least not for long periods.
 
You don't need hardware RAID anymore. ZFS has better data protection and redundancy schemes, and something like Linux md RAID is perfectly fine here when scrubbing. I hear Windows now has something similar, although I am not sure you can boot off it.
I was still under the impression that ZFS and iSCSI don't mix, I can look at it for my next go around but for my next storage upgrade, I can at least look into it.
 
I was still under the impression that ZFS and iSCSI don't mix, I can look at it for my next go around but for my next storage upgrade, I can at least look into it.
ZFS and iSCSI are fine - how the SLOG and L2ARC operate is slightly different (although they still do what they're supposed to do), and in fact, for synchronous workloads, it tends to be faster than NFS (something ZFS is still not insanely amazing at in a hybrid configuration - a SLOG is not a cache, just a buffer really, given how the transaction grouping/timing works).
 
FPU, Cache, DRam controller, and related items are genuinely useful and improve performance. Integrated junk audio, Realtek lan, obsolete storage tech, low end iGPU, and related items are a different ball of wax.
Most software doesn't need an FPU. Unless you're doing something where floating-point performance is important, like gaming, then it's not really necessary. All the integrated "junk" is genuinely useful - at least I use most of it, and I'm pretty sure the majority of users do too.

But let's say you got your way and there was a desktop CPU and motherboard with nothing integrated that could possibly be left off. If I wanted to replicate the functionality of my current system by adding PCIe cards, I would need:

  • 3 slots for a GPU
  • 3 slots for USB (assuming 4 external ports per card, to match the 12 on my motherboard's rear IO panel)
  • 1 slot for a sound card
  • 1 slot for Ethernet
  • 1 slot for Bluetooth
  • 1 slot for NVME
That's already far exceeded the number of PCIe slots on a full ATX board, and I haven't even included SATA and WiFi, which I can do without, and of course the secondary GPU which kicked this whole discussion off (and it would be more expensive and worse performance than an integrated one). It's also not including PCIe slots which are blocked by other things, e.g. to bring 12V and 5V from the PC's PSU out to external connectors for some special peripherals to use.
 
So, where are the NVME bluray burners? Some of us need the ability to make backups that can be kept offsite.
 
So, where are the NVME bluray burners? Some of us need the ability to make backups that can be kept offsite.
That’s a somewhat nonsensical question. NVMe is a protocol to directly access flash media; while you could create a translation layer to talk to either of the standard optical formats, you wouldn’t really gain anything…?

Oh. I see what you’re saying. Heh. Also, optical media for writing at home sucks for long term retention. But, good point.
 
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Oh. I see what you’re saying. Heh. Also, optical media for writing at home sucks for long term retention. But, good popoint.
How so? Every disc i have ever burned is still readable going back to cdr from 1996.

And the best part is I still have the ability to read them--without jumping thru hoops.
Have a bunch of tapes with no working tape drive.
 
How so? Every disc i have ever burned is still readable going back to cdr from 1996.

And the best part is I still have the ability to read them--without jumping thru hoops.
Have a bunch of tapes with no working tape drive.
I see people say all the time that optical media doesn't last, but i've got CD-R's burned back in the early 2000's that are still working without issue.

Generally, if a burned disc had an issue, it was immediately apparent.
 
I have had 5-10 DVD-Rs become unreadable since I've been using them out of like 2-300 burned. I just reimported them all not too long ago which is why I know though I don't remember the exact number. CD-R/RWs all have seemed fine though.
 
So, where are the NVME bluray burners? Some of us need the ability to make backups that can be kept offsite.
If you just want off site storage, put a box in the remote location and copy via VPN? ( that’s what I do, backup to my parents house). Alternatively, use any one of the cloud storage services?

As for the durability of writable optical media, basically every one I made circa 2005 that I used a printed label on (burn movie, put on printed DVD cover style label) has long since failed. The ones that I used sharpie on still seem to be fine.
 
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You don't need hardware RAID anymore. ZFS has better data protection and redundancy schemes, and something like Linux md RAID is perfectly fine here when scrubbing. I hear Windows now has something similar, although I am not sure you can boot off it.

ZFS if set up properly, does exactly what he is talking about, a ~monthly scrub.

Though I wouldn't run it on consumer hardware with on board SATA. At the very least ZFS should be run on a system with ECC RAM.
 
Most software doesn't need an FPU. Unless you're doing something where floating-point performance is important, like gaming, then it's not really necessary. All the integrated "junk" is genuinely useful - at least I use most of it, and I'm pretty sure the majority of users do too.

