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Big Picture Questions for Tom (Die Shrink Telegrams) (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-10 18:10:43
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

I (Tom) will be recording a solo DS early this week in preparation for vacation early next week...so please, submit below or send a voicemail in the proper channel now! (Voicemails are great for DS)

It's been a while since we've done a solo episode, and I am feeling eager to talk about more off-subject or big picture subjects. Ask anything - especially if it has to do with the direction of the industry, burning off-subject questions you've had, or is something specifically best for me to answer versus a guest or Dan.

You have ~4 hours to submit!

Comments

Anil Ganti

Has Medusa Halo actually been axed or is it on track for release?

Planet 9

Assuming that Xbox magnus has a dual boot between windows and ”Series mode” should we expect to be allowed to install a new OS or do you think it’ll be locked to only windows and the compatibility OS?

prick

Do you have any musings about whether Intel's comments about receding from open source software are reverberating within the company, or just an executive yelling at the clouds?

prick

Can you describe to the extent you are aware of AMD's initiatives into improving software everywhere across the stack e.g. CPU and GPU performance profiling / debugging, entering the scientific open source sphere where Intel is regressing, improving documentation, and generally making themselves an appealing platform to target specific features of and grow roots onto? The largest appeal of Intel and Nvidia for developers was simple & easy to understand documentation and software initiatives, so begs the question whether AMD is prioritizing it as much as they should be to calcify their position. Software wise, they're still effectively second-source.

Fred Fredburger

I think you mentioned several years ago that initially you were planning on using your own music before settling on Sahara. Do you still do music stuff now and what kind of stuff do you listen to?

A Ikes

Do you think Zen6's transition to fan out chiplet interconnects will last as long as they've used SERDES?

prick

STXH has proven to be quite an effective product despite its costs, and they will sell every unit they produce. I think this gives leverage internally to teams within AMD to design more skunkworks-tier, expensive to produce products. How has the culture within AMD developed in this respect? Is there a willingness in the future to design more highly effective monolithic or expensively packaged hardware beyond 'Halo'?

prick

In my opinion, the work AMD and Sony have done with FSR4 and PSSR prove Nvidia to be a paper tiger. Nvidia is valued at $4.5T, and AMD at $357B. Nvidia is a patent juggernaut, a vacuum for the best software engineers and researchers in the world, yet clearly does not command a monopoly on nearly any product category outside of the software ecosystem. AMD has Xilinx products being pervasive throughout the company, with the recently announced rack-scale vertically integrated solution competitor. MI3xx appears to be already competitive, Blackwell faltered and AMD gained a lot of ground with ray tracing. Even if the entirety of Nvidia refocuses on gaming as a company, will it prove fruitful when basically neither are giving any serious regard to gaming right now?

prick

With the recent Intel Tech Tour, several commentators including Wendell believe that 18A is doing just fine. Is this in-line with your opinions as well? I hazard a guess that being marshalled around on a great propaganda tour isn't great for bias purposes, but I trust Wendell's word more than most. Then, what are your thoughts about 18A being paraded around as a national security widget? Are the hypotheses from a few months ago about either Nvidia or AMD second-sourcing from IFS developing into reality?

prick

As a general trend, it appears that macOS market share has gone down from ~8.5% in September 2020 to 3.3% this September according to StatCounter. Apple's deathgrip on macOS is in my opinion harming the company, as we know they can develop good Windows software or at the very least, they could begin harboring Linux support. What are your opinions surrounding these circumstances? I would quite enjoy an M4 Max laptop running either Windows on ARM or Linux.

prick

Looking back, I reckon the era of gaming on Pascal or older is pretty much dead. The drivers are becoming unmaintained this month, now 9 years old. The time dilation of PC gaming is only getting longer and longer, with some people still hanging onto their 750 Ti cards with its Maxwell 1.0-ness sufficiently matching the Maxwell 2.0 architecture and beyond in its driver support. Do you suspect this will get even worse, or will the gaming industry solidify on new features such as mesh shaders and new D3D12/Vulkan features, even outside of raytracing? What will become of these old cards that defined a decade of gaming, in this upcoming hard-stop?

