DCT Tech News 2019 – Week 21

Welcome to the new Dave’s Computer Tips Tech News where we’ll try to bring you the latest news on all technology-related matters. Nothing moves quite as swiftly as computer-related technology and keeping up with developments is what we do here at DCT, so let’s get on with it…

AMD To Announce Release Date Of New Generation Gaming Products At E3 In June

For months now, the Internet has been awash with rumours about AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 3000 CPUs and Navi GPUs, with AMD confirming that E3 2019 will be the venue where rumours will become fact. AMD president and CEO Dr Lisa Su will present a live stream with the new Ryzen and Navi products expected to top the bill. With Nvidia’s RTX range of GPUs practically stealing the market with their new Ray Tracing capabilities and Intel’s fierce competition in CPUs, this is a pivotal moment for AMD. It’s reported that Nvidia has grabbed around 80% of the GPU market, with AMD improving its CPU market share quite dramatically, mainly due to the success of 2nd generation Ryzens.

Many are speculating that AMD will grab around 30% of the desktop CPU market following the release of the upcoming Ryzen 3000 series. These are exciting times for AMD and computer enthusiasts, with 7nm architecture for both Ryzen and Navi being introduced. It’s also been confirmed by Asus and Asrock that the new CPUs will have backward compatibility with their current range of AM4 motherboards, with the release of updated BIOS, in spite of the new X570 chipset due for release by AMD. Many other motherboard manufacturers are expected to follow suit, especially since the AM4 platform was only released in September 2016.

White House Issues Executive Order Banning Huawei From The US

Huawei, the world’s biggest telecommunications supplier, and second largest smartphone supplier, has effectively been banned from dealing with any US suppliers following the US administration’s blacklisting of the Chinese firm. It’s said that many US firms, including Google, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm stand to lose around $11 billion in revenue, according to a CNN report. For its part, Huawei has described the decision as “insane” and is reported to have been making plans for such a move for several years, including a so-called plan A.

It’s just been announced that the US Dept of Commerce has given Huawei a 90-day waiver to get its affairs in order.

Intel Allegedly Bribed Dutch University In Order To Suppress Knowledge Of MDS Vulnerability

Cybersecurity researchers at a Dutch university are reported to have said that Intel tried to bribe them to suppress information on Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerability, however, Intel came back with a statement regarding their Bug Bounty Program.

Intel Corporation believes that working with skilled security researchers across the globe is a crucial part of identifying and mitigating security vulnerabilities. One of the ways we engage with researchers is through our bug bounty program. We provide a clear overview of our bug bounty program requirements, eligibility and award schedule on our website.

However, the Dutch article in NRC NL has used some imaginative reporting, where bribe is probably not the appropriate word to use, where incentives are paid by Intel to uncover these kinds of vulnerabilities. For a more in-depth understanding of these kinds of CPU flaws, I would recommend this article from TechPowerUp.

Epic Games Mega Sale Is On Until June 21st

Epic Games, creators of Fortnite, the hugely successful battle royale game, are relatively new to the digital games launcher market, but they’ve arrived with a huge splash, having made clear their intentions to take on Steam in a big way. This has ruffled a few feathers in the gaming community for reasons I don’t understand, resulting in a puerile hate campaign. Competition has to be good, doesn’t it? So what if their launcher isn’t anywhere near as good as Steam. It really doesn’t matter to me as long as I can play the game.

For any game over $14.99, you’ll get a $10 discount which is not bad considering World War Z is available for $18.99, which means at $8.99, it’s a pretty good deal. Head along to the Epic Games Store and check out the bargains before it’s too late!

Water Cool Your Power Supply Unit (PSU)?

FSP has launched two water-cooled PSUs recently. 1200W and 850W versions are now available, but one has to ask, why? Why water-cool your PSU? If anything, PSUs are much cooler and more power efficient than ever before, depending on the quality, of course. My new Corsair 850w PSU has a fan that doesn’t even rotate until the temperature reaches around 50C and in the cut-away picture above, FSP doesn’t even show us what parts of the PSU are actually being cooled. They also appear to have teamed up with Asus Aura, the lighting software that’s full of bugs, so I can’t really see this idea catching on at all, gimmick that it is.

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