In this week’s episode of Ask GN, we go over a few final Ryzen questions prior to the imminent launch and reviews. We also cover some thermal questions, SSD endurance questions, and compatibility basics for PC hardware.
Of course, the looming news item is still Ryzen and its eventual review. The processor will ship on March 2, at which time it would be safe to assume reviews should be live. We already posted coverage of the AMD Ryzen tech day (thus far) in both video and written formats, if you’d like to get up to speed. Our AM4 chipset comparison is also live over here.
00:27 General: “How many PCIe lanes does Ryzen have for GPUs?”
02:19 Surpuppa: “Question for next Ask GN: Are delta temperatures affected by room temperature more than just subtraction? For example, if the air is 20 degrees and the CPU is at 50, the delta is 30 as usual. But if the air is 30, would the CPU then run at 60 or would it run hotter?”
07:30 Rayma Studios: “Hey Steve. I was wondering, if I were to remove the fan from an air cooler (Such as the 212 Evo, or Dark Rock Pro 3) could the cooler still provide sufficient cooling to the chip relying just on the airflow generated by the case fans? I ask because some of the newer air coolers are very big and chunky, and look like they could dissipate a lot of heat, but the fans are loud or ruin the aesthetic of the cooler.”
9:30 Lars Passic: “Hey Steve, got a question for you while we all eagerly await the launch of Bikers Nexus. I have heard a surprising number of people say that there are inherent compatibility issues with mixing and matching AMD, Intel, and Nvidia components when building a PC. For example, some say that you should only go with an AMD GPU if you are going to use an AMD CPU as well. Are there compatibility problems with AMD GPUs and Intel CPUs? Do Nvidia GPUs have compatibility issues with AMD CPUs? What were the AMD "Dragon", "Leo", and "Dorado" platforms? Is there some kind of Intel + Nvidia "platform" that ensures superior compatibility or performance? Is it safe to mix and match components from all of these companies when building a PC?”
11:20 justin vistin: “hey steve, any chance you guys will test if heat pipes on motherboard VRMs actually help cool them or if they do anything at all as in they are just there for show.. thanks”
13:51 Josh Orenberg: “Question for the next Ask GN... What's the difference between advertised endurance (as in the warranty) and raw Nand endurance for an SSD? Should the SSD last significantly longer as indicated by raw nand endurance or should it only last as much as indicated in the warranty? My Samsung 850 EVO is 75 TB on the warranty vs 500 raw nand endurance.”
16:05 BadDragon_: “Hey Steve, I've always wondered how rain is rendered in modern games like GTA5 or Battlefield 1. Is it just screen space like outside of the players viewpoint it's only raining in your guys' face, or is it world space like it's actually raining in the world? If the former, has any game ever tried the latter and what kind of impact on the game might we see between the two?”
17:02 mlnorth76: “Your passing comment about radiators being mounted with tubes at the bottom made my 1-week-old h100i v2 pump absolutely silent, whereas before on "performance" setting I could hear noise. Why is this information not more widely known/accepted?”
17:52 Greasy Pommel: “Steve, is the wooden wall behind you real or is it a green screen?”
Host: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman