Maximum PC September 2019

SUMMER IS OFTEN a quiet time for PC hardware, but this year things are different. We’ve had a slew of important releases hit our test benches all at once, and it could just be that the PC scene will never be the same again after this summer. Serious words, but reasonable when you’re talking about a new PCIe bus that will usher in the promise of incredible storage performance and improved graphics. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, AMD has released a new processor family as well as its much anticipated Navi GPUs this month, and (spoiler alert!) they’re both impressive. Admittedly, it’s the CPUs that really loosened our collective jaws, but thanks to Nvidia also releasing new GPUs, AMD was forced to drop the prices of its first…

FOLLOWING the launch of AMD’s Zen 2 desktop chips, the next step is Zen 2 server chips, EPYC. Get this right, and there are fortunes to be made, and AMD looks to have got it right. Its new EPYC 7002 series, code name Rome, is due very soon, and numerous details have leaked out. The initial range apparently runs to 19 variants, from eight-core entry chips at under $500, through to 64-core monsters, which pack eight of AMD’s eight-core Zen 2 chiplets into one processor. They all carry a decent amount of L3 cache, from 32GB up to a laudable 256GB. TDPs run from a quite cool 120W to a warm but not overly hot 225W. We thought it was going to be fast, now we know. An unverified submission to…

THE PHYSICAL CONSTRUCTION of chips is becoming increasingly important. You can only shrink a chip so far before the basic laws of physics interfere. AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series has introduced the chiplet design to the mainstream. Intel has been working on similar tech for years, has bought companies working in this field, and invested billions. At the SemiCon West trade show, it showed off the results: three new technologies for packaging chips. Intel already uses EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge) and Foveros (chip-stacking technology). EMIB is a way to put a number of chips together on one package, using a interposer layer embedded into the substrate, while Foveros is a method of stacking chips on top of each other. EMIB is used on Kaby Lake G chips, and Foveros is due…

AS IT THREATENED, the Federal Trade Commission has hit Facebook with a $5 billion fine for its infringements of privacy (handing out the personal data of 50 million people to a third party). As part of the ruling, Facebook has to review and document the way it handles data. Bad news for Facebook? Not really. It’s a large sum, the largest ever imposed by the FTC on a technology company, but Facebook had been expecting it, and budgeted accordingly. The company had set aside over $3 billion, and has cash reserves of over $40 billion. Investors weren’t worried either; the stock price rose by 1.8 percent immediately after the announcement. If anything, the ruling has shown that Facebook is too powerful to be affected by such actions. However, there are signs…

MACBOOK KEYBOARDS have a tendency to break. The problem first appeared on 2015’s MacBook, but it took Apple until June 2018 to admit there was a problem and start paying for repairs. The butterfly switch mechanism used means even a relatively small piece of dirt or debris that works its way under a key can cause it to stop working. It seems Apple is finally going to change the mechanism to the scissor design it used before 2015. Apple hasn’t officially announced this yet, but it has applied for patents for a new scissor switched keyboard. Why no official announcement? Because the new design isn’t ready yet, and Apple has just refreshed its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, which have the butterfly keyboards. Thankfully, they’re eligible for free repairs…

TRIUMPHS ✓ AMAZON SPACE PROGRAM The company plans to launch 3,236 satellites and build a global high-speed Internet network, code-named Kuiper. ✓ TAKE ON DEEPMIND The AI machine’s AlphaStar will star as an opponent on some StarCraft II servers. ✓ NEW APOLLO MISSION A computer restorer has managed to get an Apollo Guidance computer to mine bitcoin—very, very slowly. TRAGEDIES x UNPACK AT YOUR PERIL A researcher has built a new zip bomb that doesn’t use recursive data, and packs 4.5PB in a 46MB file. x 6,000 EXABYTES LOST A power failure at five of Toshiba’s memory foundries cost six weeks’ production; prices are expect to rise. x COMPULSORY MALWARE In parts of China, border guards install malware on visitors’ phones to extract personal data.…