Keyrock

Gives off Caesar and Pharaoh vibes.

But will IO Interactive's new 007 game feature FemBond?

Yes, but @Hurlshotspecified modern setting.

Hmm, both Shenmue and GTA3 released in 1999, I think. I'm not sure which one released earlier that year.

Talk about a series crying out for a remaster. We'll probably never get it, nor a sequel, nor a prequel, nothimg. Such a great series destined to vanish into obscurity because it's stuck in some kind of hellish IP limbo. It's not fair.

So, umm, this is a thing that happened...

Teardown: Now I wait for Buildzoid's PCB analysis.

At least Linus hasn't yet enticed me to find out the Top 10 Tech Trends For 2021. It's implied that #7 will SHOCK me.

I'm in the early stages of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Unlike the previous Yakuza games, this isn't an action/adventure game, rather it's a RPG. Not RPG-Lite either, this is a full-fledged, old skool, turn-based jRPG, complete with stats, skills, equipment, summons, the whole shebang. So far I have a party of 3: Kasuga (the main protagonist), Nanba (a bum), and Adachi (ex-cop). I think max party size is 4 and it's implied that eventually I can get more companions than I can field at once. I'm assuming Kasuga always has to be in the party. Anyway, the change in combat system works really well. Beyond that, it's a Yakuza game through and through; full of drama, charm, heart, and with a healthy dose of wacky shenanigans.

Linus' segue into advertisement game is strong.

What if Lisa Su pulls Jensen Huang and launches a 6800 SUPER with 16GB HBM2 in a few months?

Outside of Ray Tracing, where AMD gets crushed, the 6800XT holds up quite well against the 3080. It's a champ at 1080p, although that's mostly a moot point given that it's overkill at that resolution unless you are a MLG Pro Gamer at CS:GO using a 240 Hz monitor. The 6800XT does quite well at 1440p. At 4K it seems to fall behind a little more than I had hoped, though this is not unexpected, given that Nvidia's memory bandwith advantage counts for more and more as you increase resolution. The biggest disappointment for me was how relatively poor the 6800 XT did on Vulkan. This is of particular importance to me since I'll be using Vulkan the vast majority of the time. Even in games without a Vulkan renderer, Steam Play's Proton translates DX to Vulkan, so I'd still be using it. I suppose that's something AMD (or the open source community, since AMD has an open source driver on Linux) could potentially address with driver optimizations, but I can't count on that. This makes me condider a heel turn, smashing Lisa Su in the back with a steel folding chair and ripping off my red t-shirt to reveal a black leather jacket underneath. Anyway, I've got plenty of time to watch/read more reviews and teardowns. It's not like I could actually buy a current gen video card from either brand right now anyway. I don't have to make my mind up immediately.

No luck for me. Predictably, the 6800XTs sold out instantly.

It's nice to have a new city to explore. Kamurocho was great, but after, what, 8(?) games it got kinda stale. Hamako best girl. There's a group of anti-prostitution activists called "BJ" {Bleach Japan} This guy is living his best life.

Yes. I already have everything except the GPU waterblock and the coolant.

^ Much better looking than AMD's old blower cards, that's for sure. It would almost be a shame to take that nice looking triple fan and heatsink off. I mean, I'm still going to do it, assuming I can actually get my hands on one.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon BOSS coffee!

I think I'm going to take the chance and try to get a 6800XT reference Wednesday morning. If the quality of the PCB and VRM are in line with the 5700XT reference then that will be plenty good enough for my means. I mean, if I want the absolute best VRM I'd get something like the ROG Strix, but why pay an extra $80 or whatever when it won't make a difference? I'm not going to be doing liquid nitrogen extreme overclocking, I just need a VRM good enough that it won't hold enthusiast overclocking back, so as long as AMD don't use some ****ty cheap MOSFETs to cut costs (they didn't on the 5700XT) then a reference 6800XT should be great for my needs. If I wait for a teardown to pop up, they'll be long gone by the time I watch the video. I mean, most likely what will happen is that I won't get a 6800XT on Wednesday because they will sell out in 14 seconds and I hit F5 at the wrong time, so I'll have all the time in the world to watch a teardown while I wait for restock.

Anyone here have recent-ish experience with AMD reference cards? Last time I bou... I've actually never bought a discrete GPU from AMD since the last time I bought Team Red on the GPU side was well before AMD bought ATI. Anyway, I don't care about the cooling solution, given that I'm just going to remove it and put a waterblock on; I care about the quality of the components, the PCB, the MOSFETs, etc. I could always wait for AIBs to release cards with waterblocks already on them, but I'd be waiting a month and a half after launch or more. In the meantime, I'm going to research some 5700XT teardowns. No guarantee that the same line of 6800XTs will have the best components as the 5700XTs, but it's a decent place to start. Edit: After a bit of digging around, turns out the PCB and VRM on the 5700XT reference is actually quite good. The cooling solution is super garbage, but that's a moot point for my needs. No guarantee that the PCB and VRM will be equally as good on the 6800XT reference, but it's a good sign.

Unless it's at gunpoint, good luck forcing me to get the vaccine right away.

Too many games to list: King: "Good traveler I only met 2 minutes ago, I have a task of utmost importance to the welfare of my kingdom. Allow me to entrust you with knowledge of the highest secrecy."

Over/under on 6800(XT) availability: 3 minutes What ya got?

I'm in no hurry to get Pfizer's vaccine, or any of the others, for that matter. I'm not an anti-vaxxer or anything, but drugs generally take 5-10 years to get approval. Under the circumstances, I understand the vaccines getting fast-tracked. That said, I'll let guinea pigs brave heroes beta test them for a good while before getting the vaccine myself.

I had my first full on encounter with the monster in Amnesia: Rebirth. I got to hear the monster here and there earlier, then caught a couple quick glimpses, but Frictional held off on the full reveal until a few hours into the game, which is smart. Honestly, they might have been better served holding off the full reveal even longer. Once you reveal the monster fully, it's only a matter of a handful of encounters before you become desensitized and the monster is no longer a source of tension but merely an obstacle. Games like Resident Evil get around this, to some degree, by having multiple monster types, that way they can keep throwing something new at you. I'm assuming Amnesia: Rebirth only has 1 monster, though I can't say that for sure. As an aside, I am kinda curious what happens if I allow myself to succumb to the fear/madness (don't tell me). So far I've not allowed myself to lose control, but I may do an experiment and just let all my sanity drain away. Maybe I'll hold off on said experiment for a bit in case it turns out you can't actually completely lose control, since that will kinda kill the tension once I am armed with that knowledge.

Some overclocking benchmarks of the 5600X and 10600K: tl;dw version: The 5600X overclocks better than previous generation Zen chips, though still not as well as the 10600K. Despite getting more gains from overclocking, it's not enough for the 10600K to catch the 5600X (except in RDR2 where Intel leads OC or no OC).