2017 LOOKING GOOD !
We ’ re well into 2017 by now and one must state that it ’ s all looking rather good on the technology front . New chipsets , CPUs , GPUs and in essence everything I thought 2016 would have been but didn ’ t become .
Without question one of the biggest highlights or rather entity that ’ s responsible for this excitement is AMD . Not only has the company final given us some solid info on their platform , but the benchmarks look promising . This is true for the graphics division as well . It could just be the one year where AMD undoes all the failure of the last decade .
Some would think this would lead to lower pricing via a price war of sorts . I ’ m not for that kind of jostling , but at the same time I do believe better pricing all around should be an obvious and necessary outcome of this new-found enthusiasm for AMD products . At worst if their chief competitors do not react accordingly to make themselves relevant , then it ’ ll be for AMD to pick up some market share at the expense of their two dominant competitors . Even better is if it grows the market for all , but the truth is likely to be the former .
I for one am not complaining , if only because it allows variation in all the systems we have . We are at a point where products are so similar , that it ’ s essentially down to aesthetics and what new product will also feature RGB LEDs . It has become rather dire and every component within the PC and outside is available with lights and that ’ s how vendors differentiate . A rather tragic situation .
Having a viable AMD platform won ’ t alleviate this issue , but it does allow for some variation in what we are constantly being bombarded with . From an overclocking perspective , it opens up the competition and as always there ’ ll be those who overclock exclusively on one platform or the other . With the lower pricing of the AMD platform it also allows more people to get into overclocking , at least those who found it cost prohibitive .
It ’ s not all AMD however , INTEL has finally decided to head the communities wishes with an additional unlocked K SKU CPU . The price is relatively high , but still more accessible . Perhaps with a slight price adjustment it could be the killer CPU from INTEL . Even at the current price however , it is attractive . Add the potential of price adjustments because of AMD ’ s offerings and there really is an opportunity for the 7350K . So far there aren ’ t any great advocates for the CPU , unfortunate as it may send the wrong message to the powers that be that there ’ s no interest in the CPU , but that ’ s far from reality .
How this will play out remains to be seen , but I for one welcome more K SKUs in INTEL ’ s line up and not less . Especially given that AMD is releasing all RYZEN SKUs unlocked . The biggest question for me again isn ’ t how AMD will perform , but rather how their competitors on both fronts will react .
NVIDIA should have cause for concern as well , with the runaway success that was the 900 and 1000 series GPUs . They ’ ve effectively cornered the market and with that we ’ ve seen clamping down on overclocking , and prices increasing . We are in a situation at present , be it the process or by design , that makes it near impossible to distinguish between the various cards . They are identical in all ways and prove to be just as troublesome when it comes to overclocking . I ' m unsure if AMD will follow in the same path , but given just how simple and straight forward it was to overclock the RX 480 , it does bode well for AMD ’ s upcoming GPUs . That is assuming they stick largely to the same approach or methodology to overclocking . This may have consequences which benefit us the end users and enthusiasts greatly . If AMD does release a slew of high performance , competitive cards at lower prices than NVIDIA , with the advantage of being overclockable . Then that may at the least cause NVIDIA to take a second look at how they are pricing their products and all the checks and balances they ’ ve integrated into their latest GPUs that are a hindrance to overclocking ( I ’ m not implying NVIDIA gimped the cards , but that they certainly didn ’ t go out of their way to make them OC friendly ). I for one would like to see GPU prices come back down to the sub $ 1,000 mark . That was absurd already , but we have gone beyond that simply because there is no competition .
So here ’ s to 2017 , whatever happens I think it ’ ll be for the better . Stay tuned .
[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]
Issue 40 | 2017 The OverClocker 4