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>> I just wish I could buy a Zen 2 chip in a laptop that doesn't look like it was made for a fourteen year old (no offense to any fourteen year olds)

I just wish I could buy a decent motherboard that doesn't look like a 14yo's first attempt at drawing an f-35. My current rig does this weird glowing thing at night when it is supposed to be off. For my next machine I would honestly pay more to NOT have RGB support.

You can, but it's surprisingly hard to do so. There is the Asus Pro WS X570-ACE for current AMD consumer parts, but try to find a sTRX4 one for your 4000$ cpu that doesn't look like it's going to transform into a giant robot.

I agree it's annoying, but you _can_ turn it off in the bios.

Check Asrock Rack series motherboards, like https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X... (am4) or https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X... (tr4). It is minus the RGB and plus IPMI.

Those are server boards. They lack some basic 'desktop' features like AIO control. I also need more than a pair of USB connections.

I did get a laugh out of the integrated graphics, probably the lowest specs on the market: "DDR4 16MB" - that's not a typo. I'm a little interested in how that is accomplished. Can one allocated a 16MB chunk of DDR4?

Server or workstation; AIO falls gently into RGB gamer territory.

The integrated graphics is for BMC, not for the console.

I deliberately left the RGB header unplugged on my CPU cooler for this reason.

Or a case without a side panel? My motherboard glows, but I couldn't care if I tried.

Exactly this.

I had to use an ASUS motherboard and it took a good 10-15 minutes of poking through menus (with terrible keyboard navigation) to find the "magic rgb off" incantation.

If you happen to have an ASUS Prime Z370-A motherboard, here is the what you have to do:

boot and quickly press F2 or DEL to get into the BIOS (I had to do this more than once to poise my finger over the right key)

Press F7 to enter Advanced mode

Choose the Advanced menu (4th menu across top)

-> Onboard Devices Configuration (8th sub-menu in list)

-> RGB LED Lighting configuration (2/3 way down the page)

You have to disable both:

- when system is in working state - when system is in sleep, hibernate or soft off states

I basically tried all obvious places, then all the menus before this one before I stumbled upon it. it was nuts.

I like my personal desktop builds to be at least vaguely aesthetically pleasing, but I agree that RGB lights everywhere is not the way to do it. Just give me a nice black and white color scheme and maaaybe a couple of easily disabled lights here and there.

I like mine to be invisible, silent, and out of the way. I mounted mine under my desk and as far back as it would go.

Totally understand that viewpoint. The computer I have right now is the first one I ever built, so I think I'm still riding the high of "wow I built this" and want to see it. I imagine my future builds will be more and more shove it in the corner.

They don't dissipate much heat, yet almost every current AMD motherboard (except one at $400) has one of those annoying tiny high rpm fans that tend to die well before anything else on the motherboard.

> i7-6700k because single core performance has remained relatively flat

Well, it hasn't improved tremendously, but it hasn't remained flat. You can get around 20% more in single core performance, if it's so important to you.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r15_si...

20% over 3 years—ouch.

Probably more with meltdown mitigations on.

Lack of "acceptable high end" Zen 2 laptops is my gripe too. From what I understand, it is following 2 reasons;

1. Intel/nVidia Contracts have OEMs their hands tied (which explains capped GPU in most Zen 2 laptops).

2. Lack of widespread Thunderbolt 3 support on AMD.

While I'm fully bought on reason 1., reason 2. is still hard to digest as one can still ship laptop with USB-C port supporting PD and DisplayPort (w/ alternate mode) and call it a day, and most users won't mind. I hope Zen 3 causes the power shift on laptops.

I also noticed that the current Ryzen mobile 4000 series tops out at 32GB of memory supported, which sadly excludes them from even possibly being in the 2020 16” MBP since Apple’s already been selling 64GB systems. :/

All desktop Ryzen CPUs as well as mobos with 4 DDR slots support 128GB of memory (and there are reports that dmidecode shows the support of 256GB on some) but sadly there is no info on that for the laptops.

Have been thinking strongly about the ROG Zephyrus 14 (cheaper and better than the 13" MBP in almost every way). But don't think I can stomach not having the webcam built-in (do way too many Zoom calls).

Lack of Thunderbolt is caused solely by Intel not sharing it.

I upgraded to a 3600X. I use an 8th gen 6 core chip at work. This 3600X murders the Intel daily. The speed is insane. At work I run off an SSD with Optane acceleration, my home machines with the 3600X and NVME just kills my work machine, which itself is no slouch. I've never been so impressed with a brand new machine, and I've been building them since 1990.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I want to atleast buy a 1400€ 24core 3960x Threadripper, because of the insane upgradability.

The idea that in 2-3 years i could just buy a used 3970 or even a 3990 to more than double the core count is amazing to me, and knowing that prohibits me from having my mind blown by the insane value of the smaller Ryzens.

Pro tip: sell your used 6700k on ebay. Somewhere, someone can put it to good use, and judging by the latest closed deals on this model, you can easily sell it for something like $225.