Bryo

Hi Tom, from what I understand you’ve been hearing from sources that return rates on windows ARM laptops were very high. Is this still the case? Do you think the snapdragon x2 can move the needle at all with regards to windows ARM adoption or is this going to be another dead end for Microsoft? While Microsoft has never been “loved” in the pc gaming community, and despite the insane market cap they have at the moment, something about the way they are running their business just feels *wrong* to me, like competitors are poised to chip away at them from different angles in the coming decade.

prick

I seem to remember at some point, maybe from you, that AMD was considering radically different alternatives and paradigms to rendering technologies than raytracing or upscaling. Do you have any more privileged information on these innovations, or will the industry continue to answer to Nvidia's technologies alone?

prick

What will the gaming industry look like without Microsoft? It seems they've full-on went private equity vulture mode with Game Pass and the entire Xbox brand. Whether or not this future Xbox releases, it might be time to reconsider the relevance of D3D12 entirely in favor Vulkan. If I were beginning the design and rendering architecture of a game not too long ago and had to choose one and only one graphics API to support, it would of been D3D12, given how many platforms it can now be translated to. Now, it's looking like Vulkan would be the smart decision, if Xbox API exclusivity goes away such that I could now more properly target more platforms. Not to mention, reimagining the entire game studio scene after Microsoft as well.

Swiggles

Hey Tom, I know it's early and difficult to tell but what did the bailout of Intel do for them?What do you think is the biggest impact it had?Does this mean Intel GPUs continue? At least do you the new Intel CEO can finally take a breather from all this extremely real but depressing talk about how they need to hold out for a hero?

Swiggles

Ps thank you for still taking questions for me after I accidentally frame generated an answer a while back. Something like is this the begin of the beginin for amd... And didn't even finish the submission properly lol

prick

Have you heard any news out of the ex-Intel AADG guys now running Ahead Computing? They seem buddy-buddy with Jim Keller, and given that Tenstorrent is also designing RISC-V cores it is a possibility that they could be contracting eachother to do different IP work. Nvidia also spoke recently on RISC-V adoption, and they are now looking into doing it properly now that the new RVA23 architecture baseline is in full swing across the RISC-V industry. If not, it would be cool to see you keep a finger on this pulse where possible given your position. I'm a believer in the great man theory of history, and this crew between Tenstorrent and Ahead Computing seem worth paying attention to.

Lo_Res_Gamer

Hi Tom, do you think there's another viable wave of AI out there and if so what type of new tech could drive that advancement? Or if you don't think there's another wave, how and roughly when do you see the AI bubble deflating (a bang or a whimper)? From my POV, the only remaining game-changer I can think of in AI is if they find a way to do LLMs without destroying the electric power grid of any region where they setup an AI datacenter. Local residents are already seeing electric rates double in many locations and this will magnify the backlash against AI.

I Dude

Looking for more shopping advice (discussion?). I bought into AM5 with a upper mid range B850 motherboard (MSI B850 TOMAHAWK) with a 9600X with the intention to max out AM5 with a Zen6 X3D next year. Your leak about Zen 7 coming to AM5 has me second guessing my plan. My goal is still to max out AM5, but I dont want to stay with a 9600X for until Zen 7 comes out. So, I'm thinking to pick up a Zen 4 X3D or Zen 5 X3D when they go on fire-sale on the release of Zen 6, and then getting the best that money can buy with Zen 7 X3D. Do you think this is a reasonable plan? PS. I seem to be getting lucky with my GPU purchases having the the best longevity. (Pascal 1080 to RDNA 2 6800X) Hope the trend continues with my future RDNA 5 purchase. I bought each for about $650, so that price point has sort of cemented its self as how much im to looking to spend.

Timo H

Are we heading into new pc gaming renessaince 2012 style due to components(newer wafers...) going fast up in price, which would incentivize stagnation at least in gpus....?

Benjamin Oechsli (ex-lee)

Could AMD double-up graphics chiplets on their APUs, now or in the future? Is there any benefit to that?

TechnoLadz

Just watching the new DS now (As I usually communicate on discord), I would recommend getting the 12 Core Zen 6 SKU. No need for the 20 or 24 core X3D SKU. Especially since it should be >40% faster than the 9600X. But the 6800 should still keep up with the 9600X for the moment.

I Dude

Thanks, I guess I could have been clearer. When I was talking about maxing out AM5, I was wanting the single CCD X3d chips. I am aiming for the Zen6 12 core X3d, and then the Zen7 16 core X3D. I have money but Im not swimming in it... ;D I'm looking for a CPU upgrade next year to match the RDNA5 purchase I have planned. so far I'm considering the firesale 9800X3D, or the 11800X3D (or smaller variants). I will have to see what the prices are when the time comes. I'm in the discord under I BL00dy, I just don't usually catch any vid release live.