Friday, March 15, 2024

Your Internet is Too Fast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwdDAZruMKk

It was costing me around $90 a month for gigabit Internet service.  So I downgraded to 200 Mbit, for about $35 per month, and it is plenty fast for me.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Exciting Decade for Computer Chips


In the 2010s computers advanced at a snail's pace. Sometimes people got excited when chips were 10% faster from one year to the next.

However, this decade has been dramatically different and it has everything to do with the circuit sizes on those chips. My 2009 iMac that died had a 42-nanometer chip. My 2017 iMac has a 14-nanometer chip. My new mini-computer has a 4-nanometer chip and it is very powerful for something not much bigger than a Whopper sandwich.

In late 2019 both Microsoft and Sony released their latest generation of video game consoles using 7-nanometer chips. Since these have APUs with the graphics "card" built into the main processor, I wanted something like this in a computer.  I waited almost 4 years to be able to get something similar in a mini-desktop PC.

These smaller circuits are not cheap to make The equipment to make them can cost billions. This is why Taiwan Semiconductor, which made the investment, is the number one manufacturer of these chips.

But it has resulted in a paradigm shift where people realize that they don't have to spend a fortune on graphics cards to play games. The APUs are not as good as a $1200 gaming PC, but they are good enough.

This also has resulted in hand-held gaming systems that are as powerful as a computer and can also be used as a computer when hooked up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Even the most recent iPhone can double as a gaming system.

Reportedly, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are all coming out with more powerful gaming systems in the coming year. This has been an exciting decade for computer chips.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Who The Hell Asked For A PS5 Pro?


I've been saying the same thing.  I also bought a powerful mini-PC that can play games.  All of this change, including the consoles and the handhelds, has happened because of AMD's new powerful energy-efficient chips.  Intel has chips too, but they are not quite as good.

The PS5 and the XBox Series X consoles are 10.28 and 12 teraflop machines respectively.  That is still a great deal of performance and you would have to spend a lot on a PC to match that.

Apple is also starting to push gaming on the most expensive iPhones.

I have no faith in Cloud Gaming, but this may eventually be the future where you can run triple-A games on any device with a screen.

Thursday, February 8, 2024

USB-C Tutorial for Everybody

The bottom line is that when buying a USB-C cable, make sure that it supports the data speed that you want.  The same thing applies to power delivery for fast charging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV03FfdPHOw&t=1308s

Friday, February 2, 2024

Using Apple Vision Pro: What It’s Actually Like!

I find this interesting. I can't imagine it being more than a novelty for now. For it to be anything more than a novelty, it is going to have to immerse you into another world.

Friday, November 24, 2023

The M3 iMac Isn't for me (or you...)

Apple's iMac strategy doesn't make sense.  The iMac used to be a top-of-the-line computer, but now they want you to buy a Mac Studio with a separate display that costs as much as an iMac.

As far as the iMac is concerned, there is no way I would go from a gorgeous 27-inch 5K display to a 24-inch 4K display.  The smaller iMac is not intended for pro users.  It would make a good family computer, but the lack of x86 compatibility is a serious drawback.

The M3 Pro chip benchmarks almost the same as the Ryzen 9 7940hs computer I paid just $640 for.  The base model M3 iMac starts at $1299.

Apple can only charge so much because, for some unfathomable reason, people are still buying their products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRnyLbDe3yk&t=461s

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Apple Built The Vision Pro to FAIL, and it's GENIUS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNEni_DP4fY

Realistically, the amount of hardware needed to make this work is not going to fit in an unobtrusive pair of glasses.  Not in this decade.  Maybe in the next one.

Saturday, July 29, 2023

The tale of four displays

I bought both used computer monitors with the intention of comparing them and selling one.

The 4K monitor appears to have more washed out colors. Faces are more pale. The Star Wars crawl is yellow orange on the 1440p monitor, but pure yellow on the 4K monitor.

The color on the 1440P is closer to my 5K iMac display, which is reportedly a high quality display, and has a slightly better viewing angle than the 4K monitor.

I had all three displays playing the same movie at the same time.


So I just compared the cheap 40 inch TV that I originally purchased for my Mom and stepdad, but I am now using as my TV. It appears to have the same washed out color range as the 4K monitor.

I would have never known the difference had I not compared these side by side.

This makes my idea of using a cheap TV as a computer monitor look bad. The color quality might not matter as much for watching television, but depending upon what you do with it, I think that it matters more for a computer monitor.


Best wishes,

John Coffey

Thursday, June 1, 2023

The Mac Mini Killer just got BETTER! - Minisforum @ Computex 2023

I've been waiting for this since the XBOX series X came out.  Granted, it is not a 12-teraflop SOC, but I have long wanted a powerful APU with good graphical performance.

I knew I wanted one when AMD announced this chip as the M-chip killer.  For gaming, it has a 5 teraflop performance.   You would have to buy an M2-pro model at $1300 to do just a little bit better.

I think that these chips were supposed to be out in February, but they kept getting delayed.

I'm not obligated to buy right now.  I have recently seen a couple of less powerful models on sale, for $289 and $320, both of which are still plenty powerful.  That's a big difference in price for computers that still have great performance.