Leading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, arguably America's most worshiped holidays, we're launching our next installment of Ask GN: Episode 35, which talks CPU socket technology, GPU silicon manufacturing (and what happens to failed chips), synthetic benchmarking and its variance, and super-sampled versus native resolution 4K gaming.
As we've expanded the Ask GN series, we've started advancing its collection and distribution of information. A few of the questions from this week's episode were passed through our contacts at AMD and nVidia, and next week is shaping up to hold similar Q&A as passed through manufacturing contacts. We're also working with some game developers to better answer a couple of CPU threading questions, as it seems a good opportunity for everyone to learn -- GN staff included.
Here's the latest episode:
Timestamp Questions
1:42 - Irving Goh: "Hey Steve, I just wanted to know if there is any particular reason for AMD to stick with the PGA style of sockets for AM4 instead of LGA?"
3:38 - smokeydops: "I have a typical "AMD vs NVIDIA" question regarding releases of different GPU architectures.
With NVIDIA's 10XX series of GPUS, we are seeing releases of GP107, GP 106, 104 and 102.
Do these represent different architectures or unique dies, OR do they represent the common adage of flagship architecture with components on die that failed quality assurance?"
8:18 - Wesley Runyon: "Steve why is it the different benchmarks ultimately give different answers. For instance Passmark vs Fire strike... Passmark rates my score with a MSI GTX1070 GAMING Z better than a 1080 or even a Titan XP? Then Very similar PC's with less speeds,ram clocks etc out perform mine. Is it possible to cheat the systems or software? Yeah yeah I know turn off all back ground apps, etc, etc. Not buying it. Temps, blah blah Not cutting it either, I monitor my hardware closely and that excuse is nonsensical. I am curious to see what your opinion of the synthetic benchmarks are. Keep up the good work!?"
14:36 - Payden Pringle: "How comparable is performance attained at SSAA 4x at 1080p to 4K, assuming all other values are the same, i.e. game, settings, computer hardware, etc? To elaborate, Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing is essentially rendering the game at a higher resolution then sampling it down to the display resolution. Four 1080p monitors have the same resolution as a 4K monitor. So, if it works the same, and you wanted to test how your rig would perform on a certain game at certain settings at 4K but only have access to a 1080p monitor, you could just use SSAA x4 and get an idea. But my question is, how reliable is the comparison??"
17:52 - Let's Get Techy: "Steve, have you ever considered growing a beard or having facial hair? Maybe not a full blown hillbilly beard, but a beard nontheless. I think it would match your hair like a boss! #beardlife?"
Host: Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke
Video: Andrew "ColossalCake" Coleman