The computer and electronics super geek thread

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

I have a G703 and the shape is definitely like the Mamba or Deathadder to me, but with less sharp angle changes and slightly smaller.

Comfy?  I think the Deathadder is ever-so-slightly smaller than the Mamba, but the hump is a little further forward and that actually makes it feel bigger/more comfortable than the Mamba, but they're both fine for me.

15 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I guess (since I'm not getting rid of the tower I just got in January) that I could look to see if Asus makes a mouse comparable to the G703 and the Mamba/Deathadder.

Following up on this, looks like Asus makes a mouse called the Gladius II Origin that's also pretty similar to the G703/Deathadder/Mamba.  Reviews seem mixed, but the biggest complaints suggest the hardware itself is fine and it's the software that's bad.  Which, yeah, I can agree with that.

[azrael]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Comfy?  I think the Deathadder is ever-so-slightly smaller than the Mamba, but the hump is a little further forward and that actually makes it feel bigger/more comfortable than the Mamba, but they're both fine for me.

Comfy, yes. For my hand (that's the disclaimer). My larger hand leads me to larger mice. The G703 (and 403/603) is probably the smallest for my hand with the G900 (which I also have) at the farther end of that spectrum. Thankfully, working from home for the past few months gave me a chance to drive it outside of gaming. The right-hand hump of the G703/403/603 shape was more comfy for long-term use. The lack of hump for the G900/903 shape is fine for short-term use but full work-day use had me going back to something more ergo-ly shaped. Your mileage may vary.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

Comfy, yes. For my hand (that's the disclaimer). My larger hand leads me to larger mice. The G703 (and 403/603) is probably the smallest for my hand with the G900 (which I also have) at the farther end of that spectrum. Thankfully, working from home for the past few months gave me a chance to drive it outside of gaming. The right-hand hump of the G703/403/603 shape was more comfy for long-term use. The lack of hump for the G900/903 shape is fine for short-term use but full work-day use had me going back to something more ergo-ly shaped. Your mileage may vary.

Like you, I have pretty big hands (something like 7.25 inches from wrist to the tip of my middle finger and and 4.5 inches from the base of my pinky to the big knuckle on my thumb) and I use a palm grip.  Can't stand those little mice they market as portables for laptops like Microsoft's Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000, Razer's Viper Mini, or Logitech's MX Anywhere; the bigger the better for me.  I like a mouse with a good hump; nothing flat like Apple's Magic Mouse.  I prefer right-handed mice with a curve to ambidextrous mice, but I'm not a big fan of ledges for your thumb to rest on like the MX Master.  I more or less judge mice by how they compare to the Deathadder.  I could tell at a glance that the G900/G903 wouldn't appeal to me; I think the G403 and G703 are the only Logitech mice I'd even consider for my main computer (I'm a bit more flexible picking a mouse for tossing in a bag with my laptop, and a lot more flexible and a lot cheaper on tertiary computers).

-----------------------------

In other news, I saw the announcement that Apple's dropping Intel in favor of their own, homegrown chips.  I can't say I'm totally surprised.  Macs were fairly niche products used mostly my graphic artists and a small but fiercely loyal group of fans.  People talk about the "halo effect" from iPods, but I think iOS devices like the iPad and the iPhone have pushed Macs more into the mainstream than any other Apple product, and the convergence between MacOS and iOS has been ongoing for some time.  I think, for a dearth of younger users who've used iOS devices far more than desktop or even laptop PCs will appreciate the added familiarity and the ability to use apps they're already using.  I can't help but be a little disappointed, though.  Back when it was OS X 10.2 Macs started to get interesting for me, as they felt light years ahead of Windows ME/XP, but for me OS X peaked with Snow Leopard.  After owning four different Macs back in the day (an iMac G3, the first Intel Macbook, and two Mac minis, the second of which I still have) I sincerely doubt I'd buy another one.

[azrael]

33 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Like you, I have pretty big hands (something like 7.25 inches from wrist to the tip of my middle finger and and 4.5 inches from the base of my pinky to the big knuckle on my thumb) and I use a palm grip.  Can't stand those little mice they market as portables for laptops like Microsoft's Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000, Razer's Viper Mini, or Logitech's MX Anywhere; the bigger the better for me. ...