> I just wish I could buy a Zen 2 chip in a laptop that doesn't look like it was made for a fourteen year old (no offense to any fourteen year olds). I heard someone say the lack of 4k and more professional style laptops could be Intel back-channel fuckery,

Lenovo just released a couple ThinkPads peered by AMD Ryzen 7 Pro CPUs: T495, T495s and X395. They don’t have 4K screens though.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/05/lenovo-adds-amd-ryze...

4K screens on laptops don't make sense to me. They are too small to get maximum value out of. 1440p is more than enough.

I absolutely benefit from a 4k screen even in a small form factor. 768p is "enough" in the sense that we all got stuff done on such screens for many years, but the increase in text rendering quality with higher PPI screens is tremendously worth it to me for the reduced eyestrain. 4k is still noticeably better than 1440p. I wouldn't be surprised if 8k is noticeably better still (although with swiftly diminishing returns of course).

The reverse is also kinda true... Many people when they say "I like high resolution" mean "I like to fit lots of stuff on the screen at once".

If you're in the latter crowd, you can configure X or Wayland to render to a 4k screen buffer, and then downscale to fit the actual screen. Yes, downscaling no longer means 1 pixel=1 pixel, which introduces some blur, but unless you're a 20/20 vision kind of person, I doubt you'd be able to tell without your nose touching the screen...

Hmm. You might want to get an eye test. Not being snarky: when I was 45 or so, having had "perfect" eyesight, someone suggested I get mine tested. Turns out most people loose the ability to focus at short distances with age, but the brain doesn't clue you in. Not being able to tell the difference between 1440 and 4k would be consistent with this. For me even at 13" screen size 4k is very obviously better for coding.

With a 55" screen you'd have to be within 3.5 feet to be able to see a difference with 4k. So no eye test needed. Your brain is either lying to you or the 4k screen you tested with is better than the non-4k you used.

http://carltonbale.com/does-4k-resolution-matter/

I don't know what the methodology of that site is, but it's certainly flawed when it comes to computer monitors. Based on their calculator, I shouldn't notice the difference between 1080p and 2160p when sitting 2 feet from my 16" laptop monitor, but the difference is night and day. I don't want to get into a philosophical debate, but if I can see the difference that your equation says I shouldn't be able to see, the equation is wrong, not reality.

This reminds me of the pervasive "your eyes can only see 24fps" myth, I guess people crave evidence that what they have is "good enough" and others are just being elitist?

Well, you will definitely see more than 24 fps, but that might or might not translate to better experience. If you want the cinematic effect for a movie, it will be 24 fps, otherwise you will get the soap opera effect.

For other uses, like fluid animations or games, you want as high as possible.

I wonder if the "Cinematic" look at ~24fps seeeming less tacky than the "Soap Opera" look at ~60fps has just been trained into us via familiarity though.

If we lived in an alternate universe where cinema was all 60fps and soap operas were 24 would we think that 24fps looked tacky instead?

On the other hand I think there's definitely some objective effects in play here too - CGI is a lot easier to make convincing at a lower framerate and added motion blur.

Peter Jackson thinks so. He pushed for 60fps in his movies even though people complained. His theory is that once people acclimate, they will get a better experience.

There are many things incorrect about that blog's approach. As others have pointed out, this isn't like HD Audio, where people literally cannot tell the difference between normal CD quality and HD Audio in any realistic test. I can absolutely see the difference in a 4K screen, and I can tell if even a smallish laptop screen is 4K or not from much higher distances than normal usage. I remember the first time I saw an Apple Retina display on a tiny laptop from across the room and said "holy shit!" out loud and walked over because I could see how sharp it was from meters away.

First of all, 20/20 vision is the average, not the best. Many people have substantially better than 20/20 vision. I remember laughing that I could read the super fine print "copyright notice" at the bottom of the eye test that is about 1/3rd the size of the smallest font in the test itself.

Secondly, the eye is complex, and has surprising capabilities that defy simple tests, which are designed as a medical diagnostic tool, not as a test of ultimate resolving capability. For example Vernier Acuity (1) means that much higher resolution printing (and screens) are required than one might think based on naive models.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernier_acuity

Actually, I don't have sources on hand, but I believe average human sight is better than 20/20. It's just that 20/20 was decided on as a standard for "good enough". I believe stemming from a military standard set long ago.

4k is more than resolution too, has more colors that can't be shown in regular RGB formats.

You're conflating two separate things - HDR is the specification for > 8 bit dynamic range, 4k just specifies 3840 x 2160 resolution. You can have displays that are HDR but not 4k, and vice versa.

The T495 / X395 series is based on Zen+ (Ryzen 3000 mobile) chips and not Zen 2 (Ryzen 4000 mobile) - I know the naming is confusing given that the 3000 series desktop chips are Zen 2. However, Lenovo has announced ThinkPads based on Zen 2, such as models in the rebranded T14 lineup, but they have not been released yet.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15772/new-lenovo-thinkpad-ran...

But what are you going to do that your 6700K couldn’t do already? It’s only slightly faster in aI by le threaded. More cores, great, if you’re rendering video or 3D or compiling all day.

You're a welcome voice of reason in this thread :)

I too was rocking the Skylake series (6600K for me though). However, I upgraded for two reasons - I went to the 3700X for twice as many cores, and the 6th gen Intel series can’t keep up with h265 like 7th gen plus.