But let's say you got your way and there was a desktop CPU and motherboard with nothing integrated that could possibly be left off. If I wanted to replicate the functionality of my current system by adding PCIe cards, I would need:

  • 3 slots for a GPU
  • 3 slots for USB (assuming 4 external ports per card, to match the 12 on my motherboard's rear IO panel)
  • 1 slot for a sound card
  • 1 slot for Ethernet
  • 1 slot for Bluetooth
  • 1 slot for NVME
That's already far exceeded the number of PCIe slots on a full ATX board, and I haven't even included SATA and WiFi, which I can do without, and of course the secondary GPU which kicked this whole discussion off (and it would be more expensive and worse performance than an integrated one). It's also not including PCIe slots which are blocked by other things, e.g. to bring 12V and 5V from the PC's PSU out to external connectors for some special peripherals to use.
Let’s go through your list:
GPU - checks out.

USB - I believe I left a qualifier in there for 2-4 USB ports. If not, I’ll give you 4 ports being useful for being integrated so you have keyboard, mouse, 1 port for a USB hub, and 1 spare. The hub can easily be moved from system to system over the years, and I have one though I struggle to come up with a time I’ve actually used more than 4 ports. No expansion slots actually used here.

Sound. I have never used integrated sound, and I’ll go out on a limb and say the majority of enthusiasts don’t either. I’d be fine pulling my audigy out of the parts bin for connecting to a receiver, but since I had kids I’ve moved entirely to USB headset. Possibly an expansion slot used here.

WiFi vs Ethernet - pretty much mutually exclusive here. I’ve always used wired on my systems, but I’ve also had the luxury of being able to run cables. 1 expansion slot used here.

Nvme - note that I said no obsolete storage included. NVME isn’t obsolete, and a possible advantage of removing all the other junk is another NVME or two.
No slots used here.

Bluetooth - wtf do you use Bluetooth for on a desktop?!? I’ve never even considered needing this.
No slots used here.
 
Let’s go through your list:
GPU - checks out.

USB - I believe I left a qualifier in there for 2-4 USB ports. If not, I’ll give you 4 ports being useful for being integrated so you have keyboard, mouse, 1 port for a USB hub, and 1 spare. The hub can easily be moved from system to system over the years, and I have one though I struggle to come up with a time I’ve actually used more than 4 ports. No expansion slots actually used here.

Sound. I have never used integrated sound, and I’ll go out on a limb and say the majority of enthusiasts don’t either. I’d be fine pulling my audigy out of the parts bin for connecting to a receiver, but since I had kids I’ve moved entirely to USB headset. Possibly an expansion slot used here.

WiFi vs Ethernet - pretty much mutually exclusive here. I’ve always used wired on my systems, but I’ve also had the luxury of being able to run cables. 1 expansion slot used here.

Nvme - note that I said no obsolete storage included. NVME isn’t obsolete, and a possible advantage of removing all the other junk is another NVME or two.
No slots used here.

Bluetooth - wtf do you use Bluetooth for on a desktop?!? I’ve never even considered needing this.
No slots used here.
Eh. That last point is easy. Cats/children can be a handful with cables around. I had to get a pair of Bluetooth headphones for exactly that reason. Also transferring the occasional pic from my phone via BT is handy.
 
Yeah same here I have discs going back 25 years, still read fine. Heck I found an old CD RW that are terrible for long term storage that I had put a bunch of old programs on back in the day that still read fine when I checked it.
CD-R and CD-RW were terrible for long term storage because the organic dye medium they used was prone to breaking down, the green and gold ones you could expect maybe 10 years out of more or less depending on humidity and temperature, the blue ones however used an inert dye and with the right conditions can be expected to have a shelf life of up to 100 years.
 
Bluetooth - wtf do you use Bluetooth for on a desktop?!? I’ve never even considered needing this.
No slots used here.
Dunno what he uses, but for me it's headphones, keyboard, mouse, game controllers, etc.

Never heard of a slot being taken up by bluetooth though.
 
Never heard of a slot being taken up by bluetooth though.
So before I had a wifi/BT am4 mobo I needed to get a pair of BT headphones for the aforementioned reasons. 1st I got one of those dongle things, I really didn't like the way they worked. I wanted something that worked like traditional bluetooth with pairing multiple devices and whatnot. For that I had to get a $50 pcie card. Worked great, but shortly after I got a good deal on my Taichi X570 and was able to return the wifi card, saving a nice $50.

*Edit* Pretty much something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/FebSmart-Wir...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
 
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