I can use the MX Anywhere ( I have one for my laptop), but it's not a long-term mouse. If I need a mouse while mobile, my MX Anywhere will do. Just don't ask me to use it for 8-9 hours/day.

36 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

In other news, I saw the announcement that Apple's dropping Intel in favor of their own, homegrown chips.  I can't say I'm totally surprised. 

Same. While disappointed, I feel and see Apple's growing frustration with Intel. I would have liked to see Apple go with AMD (they already use AMD graphics) but given the roller coaster AMD went on to get to Ryzen CPUs and the Zen architecture to where they are, I understand Apple's desire to go their own way seeing that an iPad CPU can match a mobile x86 CPU. Intel's minor gains year after year have not helped them maintain a dominant position. The continuous round of Skylake-refreshes did them no good. Intel makes good looking gaming (read single-threaded) CPUs but once you move to multi-threaded performance (where workstations live), AMD looks better. One other note from this weekend caught my eye was the leaked benchmarks of the Intel Core i7-1165G7 "Tiger Lake" mobile CPUs. On par or better than Ryzen 4700U. But the Ryzen 4700U has been out for a few months now and Tiger Lake is due out mid-2020. And AMD's CPUs will likely still be cheaper for the performance you get. I wish Apple stuck around on the x86 platform, but jeez Intel, if 4th gen desktop Ryzen looks good, even I'll leave you.

[mikeszekely]

Not exactly electronics, but anyone knowledgeable about binoculars?  I know just a little; what the numbers mean when they say something like 8x25, the difference between roof and Porro prisms, etc, but not enough to feel like I'm making an informed decision.  I'm looking for something I can use in variety of situations (camping, birdwatching, and a little stargazing), but something I'll use so infrequently that I can't justify going over $100.  I'm thinking 10x42 should be good enough.  I've got three recommendations, but they each have their pros and cons that's making choosing between them (or finding another comparable alternative) a bit of bear.

The three I've been looking at are

Nikon Aculon A211

Bushnell H₂0

Celestron Outland X

but like I said, I'm not married to any of these three and I'm open to good alternatives.  Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

[azrael]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Not exactly electronics, but anyone knowledgeable about binoculars?  I know just a little; what the numbers mean when they say something like 8x25, the difference between roof and Porro prisms, etc, but not enough to feel like I'm making an informed decision.  I'm looking for something I can use in variety of situations (camping, birdwatching, and a little stargazing), but something I'll use so infrequently that I can't justify going over $100.  I'm thinking 10x42 should be good enough.  I've got three recommendations, but they each have their pros and cons that's making choosing between them (or finding another comparable alternative) a bit of bear.

The three I've been looking at are

Nikon Aculon A211

Bushnell H₂0

Celestron Outland X

but like I said, I'm not married to any of these three and I'm open to good alternatives.  Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

I only know the magnification reading, i.e. 8x25 = 8x Zoom at 25mm objective view. 10x42 = 10x zoom at 42mm objective view.

[pengbuzz]

On 5/21/2020 at 8:17 PM, Sanity is Optional said:

...Meanwhile I went ATI for my graphics card for the first time ever, and am not going to do that again.

5700XT, but the drivers are garbage. Up to date but still getting driver crashes, audio over DisplayPort issues. At least the black screen flashes seem to have stopped for the moment.

Anyone considering ATI GPUs, do yourself a favor and don't.

Oh, my PC has enough issues already without that. I need to reinstall my programs and OS, but I got none of the original disks and license numbers from the shop who sold me it. in 2011.

(yup, my machine is ancient...serves me right, neophyte that I am; at least it still works. One day, I'd like to build my own if I can ever get money that doesn't need to go to bills).

Anyways: I had driver issues with my GPU a while ago (1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 610 EVGA*), and kept getting screen blackouts and "Driver stopped responding and has recovered " messages. I tried updating the drivers and redoing them, all to no avail. Finally, I just rolled it back to the original driver it came with and left it.

 

 

 

*yup...any cheaper and it would be an etch-a-sketch!

