It's time for the PCPer Mailbag, our weekly show where Ryan and the team answer your questions about the tech industry, the latest and greatest GPUs, the process of running a tech review website, and more!
On today's show, Josh is here to take you on a journey you'll never forget:
01:07 – GTX 1180?
05:09 – RX Vega performance revisited?
07:42 – Speculative execution, Meltdown, and next-gen Intel CPUs?
10:23 – PCIe lanes and disabled slots for Ryzen APUs?
11:56 – Testing for GPU/CPU bottlenecks?
14:01 – What is AVX?
16:58 – RISC-V vs. ARM/x86?
20:52 – Will disk defrag shorten my hard drive life?
Want to have your question answered on a future Mailbag? Leave a comment on this post or in the YouTube comments for the latest video. Check out new Mailbag videos each Friday!
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Josh- I’ve watched most all
Josh- I’ve watched most all of the Mailbags & think your Mailbags are just as interesting & informative as Ryan’s & Allen’s. When I hear you say you should study-up more for some of the questions I feel your “putting yourself down” a little bit. All of you guys give knowledgeable answers/comments on the Mailbags & Podcasts & as a result make a good team. The Mailbags give viewers the opportunity to see more of your individualities which to me makes PC Per interesting. Josh, I learn a lot from your participation at PC Per. —Onward & upward Josh!
It’s just a video, dude…
It’s just a video, dude…
It’s just a video, dude…
It’s just a video, dude…
Why thank you, Gregory!
Why thank you, Gregory!
What performance difference
What performance difference in reads can we expect on a SSD as it is filled? Should we ever care about the amount of space left over?
Do current generation SSDs
Do current generation SSDs still benefit from performance gains from overprovisioning?
OK here is some Questions:
OK here is some Questions: When will Vega Discrete Mobile GPUs become available and will those SKUs have HBM2?
Is Vega Discrete Mobile even coming in 2018 or will it take longer?
Also no one appears to Know IF the HBCC on that Semi-Custom “Vega” Die on Kaby Lake G is even functional so that’s a big no sale for some Graphics Workloads that may want to make use of more than 4GB of VRAM.
Is anyone with their own Purchased Hades Canyon NUC(That’s Not Bound by any NDA) willing to test that out and see if the “Vega” Graphics on Kaby Lake G even has a High Bndwidth Cache Controller(HBCC) that can make use of the HBM2 as a last level GPU Cache/HBC?
Thanks, Josh, all you guys at
Thanks, Josh, all you guys at pcper.com are my all-time FAVES when it comes to PC technology in general, as you know.
Please accept my 2 cents on the issue of DEFRAG and HDD
wear.
We learned something about spinning platters when
we started to write drive images of the C: partition.
If the output file was located on a secondary partition
on the same platter, the entire process took much longer
than an output file located on a different platter.
We eventually attributed that noticeable difference
to the sheer overhead that accumulates as the
READ/WRITE armature moves back and forth, spanning
many intervening tracks. As such, there are 2 main
points where HDD wear will eventually become a problem:
(a) the armature bearing and (b) the platter surfaces,
assuming the HDD is fed clean power and it is not
subjected to any severe high-G shocks (e.g. being
dropped to the floor).
And, of course, all of the above also presume that
the HDD is properly cooled.
At one point in the distant past, I believe Seagate
developed firmware that instructed the armature
to perform a full sweep from innermost to outermost
tracks, to equalize wear on platter surfaces.
We have also learned to pay attention to factory
warranties. The cost per warranty year is typically
lower for HDDs that come with a 5-year warranty; and,
one should expect those HDDs to be built with longer lasting
parts.
We have four 2.5″ 15,000 rpm Hitachi SAS enterprise HDDs
that are almost 9 years old, and they are still running perfectly.
Bottom line: if the choice is between occasional DEFRAGs
and no DEFRAGs whatsoever, I recommend occasional DEFRAGs
of HDDs, particularly the Windows C: partition.
Not only do HDDs get slower as they fill up
(because innermost tracks store less raw data);
a very fragmented HDD will certainly perform much
less efficiently that one that is not fragmented,
if only because of the longer access times that
accumulate when armature movements frequently
span many intervening tracks.
Lastly, AHCI mode is designed to re-order the
sequence of sector READs and WRITEs, chiefly
to minimize armature movement. So, if AHCI
can be enabled without causing any other problems,
that one change should also help to prolong
the usable lifetime of any one HDD. Switching
a running system from “IDE” to “AHCI” mode
is not as simple as a motherboard BIOS change,
however. Consult your motherboard’s User Manual,
and/or Tech Support, for relevant details.
Hope this helps.
“At one point in the distant
“At one point in the distant past, I believe Seagate
developed firmware that instructed the armature
to perform a full sweep from innermost to outermost
tracks, to equalize wear on platter surfaces.”
Really on a HDD if the R/W heads ever make contact with the platter then you have a head crash and things quickly go down hill from there! The R/W heads float a few μm above the platter surface on a cushon of fluid, and air is a fluid. [See: Bernoulli’s Equation]
And for platters with more than one surface(both sides of the platter used for data) or platters(more than one platter on some drives) then it’s best to store the file across the same track across all the platters/surfaces in what is called a logical cylinder. Allocating files in a cylinder mode manner stores the maximum amount of data without requiring the R/W assembly to have to step to the next track.
If you are doing any drive imaging copying/cloning then the initial image should be completely defragmented with the information transferred by the software on a track by track cylinder by cylinder basis across the disk so only one pass across the platters/tracks is required.
The best solution is to go with a tiered storage solution if your PC/Laptop supports an SSD and can also a hard drive and keep the necessary OS files and Virtual Memory/page file swap space on the SSD and let the tiered storage software manage the remainder automatically. And that includes some limited in memory RAM Disk alocation also to improve system respone times under heavy workloads.
P.S, The HDD’s controller should be doing its best to schedule the queued Rs/Ws in such a manner that minimizes R/W head assembly/stepping random access motion and the more On Drive Cache memory the better for that sort of ability.
Does this card “ASUS Hyper
Does this card “ASUS Hyper M.2 X16” ONLY work on
ASUS motherboards?
It was tested here but ONLY concerning VROC.
Any cards exist that work on most MBs?
Mine>ASUS Sabertooth X79 (3930 Sandybridge)?
Want to stack up the M.2 SSDs that I have and really be able to use them.
Thanks,
Oh, I also want to use the
Oh, I also want to use the ASUS Hyper card
on my X399 Gigabyte Threadripper.
How good is the Ryzen APU PRO
How good is the Ryzen APU PRO (desktop and mobile) used for light CAD work, does the on die GPU allow for a good experience?