https://liliputing.com/2018/12/your-slightly-bent-brand-new-ipad-pro-is-perfe...

All Ipad Pros coming from Apple are coming new in the box BENT in the middle from the factory.   Yep, you paid $1000 plus dollars for the thing and it is BENT in the middle from the factory.  

It is so durn flimsy you are gonna bend it yourself when using it, but that is a different matter ......

https://hothardware.com/news/banana-pi-server





The video immediately below shows the 24 each Cortex A-35 cores of the Socionext server board being fully utilized while building the Linux kernel.  This task simply shows all 24 cores can be loaded to the max using Ubuntu 18.4 LTS software while doing a major Linux kernel build, not that you would ever have to do that particular task.    A simple finned heat sink with no fan is all they are using with it right now, and the heat sink fins are only like 3/8" tall with NO COOLING FAN NEEDED.    The cores (lithography unknown) are clocked at 1 ghz per core, steady state.   If utilized, they ramp up to 1 ghz and stay there for moderate cooling load purposes as you already get 2x the throughput of an Intel system and there is no reason seen to clock it higher and require a bunch of fans or other esoteric cooling.    

Liquid water and fan cooling could easily run it on up to 2-3 ghz, for example, but nobody sees a need for that right now and the BIOS currently does not support those speeds anyway right now either.   The Cortex A-35 super efficiency core is being used for a reason, not for speed but for the absolute lowest current draw and absolute best battery life.   Right now the full out 1ghz current draw for all 24 cores is a whopping 5 watts of power consumption.  

Running it faster eats more energy and makes excess heat --- i.e. by definition "more inefficient".

https://youtu.be/EbYI9f-KeDk        it is a video, click on it

Watching the files roll down the screen also gives you an idea of the fairly decent response time you can get out of the Socionext 24 core ARM server doing a Linux kernel recompile job.    In short, for some normal single thread single core small tasks, it might not be so world beating great when compared to power hungry Intel machines ----- but for larger tasks that can actually use the many many cores on a larger steady running job it isn't shabby at all.   Using appropriate style tasks for a server, the Socionext offers 2x the performance of Intel at 60% of the energy cost ----- a big big advantage in small server space to say the least.

Other tidbits about the board come from LinkedIn comments from someone named Nora, who is said to be Project Manager for Banana Pi at Foxconn. The comments claim the board supports NVMe storage and that TensorFlow (for machine learning) under Docker, Raspbian, and ROS Melodic Morenia have all been tested on the board. There is no finalized indication of pricing or availability at this time.    

$1200 per unit is the current talking price for a fully set up server (this is dirt cheap for a complete server of any sort).

The bearded guy is real however and he comes from LENARO who is working on putting the many core arm world together with software, drivers and pre-approved hardware all tucked inside the Linux Kernel to make sure it is all instantly recognized and it all is working together properly.   YES, THESE ARE LENARO REFERENCE DESIGNS, AVAILABLE TO ANYBODY.   

Power cost is said to be 60% of what an equivalent Intel server processor would use while turning out twice the processing throughput power of the Intel server (both doing the same workload).    One assumes a particular small Intel server is being benchmarked, but which one is not stated just yet.

The CES show is coming together now and these early guys are already set up and demoing to the FOSS people right now, a full week before the show starts .....  

Intel is getting hurt again very very early on in the CES set up week by fast moving people slicing whole little wee chunks off their Intel market share pie using ARM technology.


https://youtu.be/kIwop47HDtw             it is a video, click on it

https://youtu.be/4gSkTuWR2nc


====================================================


Year 2019 market loss by Intel is estimated wind up at a significant fraction of the generic yearly equipment replacement rate of 25%.  

To go higher than this would be a very significant occurrence indeed.

Theory is that a large number of machines go obsolete and get replaced with something.   To get replaced before then requires a POSITIVE PAYBACK analysis for most businesses.

The little servers offer a 2 year payback on energy savings, going down to a one year payback after counting in on the much lower purchase price point, so they might move in a little faster.

Fastest of all will be the hobby / enthusiast's machines which can be replaced upon some sort of perceived benefit, whether real or financial or not.

So far the little ARM Cortex A-35 Socionext 24 core processor is in 5 different products that are on sale at Computex 2019.    The prices vary wildly as do the boards themselves, as they are constructed differently for different applications.    They all use the same chipset though, a brand new one which will come down in price tremendously if the volumes go up due to it being successful.

 
BEWARE the New Unannounced Intel "new processor offerings" ........

BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN SEEING    an F or a G
AFTER AN INTEL PART NUMBER.

It is rumored that the F means the on board graphics portion is defective and has been truncated by laser trace searing.

Intel is also making large amounts of 8 core chips that have entire defective core groups.   These are being sold as 6 core and 4 core part numbers with a G on the end.

Intel is HURTING for raw production capability and Intel is scrounging through the scrap pile for "salable parts" ......   do you really think what they dig out of the scrap pile is going to be up to snuff on all testing items, or just "acceptable" to Intel's interim desperation standards ???