[hachi]

18 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Not exactly electronics, but anyone knowledgeable about binoculars?  I know just a little; what the numbers mean when they say something like 8x25, the difference between roof and Porro prisms, etc, but not enough to feel like I'm making an informed decision.  I'm looking for something I can use in variety of situations (camping, birdwatching, and a little stargazing), but something I'll use so infrequently that I can't justify going over $100.  I'm thinking 10x42 should be good enough.  I've got three recommendations, but they each have their pros and cons that's making choosing between them (or finding another comparable alternative) a bit of bear.

The three I've been looking at are

Nikon Aculon A211

Bushnell H₂0

Celestron Outland X

but like I said, I'm not married to any of these three and I'm open to good alternatives.  Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Without looking at specs normally I would choose Nikon for the quality control, but the other 2 seem to claim being waterproof and fog proof so I'm not so sure about Nikon anymore. Whichever you choose maybe just make sure of the return policies if the product turns out to be defective.

[chyll2]

https://imgur.com/a/UFdurb3

 

Custom water slide decal on KB

[azrael]

Officially announced today, new APU chips:
https://www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen-with-graphics

And a "Pro"-lineup:
https://www.amd.com/en/ryzen-pro

I'll be waiting to see the benchmarks for these APUs (namely the non-"Pro" set). I need a new ITX build.

[kajnrig]

35 minutes ago, azrael said:

I'll be waiting to see the benchmarks for these APUs (namely the non-"Pro" set). I need a new ITX build.

Same.

Or, well, "want," at any rate. Just built an ITX system and gave that and my old rig to the nephews, and now I'm considering a nice compact system for their sister as well.

It's a shame these won't be available for DIY builders and SIs for a while yet.

[kajnrig]

oh my god apple can go to frakking helllllllllllllllllllllllll

Just spent two hours getting my mom's iPhone to play nice with my PC so I could offload... *checks* ...20 Gig's of photos and videos. (Jesus Christ, mom.) One frustration after another after another for what should be a routine copy and delete. Whyyyyyyy????????

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

oh my god apple can go to frakking helllllllllllllllllllllllll

Just spent two hours getting my mom's iPhone to play nice with my PC so I could offload... *checks* ...20 Gig's of photos and videos. (Jesus Christ, mom.) One frustration after another after another for what should be a routine copy and delete. Whyyyyyyy????????

Did you have that issue where it stops copying and throws up a "can't communicate with the device" error? Yeah, it's a pain. I think it has something to do with Apple using high-efficiency photo and video formats, then it's supposed to convert them on the fly when you copy to PC. But there's always errors.

If you can't get your mom to switch to Android, there's a setting in the camera app to get it to stop using the high-efficiency formats. Might help in the future.

[Major Focker]

yup, same reason why i ditched my iphone many years ago. you either completely commit to the ecosystem or not at all.

[kajnrig]

33 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Did you have that issue where it stops copying and throws up a "can't communicate with the device" error? Yeah, it's a pain. I think it has something to do with Apple using high-efficiency photo and video formats, then it's supposed to convert them on the fly when you copy to PC. But there's always errors.

If you can't get your mom to switch to Android, there's a setting in the camera app to get it to stop using the high-efficiency formats. Might help in the future.

That exact problem was one of several. I'd have to unplug and replug the devices together afterwards, every single time press Allow on the iPhone, and even then sometimes the prompt wouldn't show up or the phone would be paired but shown as "Unknown device" or "Apple USB composite device" or something similar or etc. etc. etc...

Good to know about disabling the high-efficiency format, thanks. I'll make sure to discreetly toggle that next time I get hands on her phone.

29 minutes ago, Major Focker said:

yup, same reason why i ditched my iphone many years ago. you either completely commit to the ecosystem or not at all.

They pay a lot of lip service to the cause of "security," but in truth a lot of their practices actively add frustrations for people not wholly invested in their ecosystem for no other reason than to punish them for... not wholly investing in their ecosystem. It just makes me swear them off even more every couple months or so I when I have to deal with their products again. I'm pretty sure I made a similar post griping about exactly this same thing in the backlog of this thread somewhere, hahah.

[pengbuzz]

On 7/21/2020 at 11:09 PM, kajnrig said:

That exact problem was one of several. I'd have to unplug and replug the devices together afterwards, every single time press Allow on the iPhone, and even then sometimes the prompt wouldn't show up or the phone would be paired but shown as "Unknown device" or "Apple USB composite device" or something similar or etc. etc. etc...

