Summary of the week of April 20, 2020

[cobito]

A somewhat busy week to mix things up:

TSMC will go for 3nm in 2022

Earlier this year, the semiconductor manufacturer began production of chips with a 5nm gate size. It has now been announced that in just over two years, the 3nm node will enter production.

AMD announces the low end of its 3000 series

These are two models with 4 Zen2 cores and SMT at base frequencies of 3.6 and 3.8GHz with a price of €100 and €120 respectively.

Minecraft with Ray Tracing

In Minecraft RTX, you can clearly see how good lighting completely changes the gaming experience without the need for big frills.

Zen 3 will come in AM4

AMD's socket has seen several generations of processors pass before its eyes and it seems it still has a few years left before retirement. The Ryzen 4000 will not only make use of the socket that the infamous Piledriver debuted back in 2017 but will also be able to be used in B450 motherboards.

AMD FX 8350 at 8.1GHz

In this video, you can see how they have managed to push this processor above 8GHz. Unfortunately, it's a Bulldozer so the performance isn't that exaggerated.

Security flaw in iOS

The Mail email app found on iPhones and iPads has a security flaw that has allowed attackers to steal data for years. The flaw has already been fixed.

Google's quantum computing boss resigns

One of the companies that is betting the hardest on quantum computing has lost its head of hardware development. The reasons for the resignation are not known.

Desktop ARM computer

The only alternative with any possibility of offering something to the desktop has manifested itself in the form of a workstation in a tower. The machine has 32 Ampere N1 cores, 256GB of RAM and a 960GB SSD drive.

Microsoft shows a beta version of Windows Terminal

Microsoft's new shell that is being touted as a replacement for conhost (which appeared with Windows 7) has a test version. For now, a new version of the cmd terminal has not been announced, so not too many changes will be noticeable for the average user.

Hardlimit Benchmark 1.3

Version 1.3 of the benchmark is now available where the limit on the number of threads has been removed.

Apple considers moving to ARM for its laptops

This is a rumor that is based on the development of a new processor based on the A14 and the planned models, one of which will be much more powerful than its predecessors. According to the rumors, the change would begin in 2021 and would affect the most affordable Mac models to gradually change the entire range of computers.

ODROID releases its alternative to Raspberry Pi 4

The developer has been fighting for a place in the world of SBCs for a few years now and seems to want to carve out a niche in the segment occupied by the best-equipped Raspberry Pis. The ODROID-C4 comes with a 4-core Cortex-A55 SoC, 4GB of RAM, slots for Micro SD and MMC, HDMI 2.0 output, hardware decoding of 4K video at 75fps and 10 bits, hardware encoding of 1080p video at 60fps, USB 3.0 and the typical GPIO pins. It costs about €50.

Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.4.2

There is already a new version of the drivers for AMD GPUs. It comes with performance improvements for Gears Tactics and Predator: Hunting Grounds. It also fixes some bugs, such as a problem that crashed the system when running Folding@Home.

Superpaper extends the wallpaper to multiple screens

If you have a multi-monitor system with Linux and you want to extend the wallpaper across all the monitors, Superpaper offers a graphical interface from which to configure the behavior of the image.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS available

Yesterday saw the announcement of the new version with extended support time for Ubuntu. One of the most interesting new features is the possibility of installing the system on a ZFS file system.

Celeron N2840

Yorus brings us the new version of the benchmark, a 2014 mobile Silvermont with 2 cores running at 2.6GHz. Its performance is quite similar to desktop Conroes and Peryns from 2006 to 2008, which isn't bad considering a TDP of only 7.5W. In short, it's a basic but efficient micro.

Celeron J3455

Yorus is back with an attack, this time with a Goldmont with 4 cores with a TDP of 10W mounted on an Intel NUC. Its performance can once again be compared to desktop processors from just over a decade ago. Having 4 not very powerful cores, its single and multi-threaded performance is only similar to similar processors but when analyzed separately, they are comparable to Conroes.