I have been listening to a lot of panel podcasts and "presentations" on CES stuff and it was a rumor item shared in conversation on one of them.   Not really reliable until it gets confirmed a few times.

Intel has done this sort of stuff ongoing over the years, example when Intel supplies Apple with a brand new primo sorted processor you can count on all the ones going out to the normal fanboys during that initial time period being the "not up to Apple standards" sorted fall out group,  especially right there at first.

I will keep an eye out for further confirmation.

https://hothardware.com/news/new-intel-cpu-listings


......   my goodness that dark brown truncated bullshite smells so HORRIBLY bad .......  keep smiling, keep smiling, remember to wash my hands just as soon I get off the stage  

EEgore, this confirmation is fresh within the last 5 hours and covers the F designation pretty thoroughly.  

Intel Coffee Lake Refresh Enthusiast Core i9 CPUs With 8 And 6-Core Variants Break Cover
Computer users looking to build some high-powered gaming rigs will soon have some new Intel processors to choose from which has recently shown up in online listings. These new processors slot into the Coffee Lake Refresh family, and there are four new SKUs to look forward to. The parts include eight-core Core i9-9900KF and a Core i7-9700KF processors along with six-core Core i5-9600KF and Core i5-9400F processors.

Listings for these parts have turned up on Newegg and Synnex (among others), although some of these listing have been removed at the time of writing (likely at the behest of Intel).   Note that all four of the new CPUs end with an F designator, something that Intel traditionally uses to specify chips that lack integrated graphics.

That nomenclature leads to the thought that these parts are all aimed at enthusiast systems that will be relying on discrete graphics cards. Considering that most enthusiasts wouldn't dare try to do these tricks with Intel's integrated GPUs, this is a way for Intel to market CPUs that otherwise would have been ditched due to defective GPU cores.

The page listings call out support for all the chips with the existing 300-series mainboards. As for specifications, here's what we're dealing with:

Core i9-9900KF: eight cores, 95W TDP, clock frequencies of 3.6/5.0 GHz, and 16MB L3 cache
Core i7-9700KF: eight cores, 95W TDP, clock frequencies of 3.6/4.9 GHz, and 12MB of L3 cache
Core i5-9600KF: six cores, 95W TDP, clock frequencies of 3.7/4.6 GHz, and 9MB L3 cache
Core i5-9400F: six cores, 65W TDP, clock frequencies of 2.9/4.1GHz, and 9MB L3 cache

OK, the original rumor was that Intel had made a large run of 8 core chipsets with a naggingly bad failure rate.   But by slipping an F on at the end Intel could laser off the non-functional graphics section, and then by applying a G¹ or a G² to the wafer tray and to the boxing containing the separated chips were teed up to be laser burned and post sorted for cutting out the graphics section and for cutting off one (or two) defective processor core groupings, making the 8 core chipset into an impromptu 6 core or even all the way down to a 4 core no graphics variant, these being variants that simply didn't exist before.  

New part numbers had to be created and advertising for the new variants had to be pushed out through the system.   This is the activity that we are seeing now.

Please note that some of these variants will still draw full support power for the items that are lasered off -- and that they might also have issues with missed processing clock cycles that will cause them to run more slowly as truncation activities seldom get off scott free as the chips are still scheduled as if whole.

Thus Intel will be able to sell the large number of defectives as "good to use" for gamer fans to use in Intel systems with big video cards.   Being Intel, they will likely try to sell them at a premium price since they "are for gamers only".  

In fact they are SUB-STANDARD products that will suck full power while performing poorly.



Duh, buy AMD gamer boys and girls, buy AMD ......




===================================================




More confirmations on the F designation ......

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/i9-9900kf-i7-9700kf-i5-9600kf-i5-9400f-pric...


Recent rumors claim that Intel is planning to expand its 9th-generation family of Intel Core processors with up to six new chips that lack the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 (GT2) iGPU, as denoted by an "F" suffix on the product name.

Now major Norwegian and Finnish computer hardware retailers have listed four unannounced Intel 9th-generation Coffee Lake Refresh processors: The Intel Core i9-9900KF, Core i7-9700KF, Core i5-9600KF, and Core i5-9400F.

The Intel Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, Core i5-9600K, Core i3-9350K, and Core i5-9400 have purportedly been chosen to receive the treatment.

It's not unusual to find an Intel HEDT (High End Desktop) or Xeon processor without integrated graphics. The reasoning being that if a consumer has the budget to pick up one of those chips, they would probably pair it with a discrete graphics card. However, it's pretty rare to see a mainstream Intel processor that doesn't have onboard graphics. The last time Intel released a chip of this class without integrated graphics was back in the good old Sandy Bridge days with the Intel Core i5-2550K.

The incredibly complex chip manufacturing process isn't perfect, so many processors come off the production line with defects. Intel can simply disable cores on a chip, instead selling it as a lower-end model, if a defect lands in a core. It stands to reason, then, that selling chips without integrated graphics would allow Intel to sell chips with defects in the graphics units. That would certainly help as Intel grapples with an ongoing shortage of 14nm manufacturing capacity.

