Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the burning topics on our YouTube show or fresh news from across the web? You’re in the right place.
Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website!
I have a plan for Ryzen 9000G chips. That is, if they come to be. It seems likely given that we’ve seen successive generations of AMD desktop APU processors—and recently, a bit of juicy speculation.
The talk derives from a dig into the recent AESA 1.2.7.0 update for 800-series motherboards. Users on X/Twitter think there are hints at the coming of Strix Point for desktop.
If this projection ends up holding true, some believe we could see as many as four 9000-series APUs hit the market, with both Kraken Point and Strix Point represented.
The rumor mill is pegging these as upgraded processors across the board. The vision: At the bottom of the stack, a 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 3 9300G, with 6 RDNA 3.5 cores. In the middle, an 8C/16T Ryzen 5 9500G with 8 RDNA 3.5 cores. And at the top, a 12C/24T chip with 16 RDNA 3.5 cores. (Videocardz.com thinks it’d be named the Ryzen 7 9700G, but its core count suggests a name more like 9800G or 9900G.)
For comparison, the 8300G was still stuck on 4C/8T, with just four RDNA 3 cores. The 8700G capped out at 8C/16T with 12 RDNA 3 cores.
I’m excited. I love the idea of a simple, easy suggestion to give people building gaming PCs for their kids. I love the possibility of squeezing a usable gaming machine into a sub-5L DIY PC. I love a lower power bill that I min/max more than my character builds in games.
(San Francisco’s electric rates aren’t Europe-high, but they’re still pretty expensive. The LA metro area is cheaper, which I find crazy.)
Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
I’m also aware I’m the very problem that I worry about.
Whether or not these chips land, the budget end of discrete graphics will still be stagnating. Between tariffs, economic anxiety around inflation, and other factors, the focus on the high end has shrunk prospects for new, powerful, and affordable discrete cards. If Gordon were here, he’d probably accuse me of needless hand-wringing, but look man, things look depressed, if not outright grim.
If companies think we’re willing to accept scraps, what inventive do they have to pile the table with affordable performance?
Still, I take quiet delight in the prospect of high performance in limited space. I am ready to benchmark a set of Ryzen 9000G chips at 1080p.
I think it’s worth recognizing the bounty of these tech times, even as future prospects feel dry. How cool is it that performance is so high that a CPU with integrated graphics is enough to game on?
That’s the silver lining for me—that even if our prospects seem thin, we have enough performance to still see us through the lean times.
I hope.
In this episode of The Full Nerd
In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith chat about a possible upcoming launch of AMD Ryzen 9000G APUs and Windows on the next Xbox console. Turns out, I get philosophical when discussing these topics—not only did I end up riffing more on the idea of 9000G chips (ahem), but I had a lot to say about Xbox, PCs, and how well they blend together.
Also, if you’re normally an audio listener, I recommend peeping at least a little of the video feed. Adam committed hard to his Halloween costume this year, as teased by the picture below.
(Yes, that is Will riding a chicken. And yes, Willis made the most unexpected sly comment about that costume during the video pre-show.)
Willis Lai / Foundry
Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time!
Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now!
And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds.
This week’s incredible nerd news
Japan’s enduring love for physical media seems downright sensible this week after Microsoft’s Azure disruption—which came just days after the Amazon AWS outage. I found out because I couldn’t load the Xbox.com website. I would have been much more frustrated if I’d needed access to cloud content.
Also low-tech but possibly high impact? Mushrooms as memory. Yeah. It’s so cool.
veloci_official / Reddit
- Friendly BitLocker PSA: It’s worth verifying your PC’s encryption status right now—and also if you have the encryption keys saved. I’ve had odd BitLocker experiences myself, so I took this Redditor’s tale as a good precautionary reminder.
- Thank you, I needed the layperson version: I appreciate how this Tom’s Hardware article explains the reason for the Amazon AWS failure in terms like “Old Plan” and “New Plan.” I truly don’t know how folks who manage DNS-related systems sleep at night.
- A whole new take on flight sims: One of the top comments on Redditor veloci_official’s method of starting up their PC speaks deep truth. Yes, it indeed is the level of defense needed against cats and their nonchalant disregard for power buttons.
- We complained about a $1,000 Xbox, but…: It cost fifty cents to produce AMD’s clone of the Intel 8080 in 1975. It sold for $700. (That’s about $3 and $4,300 in today’s dollars, respectively.) Margins for computer hardware definitely aren’t like this any more.
- Leeches can get stuck WHERE? I mean, score one for medical troubleshooting, but also this is nightmare fuel. (Timely for Halloween, I suppose.)
Ohio State University
- Low-tech as high-tech: I love the idea of mushrooms being the future of technology. In space. Yep, plain old shiitake mushrooms as memory chips, possibly chilling in the radiation of solar flares and the like.
- Thanks, Steve: Gamers Nexus always does us a solid by answering our burning questions. I’ve sincerely wanted to know how Yeston makes their waifu graphics cards. (I would also take a video on how they made that cat chassis, please and thank you.)
- Medical science FTW: Not everyone creates effective antibodies to ward off viruses. The idea of isolating broadly effective antibodies and then injecting them into a person’s DNA for replication (to help individuals better fight viral infections) is rad as heck.
Catch you all next week—I’ll probably have a candy hangover from my usual November 1 discount haul. My future self will have no regrets.
Also, how is it already time to change our clocks back?
~Alaina
This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld.
