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I like owning things. The recent AMD driver kerfuffle has me wondering what that really means these days.
I’m old enough to remember when buying a physical item meant you had it for life. It would run as advertised until it could no longer—perhaps a part would break, a motor would burn out. Even then, things were mechanical enough that you could open them up and tinker, in an effort to fix them.
Now with so much software required to make hardware perform intended function, that line has become blurry. We depend on companies to keep products functional. We are expected to trust that a company will support a product for a reasonable amount of time.
AMD’s confused messaging around driver support for RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 graphics cards shook that trust. At first, it seemed that GPUs just three years old were already getting the axe—Team Red would no longer provide updated drivers for new game optimizations. Then, after this stance was seemingly confirmed by AMD statements to the press (causing more furor), AMD finally issued a clarification via a blog post. The drivers would branch, but baseline support for first- and second-generation RDNA wouldn’t end yet.
The Full Nerd crew and I discuss the whole episode in more depth in the show, including the nuances of the situation. The reputation of AMD Radeon’s division obviously plays a role in all this, as does the current environment of GPU prices and availability. But even with the resolution of this PR hiccup, the fundamental issue remains.
IDG / Matthew Smith
Companies can now kill their products at any time—even when you have them in your hands. Once software support gets dropped, it’s over. I have a drawer full of phones that Google and Apple no longer provide security patches for. Older Chromebooks got a similarly raw deal.
You can argue that you can still technically use these products, and sure, that’s true. But in today’s environment, a lack of security patches is asking for a headache. No driver support for new games means you won’t get to play them. Etc.
I’m grateful that people donate their time to alternative software, like LineageOS and Linux, to help keep perfectly usable hardware still chugging along. (I’m about to try this to breathe new life into a beloved, now-unsupported Chromebook.) But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re at the mercy of companies’ willingness to maintain a product or even whole product line. And I hate that.
I’m willing to sign up for software-as-service. I think of it as renting tools. But my hardware? I bought it for its known properties. I bought it for its specific features. I bought it so it would keep doing what I needed it for. If it stops working because the software is gone, what did I actually own, then?
In this episode of The Full Nerd
In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith hash out their feelings about the weekend’s RDNA 1 and 2 driver support debacle and how many Windows PC games run Linux now. On the AMD front, Brad pulls out what he thinks AMD meant to say, but can’t. Meanwhile, I get fussy about chart interpretations and headlines. Not hatin’ on Linux, just the implied takeaway in the coverage.
Oh, and I get to show everyone my latest fashion acquisition. Is it fashionable? No. Am I pleased that I had a good reason to own AMD-branded socks? Kind of yes. (Very yes.)
(Full disclosure: The socks were a gift from one Adam Patrick Murray. I have a whole collection of various tech-branded ones from him, possibly because I’ve talked about buying socks during Black Friday so often over the years.)
Willis Lai / Foundry
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This week’s stirring nerd news
IDG
Thanks to the AMD Radeon hullabaloo, everything else feels relatively quiet—despite being noteworthy. AMD CPUs helped the company hit new records, for starters. And I got pretty invested in not one, but two different robot vacuum stories.
Also, I realized I’ve failed to adequately sound the alarm when giving buying advice in the last week or so. Some component prices already hurt, and it got bad so fast. (Hopefully you don’t need more memory any time soon.)
- Proving a point: In stark contrast to the Radeon side of things, AMD’s Ryzen CPUs remain steady, propelling Team Red to loftier and loftier heights—desktop CPU share has climbed almost 10 percentage points since 2024, according to CEO Dr. Lisa Su.
- This is some bull$*(%: Not the engineering to bring the robot vacuum back online, but the manufacturer’s decision to remotely brick the device. (Also, this is why we use guest networks for IoT devices.)
- Filed under “Asked if they could, not if they should”: Look, I’m just as guilty of doing things just to see if it’s possible. I still snort-laughed about squeezing an operating system so small, it becomes unusable.
- Science + efficiency = I click: Humans creating better ways to deal (and reuse) the materials they create? Sounds good to me.
- How far the Internet’s come: From data dropouts that cause typos to memes that load in bare seconds. (Can’t say we’ve used the improvements for best impact, but that’s a thought for another day.)
Planet Volumes / Unsplash
- Enjoy your privacy, fair Venus: The loss of the last remaining satellite is sad for us. I’m telling myself a planet named for the goddess of love probably needs a break from prying eyes for a bit, though.
- I really want to know about the 5% of humans who failed: Were they distracted during Butter Bench? Was their native language different than how the benchmark was administered? Did they just not care? And yes, I did feel kind of bad about this robo vacuum’s internal meltdown. We’ve all been there, buddy.
- I needed this 15 years ago: A black & white mode for Google Maps to eke out that much more battery life from a dying phone? Better late than never, I guess. (Though it’s not officially real yet.)
- Ouch, that hurt faster than expected: Memory prices have shot up abruptly—and it’s not just DDR4 affected. If you need more RAM right now, gird yourself for as much as 100 percent (or more) price increases. I don’t think Black Friday will save us from this.
I have a secret—I’m apparently one of the lone people who likes the “fall back” to Standard Time in the U.S. The early dark evenings make stew and soups feel perfect. (Definitely come share your favorite recipes with me in The Full Nerd Discord’s #food-chat channel.)
Catch you all next week!
~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.
