AMD vs Nvidia is now a proper fight, and more tech news today

Your Tech News Digest via the DGiT Daily Tech Newsletter for Thursday, October 29, 2020.

1. The GPU Battle Royale

AMD has introduced new flagship Radeon GPUs, high-end graphics cards, starting with the Radeon RX 6800, the RX 6800 XT and the top Spect RX 6900 XT.

• These are all created by TSMC on the 7nm node and feature AMD’s new RDNA2 GPU architecture used in the new Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.
• This backbone can serve hundreds of millions of consoles in the next few years, along with all of the upcoming GPUs and APUs from AMD. It’s making or breaking stuff.
• AMD calls the first RDNA2-GPU Navi 21 or “Big Navi” and these are aimed directly at the recently released GeForce RTX 30 series from Nvidia with the RTX 3090, 3080 and 3070 respectively.
• (The RTX 3090 version drove gamers crazy, causing pre-ordered website crashes, scalping, and various kerfuffles. You can’t buy a series of 30s at regular prices right now. They just don’t exist.)
• AMD has promised this won’t happen and is releasing the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT on November 18, and the top of the range 6900 XT in limited quantities on December 8.
• Pricing for the RX 6800 starts at $ 579, the RX 6800 XT starts at $ 649, and the 6900 XT starts at $ 999. AMD offers a nice premium for those who want to pay.
• We didn’t see extensive technical information from AMD, but the specs have been released and show 26.8B transistors with up to 80 CUs (computing units) and 16GB of GDDR6. And there is ‘Infinity Cache’, which increases performance and more than doubles the bandwidth.
• These CUs are 30% more energy efficient and, thanks to the RDNA2 architecture, 30% faster than the previous generation.
• For comparison, the PS5 will reuse 36 CUs at higher frequencies, the Xbox Series X 52 CUs at lower frequencies, and the Series S 20 CUs at lower frequencies, and that’s by no means the end story of processing power, but just as an example of overall value the console versus a single GPU that’s for sale here to PC manufacturers.

What it means:

• It looks like AMD is trading punches with Nvidia, which is a big time.
• As Gizmodo put it: Damn, AMD did it: “This could very well be the generation of AMD hardware that is finally on par with its competitors, not just slightly behind in less than a second.”
• Buying an AMD GPU is a real option instead of just assuming that Nvidia has offered the best for years.
• Crucially, AMD hasn’t touched its ray tracing performance, and yet AMD has no answer to CUDA for developers and those who want raw computing power.
• So there are plenty of unknowns while we wait for reviews, and Nvidia has more up its sleeve, so to speak.
• And for most people, most casual gamers with a 1080p monitor and 60Hz refresh rate and a random HDMI cable are not necessary unless you are running a gaming setup with Ultra settings and have a high- End display one of these animals.
• But it’s fun to look at, and it’s great to see AMD compete against Nvidia and Intel in CPUs here.
• We are waiting for reviews and benchmarks.
• Speaking of which, Ars Technica has a nice look at the Nvidia RTX 3070, which was released just a day before AMD crashed with the RX 6000 series.

2. Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones Are Even Cheaper Than Prime Day: Save $ 72! (Android Authority).

3. The crazy Samsung design describes a double-folding phone with a sliding keyboard (Android Authority).

4. You can now quickly compare apps with the Google Play Store (Android Authority).

5. LG Wing Test: An incredible first try, but still a first try (Android Authority).

6. Huawei could do a little easier on its smartphone business. The FT reports that the US has begun allowing chipmakers to supply components for smartphones, but they are not allowed to use them for the company’s 5G (Android Authority) business.

7. So a YouTuber released a hands-on iPhone 12 Mini, but later deleted it. Maybe it was all a mistake? In each case, screenshots were taken (9to5Mac).

8. It seems that hackers have found a way to bypass the Facebook login required for Oculus Quest 2 (Ready Hacker One).

9. Mandalorian Season 2 falls tomorrow! (Android Authority).

10. People are crazy about the new Gmail / Calendar / Text logos. As always, we hate new things and then forget about them, but not entirely sure if the new Cal and Docs logos work? (r / crappydesign).

11. Microsoft leaned in memes about the Xbox Series X, which looks like a fridge, by building an Xbox fridge and giving it to Snoop Dog for his birthday (xbox.com).

12. How a small piece of paint grounded new Falcon 9 missiles for a month (Ars Technica).

13. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is currently storing valuable asteroid samples for safe storage (space). The latest update from NASA shows that the samples are being stowed (nasa.gov).

14. “The last YouTube video you saw will be sent to all of your contacts. What will you see? “(r / askreddit).

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