Good to know about disabling the high-efficiency format, thanks. I'll make sure to discreetly toggle that next time I get hands on her phone.

They pay a lot of lip service to the cause of "security," but in truth a lot of their practices actively add frustrations for people not wholly invested in their ecosystem for no other reason than to punish them for... not wholly investing in their ecosystem. It just makes me swear them off even more every couple months or so I when I have to deal with their products again. I'm pretty sure I made a similar post griping about exactly this same thing in the backlog of this thread somewhere, hahah.

Steve Jobs haunting us from beyond the grave...aka "Ghost In The Machine: Silicon Valley Complex"

[mikeszekely]

Just to keep piling on Apple, my wife came to me this morning and asked me how to reboot her iPhone. Apparently the power button isn't a power button anymore, it's a "side button". Clicking it will put the phone to sleep, but instead of turning the phone off like every iPhone pre-X and every Android phone in existence clicking and holding will bring up the far less useful Siri (since there's no physical home button for that anymore). And you can't just ask Siri to reboot or turn off the phone. No, to turn the phone off you have to click and hold the side button and a volume key.

Either Apple needs to come up with better software controls, or Apple needs separate, dedicated physical buttons on the side for power and Siri.

[MacrossJunkie]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Just to keep piling on Apple, my wife came to me this morning and asked me how to reboot her iPhone. Apparently the power button isn't a power button anymore, it's a "side button". Clicking it will put the phone to sleep, but instead of turning the phone off like every iPhone pre-X and every Android phone in existence clicking and holding will bring up the far less useful Siri (since there's no physical home button for that anymore). And you can't just ask Siri to reboot or turn off the phone. No, to turn the phone off you have to click and hold the side button and a volume key.

Either Apple needs to come up with better software controls, or Apple needs separate, dedicated physical buttons on the side for power and Siri.

Is there no way to re-assign that key to function as the power button?

Samsung did the same thing with their newer phones like the Note 10 series where the side button is no longer a power button, but rather to activate their ever so useful *cough* Bixbi voice assistant. To turn the phone off required going into the menu and selecting to power off or restart the phone. I quickly went into the settings and fortunately found a setting to map the side key to be the power button instead. Otherwise that would have annoyed me to no end. 

These companies keep making stupid decisions to put form over function or replace a key function with something inane again and again.

[mikeszekely]

38 minutes ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Is there no way to re-assign that key to function as the power button?

Doesn't look like it. You can change the "click" speed, you can switch from Siri to classic voice control (whatever that is), or you can turn it off (so holding in the side button does nothing).

[azrael]

*facepalm* O Intel.

"7nm CPU products push out ~6 months-...12 months delay of 7nm process yield"

[mikeszekely]

Intel is stuck in their own past, when they could do what they wanted because AMD was a scrappy underdog nipping at the budget market but Intel still dominated in raw performance.  I stuck with i7's for from the original to the 9th-gen, and even I'm saying Ryzen's the way to go now.

[kajnrig]

To be fair, it seems like they're finally(!!!) getting their 10nm process in order, which should hopefully sustain them through to then. I don't recall how good their 10nm chips actually are, since they're in such short supply (IIRC they're only supplied in super low-wattage devices??? yes/no???) but I want to say they benchmarked really well, especially paired with their new iGPU tech. Can't for the life of me remember any details about them, though...

;k;lfajsdf But anyway, hopefully they can start shipping out laptop and desktop 10nm chips soon? Hopefully they'll be competitive?

[chyll2]

They are also now considering using third party Fabs. Overall pleased with this, as I know Intel will survive this. I just want more time for AMD to change the mindshare of the consumer.  (people are still quoting the lead in game in high refresh rate 1080p) and OEM also has limited AMD choice. Its actually funny to see a mid tier 4500u laptop being compared and performing than a high tier laptop using Intel (though at that price, people will still get it as the high end stuff have better stuff like better panel, design, build quality etc)

[TangledThorns]

I sold my AMD stock too early

[azrael]

15 hours ago, kajnrig said:

... don't recall how good their 10nm chips actually are, since they're in such short supply (IIRC they're only supplied in super low-wattage devices??? yes/no???) but I want to say they benchmarked really well, especially paired with their new iGPU tech. Can't for the life of me remember any details about them, though...

