Nvidia and AMD are FRIENDS NOW! - WAN Show August 11, 2017

The WAN Show episode from August 11, 2017 centers on a week of intense activity at Linus Tech Tips, including moving offices, reorganizing spaces, and preparing for a new production setup. The hosts discuss the disruption and the surprising amount of archaeology involved in tidying up the space, from old CRTs to long-forgotten storage racks. They reveal how the team is navigating the inspection process and the requirements for a new tenant improvement across the warehouse, with careful attention to exits and code compliance. Amid the workflow chaos, they share personal anecdotes about the team dynamics, the challenges of moving personnel, and the humor that keeps everyone motivated during a hectic period. The show then pivots to technology news, starting with Intel’s Core i9 lineup and Threadripper, comparing core counts, turbo speeds, and pricing against AMD’s Ryzen offerings. The discussion highlights how high core counts impact performance in mixed workloads, while noting AMD’s advantage in base clocks and price competitiveness for multi-threaded tasks. They also compare PCIe lane allocations, where Threadripper’s 64 lanes stand out against Ryzen’s configurations, affecting GPU and peripheral bandwidth. A Twitter moment from NVIDIA welcoming AMD back to the CPU game is treated as a sign of a more collaborative competitive landscape, even as the two giants technically operate as separate business units. The crew reviews the practical impact of the rumored and confirmed features, such as NVMe boot RAID support, and explains why some options may only matter in extreme workstation scenarios. The show then covers water cooling and the first water blocks for Threadripper, with a quick prototype reveal and a lighthearted exchange about a misstep during a live demo. Sponsorship segments follow, with Mack Weldon promoting premium fabrics and antimicrobial lines, FreshBooks highlighting cloud accounting for small businesses, and Spectrum Glasses showcasing blue light filtering. The hosts discuss Discord’s upcoming video chat and screen sharing features, and they speculate on how Floatplane’s community and club features can expand the platform for creators and viewers. They touch on the evolving ecosystem around the WAN Show, including collectibles and a rumor about ASUS potentially pushing Vega cards with new cooling approaches. The program also addresses the 2024 Olympics and esports ambitions, the iPhone 8 rumors, and Seagate’s 64 TB NVMe SSDs, weaving together hardware trends with entertainment and media strategies. The discussion then shifts to VR and display tech, including a tall order for high refresh rate gaming setups and a DIY 4K at 120 Hz monitor project. Throughout, the hosts reflect on the past year at Linus Media Group, the cultural shifts within the team, and the excitement of future builds, vlogs, and collaborations. The episode closes with a candid look at logistics, project planning, and the ongoing evolution of the studio, underscored by a sense of humor and a steady focus on delivering content to the audience while navigating real-world production constraints. Overall, the WAN Show blends behind-the-scenes chaos with cutting-edge hardware discussions, creating an engaging mix of organization, technology analysis, and lighthearted banter that characterizes Linus Tech Tips.

Topics · technology · hardware · computing · consumer-electronics · cs-and-it · video-production