Hey PCWorld fans, where did the week go?! Time really does fly when you’re having fun,
and that’s certainly what I’ve had this week with the deluge of amazing tech news. I’m gonna cover
the newest in memory technology with Intel’s XMP 3 point 0, a look at what makes Intel’s 12th gen
pricing so aggressive against its competition, whatAMD is doing to ensure it has adequate supply,
and with why it’s the end of the road for the Oculus branding.
More than I can cover in one breath so let’s sit back and get this one on the move.
Intel’s XMP, or eXtreme Memory Profile, technology has been with us since way back in 2017, and with
the launch of DDR5, it’s getting a massive update. The new XMP 3 point 0 protocol
memory modules will feature 3 available factory profiles, up from the two featured in XMP
2 point 0. The real kicker is that you’ll be able to add two personalized profiles!
In the past, memory vendors had been able to load up memory with only two different profiles.
What the companies typically did was load one aggressive profile that was used for
the marketing of the kit along with a lower demanding profile that would be more likely
to run on a wider range of hardware. Now the vendors will have the ability to really get
more flexible with what can be used for speeds and timings.
The really nice part of this update, in my opinion, has got to be the ability to save
your own profiles. Memory tuning has become increasingly popular over time
thanks to applications like the DRAM Calculator for Ryzen.
But, memory tuning can be very flakey, and if you can set up a much faster
profile for your system then be able to adjust from there instead of starting over from scratch
when going for the highest performance runs could be a whole new game for tuners.
To make use of that new memory when it hits the market you’ll need to pick up one of
Intel’s latest, 12th generation Alder Lake line of CPUs and a compatible motherboard.
While we anticipate the price of memory to be quite high, some could consider that Intel will
be throwing you a bone with the prices of the CPUs themselves. This is a breath of fresh air
from the company that hasn’t been exactly price competitive for some time. Sure the top dog Core
i9-12900k is a bit pricey at $589, but down the stack pricing gets much more comfortable.
The Core i7-12700K is likely to be the real hero here with its
12 core and 20 thread arrangement and is a much more palpable $409.
Down the stack, a little further is what I expect to be the go-to for gamers. The Core i5-12600K
features 10 cores and 16 threads and looks to truly compete with the Ryzen 5 5600x at $289.
Of course, those prices are all unit pricing so expect some sort of markup by the time
retailers get finished with them. Total system pricing will end up being key for competition
because remember folks, that DDR5 isn’t going to be cheap.
But don’t you dare count AMD out going into the final quarter of 2021.
Intel may be on the verge of its biggest launch in years but AMD is not resting on its laurels.
Rather than seeing flat growth like Intel, Dr. Lisa Su said the company expects to see an
increase in revenue for the fourth quarter, with an increase of 39 percent over the previous year.
How are they going to make sure they have the supply to meet the demand
and execute? Simple, toss a coin to your chipmaker. That’s right, AMD is quote
“investing significantly to secure additional capacity to support its long term growth.”
And it shows in numbers. AMD has continued to see market share growth in the CPU space and
recently was able to increase production of the Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs in the process,
which led to additional sales. As it often said “sometimes you have to spend money, to make money”
I love my Oculus Rift S, there are many like it, but this one is mine, and this week Facebook
killed it. Okay, maybe they didn’t fully kill it but the name is certainly dead. With the wild
and crazy announcements from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, we’re all now treated to a new name,
Meta. In this naming shake-up, it seemed fitting to drop Oculus and pick up Meta in its place. So
the Oculus Quest 2 will soon be known as the Meta Quest. Sounds like a free-to-play app store cash
grab if you ask me, but that’s what Meta is going for. Oh, that still feels kinda weird to say...
The transition won’t be happening until sometime in 2022 and it seems the company is wanting to
shift focus from VR gaming to becoming more integrated into our culture a la Ready Player
One. It’ll be interesting to see where the VR world goes from here and Meta along with it.
With that, let’s bring this wild week to a close just like Facebook did with the Oculus name.
We’ve seen a great update to XMP with multiple profiles and ones we can create ourselves,
Intel is getting serious about competing on pricing again,
AMD is tossing a coin to ensure they have the supply to remain competitive
and grow through the end of the year, and Meta is the new name as Oculus has been put to bed.
This week has been fun and exciting, and that goes double for the news.
I want to thank you for joining me this week as I wrapped things up in
a nice package Let me know if you enjoyed it by hitting that thumbs up
and subscribing here at PCWorld for even more PC hardware and software goodness!