What Generally Panned Tech Product Did You Really Like?

[maplepants]

I have been using my Gen 1 Pixel Buds since I had an iPhone 7. I love 'em, and I really like the mitten string that holds them together. The gestures don't really work on iOS, but generally I think they're great little ear buds.

 

What about you guys? What did tech reviewers dislike but you loved?

[porina]

Skylake-X. The mainstream tech tubers totally missed the point of the product. I'm still using 7920X today and it is sad there isn't anything else in its price range to really replace it.

[TatamiMatt]

37 minutes ago, porina said:

Skylake-X. The mainstream tech tubers totally missed the point of the product. I'm still using 7920X today and it is sad there isn't anything else in its price range to really replace it.

What did the X cores do differently or bring to the table, first time hearing about them

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, TatamiMatt said:

What did the X cores do differently or bring to the table, first time hearing about them

They're more like the Xeon W-21xx line than the regular desktop Skylake CPUs.

 

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/cores/skylake_x

[porina]

2 hours ago, TatamiMatt said:

What did the X cores do differently or bring to the table, first time hearing about them

The microarchitecture was essentially Skylake but with added 2 unit AVX-512 capability, bigger L2 cache, and L3 mesh cache. It also came with 4 ram channels (8 slots at 2 DPC) and a load more PCIe lanes depending on the CPU model.

 

The problem was it was released in 2017, after Ryzen launched earlier that year. That 1st gen Ryzen was massively overhyped. AMD would sell you an 8 core CPU for the price of an Intel quad core. Cinebench scores were all that mattered to AMD fanboys to demonstrate superiority as it was about the only thing it ran well. In that year Intel transitioned from desktop quad core Kaby Lake to 6 core Coffee Lake. For most games of the time, the quad core Intel CPUs were much faster than Ryzen. So what about Skylake-X? While it offered more cores, the far superior platform features commanded a small price premium but this was largely ignored. Skylake-X was also slower than consumer Intel CPUs in gaming due to the mesh cache, but it was still no worse than Ryzen.

[CommanderAlex]

3 hours ago, porina said:

I'm still using 7920X today and it is sad there isn't anything else in its price range to really replace it.

You would probably have to wait awhile for Sapphire Rapids to come down in price...unfortunately the motherboard prices really keep that platform out of reach for many ($850-$900 for a board). 

[Giganthrax]

My AMD FX-8150 has served me real well, lol.

 

To me, that CPU is like that crappy car your old man gives to you when you first get your driving license. I still remember it fondly and have a soft spot for it in my heart, even though I know it was never a good CPU.

 

I actually ended up selling it and my GTX 960 to a friend of mine who occasionally plays old games. He's happy with it. So that crappy little hero of a CPU is still putting in work and making someone happy, all these years later. 

[Obioban]

I have a synology RS819. It is nearly universally panned because "synology rack hardware is overpriced" and "ARM means it's no good for Plex" and "can't expand RAM".

 

I freaking love the thing. Because it's ARM based, it uses 10W idle. I don't like the quality hit of transcoding, so I just Plex stream everything at full quality-- and it never hiccups with 4+ streams of 4k at the same time. Everything else I do with it is a back ground task (cloning, backups), so speed matters not at all. And, I got the thing for $150, and it is super quiet and barely takes up any space in my rack. Plus, BRFS, so no bit rot.

 

It's just awesome all the time, and never puts a step wrong-- and every single synology enthusiast will say I bought the wrong unit

[maplepants]

13 hours ago, Obioban said:

I have a synology RS819. It is nearly universally panned because "synology rack hardware is overpriced" and "ARM means it's no good for Plex" and "can't expand RAM".

 

I freaking love the thing. Because it's ARM based, it uses 10W idle. I don't like the quality hit of transcoding, so I just Plex stream everything at full quality-- and it never hiccups with 4+ streams of 4k at the same time. Everything else I do with it is a back ground task (cloning, backups), so speed matters not at all. And, I got the thing for $150, and it is super quiet and barely takes up any space in my rack. Plus, BRFS, so no bit rot.

 

It's just awesome all the time, and never puts a step wrong-- and every single synology enthusiast will say I bought the wrong unit

I've seriously been eyeing an ARM synology but they get so panned for their Plex performance. But given the energy prices in Germany I care way more about the 10w idle than I do about Plex (especially because my Mac Studio handles Plex just fine).

[it_dont_work]

16 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

My AMD FX-8150 has served me real well, lol.

I still remember it fondly and have a soft spot for it in my heart, even though I know it was never a good CPU.

Still running mine (8300 overclocked somewhat). It was pretty good when optimised in the day, just not a good deal. Useless today if you want to do anything cpu heavy. 

 

but hey still runs cyberpunk at 1440 medium/high for me (albeit 60fps).  

 

As for crap reviewd hardware, my shitty dlink 2 bay nas has been great for the home. 

[Obioban]

7 hours ago, maplepants said:

I've seriously been eyeing an ARM synology but they get so panned for their Plex performance. But given the energy prices in Germany I care way more about the 10w idle than I do about Plex (especially because my Mac Studio handles Plex just fine).

It's great for plex so long as your client devices can play the content in full quality-- only an issue if you try to have the synology transcode. 

[Rocketdog2112]

On 9/25/2023 at 3:56 AM, porina said:

Skylake-X. The mainstream tech tubers totally missed the point of the product. I'm still using 7920X today and it is sad there isn't anything else in its price range to really replace it.

My i7-9800X paired with an EVGA X299 Dark runs pretty good.