Leo Says 30: HALLOWEEN SPECIAL! PC modding, Corsair HydroX, Intel & AMD financials

Leo is back again this week to talk shop about the on-goings in the industry. This week, Leo has a chat with world class PC modder ‘BJPC'. We then dive into Intel's record quarter earnings and discuss how financial reports on the AMD side seem harsh, given that AMD is releasing great processors. Leo also touches on the latest 7nm news from AMD, with Threadripper 3000 set to continue using the TR4 socket. 

00:15 Introduction
00:33 Talking to World Class Modder BJPC
04:06 Control Buses
06:46 Corsair has HydroX products coming that will presumably integrate with iCUE
07:50 Intel Q3 financials – record quarter
10:20 AMD Q3 financials – missed expected earnings
12:10 Financial reports seem harsh as AMD are releasing great processors
14:27 Threadripper 3000 Castle Peak on 7nm using Zen2 will continue to use Socket TR4

Leo's Notes:

Modding: I have never really chimed with modding as modders seem to look for problems to solve, rather than looking for products that work as the designer intended.

Jo Puwalski, who goes by the name BJPC, was showing The Cosmopolitan and EisMaschine at a recent Alphacool Halloween party. Both systems use concrete. Each time I asked why? The response was why not?

Control buses:  Aqua Computer has long used its Aquaero controller unit with its Aquasuite software and now has the D5 NEXT pump. Alphacool and Aqua Tuning are working on products that use Eis-Bus that is derived from CAN-bus and can be controlled using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. Watercool.de is also working on a control bus.

Corsair HydroX:  Corsair has HydroX products coming that will presumably integrate with iCUE

Intel Q3 financials:  SemiAccurate reported beforehand that Intel has knifed the 10nm process. Intel has denied this.

Q: 10nm on track, can you quantify progress over 3 months?
A: Can't share exact details, yields are improving, more confident this quarter about shipping 10nm in holiday 2019 compared to last quarter

Let us assume 10nm comes to market in 2019 but what the heck are they doing with their architecture and how long will the next design take to come to market?

Intel had a record quarter with US$19.2 billion revenue and US$7.3 billion operating income.

Expected Results vs Actual: Q3 2018 Results
Revenue($B) $18.1 expected, $19.2 actual
EPS $1.15 expected, $1.40 actual

Q3 2018 vs. Q3 2017
Revenue($B) $19.2 against $16.1 up 19%
Gross Margin 64.5% against 62.3% up 2.2 pts
Net Income ($B) $6.4 against $4.5 up 42%
Earnings Per Share $1.38 against $0.94 up 47%

AMD Q3 financials: AMD generated $1.65 billion in revenue over Q3 2018 on an operating income of $150 million. They missed their expected earnings by a small amount and their share price dived 9 percent.

My reading is that AMD graphics are nowhere with little joy on the horizon. CPU sales look good and EPYC has huge potential but something apparently doesn't add up for the analysts.

This seems harsh as the future of CPUs seems to belong to AMD. Threadripper 2920X and 2970WX are now on sale and take the fight directly to Intel's announced-but-not-released 9th Gen Core-X, which looks like Skylake-X with a soldered heat spreader, still using X299.

By contrast the 48 core/64 core EPYC Rome will be arranged as nine chips in 8+1 configuration so that is eight 7nm CCX arranged around one 14nm or 16nm IOX chip with support for up to 4TB DDR4-3200MHz memory per socket. On paper Rome looks formidable and with prices around the US$5000 mark you can hear the nails banging into Xeosns coffin. At Computex 2019 we can predict that AMD's Lisa Su will say that Rome Rules The World.

Threadripper 7nm: Threadripper 3000 Castle Peak on 7nm using Zen2 will continue to use Socket TR4.

AMD has released Ryzen Master v1.5 for 2nd Gen. Threadripper with the new Dynamic Local Mode that automatically migrates the system is most demanding application threads onto the cores with local memory access. Meanwhile 1st Gen. Threadripper and Ryzen use Ryzen Master v1.4

KitGuru uses a variety of equipment to produce content:
As of 27th April 2018:
Panasonic GH5 Cameras
Panasonic GH4 Cameras
Panasonic G7 Cameras
Various PC builds

Final output – colour grading/titling etc:
iMac Pro 18 Core/Vega 64/128GB
Adobe Premiere Pro CC (PC)
Davinci Resolve Studio 14/15 (Mac)

KitGuru says: Be sure to let us know your thoughts and if you agree (or disagree) with LEO. Love him, or hate him- he says it, cause he means it!

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