It is unlikely that these new chips normally come on a die that lacks integrated graphics, largely due to the expense of designing and fabricating an entirely new die.

https://liliputing.com/2019/01/windows-10-will-set-aside-reserved-storage-for...



OK, Mickey says you have been crowding him out of his "comfortable" hard drive leg room, so now Mickey is just gonna jest TAKE what he wants for leg room, reserve it and make it "unavailable" to you, Mr. User.   So there !!!!   Put that in your pipe and smoke it !!!!

Worse yet, Mickey will attempt to clean off "unused software" based upon the longest time a file has been unused to create the needed reserved space, automatically.

I wonder how that automatic clean off of unused software is gonna go ......

"I am Mickey, I need 7.6 gigabytes of new drive space today for "MS RESERVE" ....... this machine only has 3.2 gigabytes free ....... searching ...... searching ....... MS records indicate that MS has never read / have never utilized this block of dual boot Linux files since MS Windows 10 was original installed ....... searching ...... searching ........ Linux files are not listed as authorized software ....... delete, delete, delete all unauthorized software .......

<poof>  

Now you see why I recommend getting Mickey off the Linux machine totally.   He is a sloppy piggish land grabbing bad actor on a shared hard drive machine.

Dual booting now becomes a RISK that you are taking, with MS grabbing space automatically and killing any unlisted drivers or unrecognized software files .



Next point to make, Linux is quite SMALL compared even to the Reserve Drive Space that MS now requires this being all the new space that Mickey needs to roll his fat arse over in the bed while he is updating at night.

 
https://liliputing.com/2019/01/cpu-shortages-and-trade-wars-contributing-to-d...


CPU shortages and Trump trade wars contributing to declining PC shipments (according to IDC and Gartner)

In what’s become a familiar set of headlines in recent years, market research firms IDC and Gartner have put out a pair of press releases showing that PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2018 were down from the same period a year earlier… and that overall PC shipments in 2018 were lower than in 2017.

What’s new are the explanations — although it’s always best to take those with a grain of salt, since they’re basically (highly) educated guesses.

In a nutshell, the firms suggest that shortages of Intel CPUs and mounting tensions between the US and China have led to supply chain issues and a dip in demand for Chinese products sold in the US.

Gartner also suggests holiday computer sales didn’t seem to have the same impact they have in previous years, and according to one Gartner analyst, they’re “no longer a major factor driving consumer demand for PCs.”

That said, it looks like sales to small and medium businesses were strong, as companies look to upgrade their PCs to Windows 10 machines ahead of the January, 2020 when Windows 7 will officially reach end of life status.

While IDC and Gartner’s exact numbers differ a bit, both seem to agree that Lenovo has overtaken HP as the top PC vendor in terms of shipments, which means that the top 5 now looks like this:

Lenovo
HP
Dell
Apple
Acer
Everyone else
Lenovo and HP together have nearly 50 percent of the market, with Dell, Apple, and Acer coming in decent third, fourth, and fifth place.

It’s possible things could look different in 2019 as Intel addresses its CPU shortage issues… or as PC makers consider switching to AMD or ARM processors for at least some models.

It is interesting to note though, that while AMD made some big announcements at CES last week, there weren’t many new AMD-powered computers at the show, and I didn’t see a single new Windows-on-ARM devices… although CES isn’t as much of a computer show as it once was.

If this entire Intel AMD ARM struggle currently going on gets framed by this shrinking market into a simple struggle over the 25% yearly replacement market, then the money being spent by these folks on competing with each other will decline drastically.

Intel isn't competing with anybody, they act like they own the place already.  Heck, maybe they do in as much as they lost their proportional chunk of market share last year and are keying up to lose another proportional chunk like it really doesn't matter to them very much.   I mean really Intel's worst foe right now is INTEL manufacturing, which is shutting itself down for upgrades, upgrades which are so weak at this time as to be already overcome by AMD right now before they are even completed.

In a market place roiled by Trump's trade wars and Intel chip shortages AMD is being all level headed, acting very carefully not extending themselves out too far in case of some sort of market correction takes place and staying well within the bounds of REAL reality in all their announcements, giving out information only when they already firmly know they can do it and announcing the new stuff only when they are ready to actually begin doing it.

AMD is rationing out their progress, able to do this since they have Intel on the ropes already.  AMD realizes they are only going to get the unit replacement market share of 25% per annum and to take more than this is unrealistic (and it is potentially dangerous to AMD to try to knock off even more of Intel's share as it could lead to an overall market reversal or a form of complete collapse quite easily)

AMD can offer some strong products that are reasonably priced and EARN more market share by making it clear to Big Business that the simple energy savings in rack space are offering a one year payback on new equipment --- but for this to actually happen would still be quite remarkable.

BTW, ARM HOLDINGS looks to be going after this energy payback approach already ........ so AMD has to beat out both Intel and ARM in this arena to slice off even bigger pie in 2019.