;k;lfajsdf But anyway, hopefully they can start shipping out laptop and desktop 10nm chips soon? Hopefully they'll be competitive?

Intel, lately (I mean the past 10 to 15 years) have been releasing their next gen CPUs to mobile (laptops) first, then desktops. Performance-wise, Ryzen mobile CPUs have been the better bang for the buck. Single core performance favors Intel. Multi-core favors AMD. As for performance of Intel's mobile 10nm CPUs...only mild improvements. Performance was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It wasn't like Ryzen 4000-series of mobile CPUs. It was

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

I sold my AMD stock too early

At least you had some. My wife wanted to buy some at $20 a share but never got around to it.

[pafy6285]

Intel's strength is still in the enterprise space and with the enterprise being slow in adopting new (and better) technologies/infra, Intel still has time to have its house in order.  They should do it quickly though, as the more time they lose, the more time enterprise have to contemplate and resolve issues that prevent them from moving to AMD. Major Cloud providers are already offering instances based on EPYC for example, and if others see the benefit of using AMD from those Cloud providers, then it would allow AMD to eat Intel's enterprise pie.

[Sanity is Optional]

As someone who is tangentially related to the semiconductor industry (I design packaging inspection tools) this kind of discussion is always interesting.

Current chip design, 10nm and 7nm processing methods is downright black magic. Working in fractions of the wavelength used to do the etching.

[MacrossJunkie]

5 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

I sold my AMD stock too early

I bought about $1000 worth back when the stock was less than $6 a share. I imagined it would probably peak around $30. I never imagined it would double that at $60, to say nothing of coming close to $70 now. I knew I should have bought a lot more...

[JB0]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

At least you had some. My wife wanted to buy some at $20 a share but never got around to it.

Same boat I'm in.

[TangledThorns]

15 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

I bought about $1000 worth back when the stock was less than $6 a share. I imagined it would probably peak around $30. I never imagined it would double that at $60, to say nothing of coming close to $70 now. I knew I should have bought a lot more...

I think many, including AMD fanboys, never thought their stock would get this high. I'll really be kicking my own ass if it ever gets close nVidia's current stock price, lol.

That being said, Lisa Su is an outstanding CEO.

Edited July 25, 2020 by TangledThorns

[azrael]

Can't say this wasn't expected.

Intel Reorganizes In Wake of 7nm Woes; Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala To Depart (Anandtech.com)

I really hope AMD hammers home Ryzen 4th gen desktop.

[kajnrig]

On the one hand, I'm just as hopeful that AMD nails 4th-gen Ryzen. Maybe even take over the gaming crown?

On the other hand, I really hope Intel finds its footing again, and soon. Above and beyond the regular implications for the industry, the US losing one of its last bastions of processor manufacturing is a bit disconcerting, especially with competitors being increasingly tied not just to China but the Chinese government in particular. Or am I being paranoid in that regard? I admit I don't know the industry players all that well, just loose national associations.

[Sanity is Optional]

There's quite a bit of production in South Korea and Taiwan (which isn't exactly mainland China), so at least even if Intel offshores the production it won't all be in one single country.

[mikeszekely]

I need a VPN (well, I'm constantly hearing people these days telling me everyone needs a VPN, but yeah).  The three most important things to me are, in order of importance, 1) if it works in China, 2) how good it is at unblocking geo-locked content on Netflix/Hulu/etc, as well as blacked-out hockey games on NHL TV, and 3) overall speed.

After digging around it sounds like the best options are ExpressVPN and NordVPN*.  I actually signed up for ExpressVPN's free trial last time I went to China, and it worked 95% of the time (it wasn't super fast, but that seems less like an issue with ExpressVPN and more that internet in China is kind of slow).  There's a part of me that wants to go with NordVPN because it's cheaper, around $125 for three years vs $100 every year.  But from what I've read, while NordVPN checks all the boxes ExpressVPN is a little better at the those three things that matter most to me.  Any Nord users out there, or better yet, anyone that's tried them both?  Is ExpressVPN worth the extra money?

*I've read about other VPNs that are just as fast, good at unblocking content, secure, etc, and even cheaper.  However, because of that #1 concern that it work when I'm in China, right now I'm only considering NordVPN and ExpressVPN.