Show notes

After two quick listener mail questions, we introduce a special guest to the TR Podcast: Jeff Atwood, author of Coding Horror and the brains behind Stack Overflow and Discourse.org. Jeff is one of our top 10 contributors, and he’s also a former TR writer who once did some development work for the site.

After we catch up with Jeff, Scott and the team discuss Intel’s refreshed Haswell CPUs. Then, Scott provides a deep dive into the Radeon R9 295 X2 GPU and the current state of 4K gaming. To finish off our episode, we discuss Samsung’s 28″ single-tile 4K display, and Cyril pontificates about Valve’s Steam controller.

Send in listener mail, and we’ll answer on the podcast. – jdrake@techreport.com

Follow us on Twitter – Scott – Jordan – Geoff – Cyril – The Tech Report

Listener mail/tweets:

Monitor frequencies? – from RBattle: “With the relatively recent developments in graphics/display technology, i.e. G-Sync, Freesync, and higher resolution, generally better panels, why aren’t there more ideal solutions available? We can get low persistence, strobing displays with GSync in TN panels, and we can get fairly impractical, slow 4k displays, but there are no 1440 or 1600 IPS panels with G-Sync available right now. Is everyone just waiting on 4k G-Sync strobing IPS panels that run above 60Hz?” AMD Steamroller CPU? – from Mohi: “I have a question about AMD processors. Do you think that AMD will eventually decide to release a CPU with L3 cache configuration and no integrated graphics based on Steamroller architecture? I’ve been following the news about the possible end to the FX line-up after Piledriver and FX 8350, but do you think it makes sense for AMD to make an Steamroller based design on it’s existing AM3+ platform or a new socket? Would the new 28 nm process be of any benefit If Piledriver based were to get shrunk to this process? Or do you just think that It’s the end of line for CPUs from AMD? Also one more thing about the metal coolers on some video cards (GeForces more notably). Do you think that the metal on the face side of these cards poses any risks of vulnerability to other cards sitting beside them (e.g. SLI configs). For instance, wouldn’t the backside of these short out with the metal from the card mounted one slot above?”

Tech discussion:

Here are the specs and prices for Intel’s Haswell Refresh CPUs – Read more AMD’s Radeon R9 295 X2 graphics card reviewed – Read more Samsung’s 28” display serves up single-tile 4K at 60Hz for $800 – Read more For Valve, is the Steam controller both a blessing and a curse? – Read more

That’s all, folks! We’ll see you on the next episode.