Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO and transition to a new position at the company as executive chair of the Amazon board in Q3 2021. Andy Jassy, who currently serves as CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will replace Bezos as Amazon CEO.
“Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else,” commented Bezos in an email announcing the change. “As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions.”
Bezos has served as Amazon’s CEO since he founded the company in 1994, and he has presided over the e-commerce giant as it grew from an online bookstore into one of the most dominant technology companies in the world.
Under Bezos’ stewardship, Amazon has come to rule over internet commerce, established itself as a backbone of the infrastructure of the modern web through its Amazon Web Services products, built a subscription empire around its Amazon Prime services, launched popular technology products like the Echo and Kindle lines of devices, and even started dabbling in physical retail through grocery stores and an acquisition of Whole Foods.
Bezos has also prospered as head of the company, with skyrocketing wealth that (until just a few weeks ago) made him the single richest human on Earth, with a net worth of nearly $180 billion.
Bezos’ transition to executive chairman of Amazon’s board will mean he’ll be slightly more removed from the day-to-day business of running the nearly $1.7 trillion company, allowing him to focus his “energies and attention on new products and early initiatives.” Those projects will include the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, which Bezos established last year, and Blue Origins, his aerospace firm, which recently resumed test flights at the end of 2020.
Jassy is a familiar face at the company, having joined back in 1997. He has led the Amazon Web Services team since it was founded in 2003 and was named the CEO of AWS in 2016. The choice of Jassy — who has headed Amazon’s cloud service business since the beginning — over a retail or hardware executive is a telling one for Amazon’s priorities as a company.
Amazon’s cloud business is a huge part of the company (and the internet at large, to the point where AWS outages can take down whole swaths of internet for hours), and its new leadership choice reflects that. It’s also a parallel to other major tech CEOs, like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, who was similarly an instrumental part of the company’s cloud and server business before taking charge of Microsoft in 2014.
It’ll still be some time before Jassy takes over, though — Bezos isn’t set to transition to his new role until Q3 2021.
You can purchase a Raspberry Pi for as little as $5 (for the Raspberry Pi Zero) or more likely $35 (for the Raspberry Pi 4), but you’ll need a few extra products to make it run. And, beyond that, there’s a whole world of accessories that help you make the most of your Pi.
As with any computer, on the Raspberry Pi, you’ll need a way to enter data and a way to see the interface, which usually means getting a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor. .However, you can opt for a headless Raspberry Pi install, which allows you to remote control the Pi from your PC. In that case, the minimum requirements are:
microSD card of at least 8GB, but the best Raspberry Pi microSD cards have 32GB or more. When you first set up a Raspberry Pi, you need to “burn” the OS onto it by using a PC, another Raspberry Pi or even a phone with microSD card reader.
Power supply: For the Raspberry Pi 4, you need a USB-C power source that provides at least 3 amps / 5 volts, but for other Raspberry Pis, you need a micro USB connection that offers at least 2.5 amps and the same 5 volts.
In addition, there are a number of accessory and add-on types that protect your Pi, add new features and make everything a lot more useful and fun. These include:
Cases: The best Raspberry Pi cases give you style, functionality and durability.
HATs (aka add-on boards): The best Raspberry Pi HATs let you do everything from adding motors to creating LED light shows.
Breakout Boards: To breakout the GPIO for easier access or to use via a breadboard. Essential for the new Raspberry Pi 400.
Camera Modules: The Raspberry Pi has its own special camera port and there’s a whole ecosystem of compatible camera modules for it.
Cooling: Raspberry Pi 4 models in particular can get hot so fans and heatsinks help.
Electronic parts: You can make great projects and have a lot of fun with motors, sensors, transistors and other bits and bobs.
Overall, these are the best Raspberry Pi accessories. No matter what your needs or project, you’ll definitely need some of these.
The Best Raspberry Pi Accessories You Can Buy Today
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
1. Argon Neo Case
Best Raspberry Pi Case
Attractive aluminum design
Easy access to GPIO pins
Passive cooling
Sliding magnetic cover
Must remove cover to get to pins
The top overall choice on our round-up of the best Raspberry Pi Cases, the Argon Neo combines great looks with plenty of flexibility and competent passive cooling. This mostly-aluminum (bottom is plastic) case for the Raspberry Pi 4 features a magnetic cover that slides off to provide access to the GPIO pins with enough clearance to attach a HAT, along with the ability to connect cables to the camera and display ports. The microSD card slot, USB and micro HDMI out ports are easy to access at all times.
With the cover on or off, the Argon Neo provides solid passive cooling capability as an included thermal pad connects the Raspberry Pi 4’s CPU to an aluminum plate to dissipate heat. You can also attach an optional fan HAT for active cooling. At just $15, this case is extremely affordable but cuts no corners.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
2. Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera
Best Raspberry Pi Camera
Great image quality
Interchangeable Lenses
Tripod mountable
Expensive
Doesn’t come with lens
It doesn’t come cheap, but the official Raspberry Pi High Quality camera offers the best image quality of any Pi camera by far, along with the ability to mount it on a tripod. The 12-MP camera doesn’t come with a lens, but supports any C or CS lens, which means you can choose from an entire ecosystem of lenses, with prices ranging from $16 up to $50 or more and a variety of focal lengths and F-stop settings.
The Raspberry Pi High Quality camera plugs into the same CSI port on the Raspberry Pi as any other Pi camera module, but unlike the others, this one has a ¼ inch screw hole that allows you to attach it to any standard tripod or camera mount. If you care about image quality, the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera is a must-have.
Read: Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera review
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
3. Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2
Best Affordable Raspberry Pi Camera
Good image quality
Affordable price
No tripod mounting
If you need a Raspberry Pi camera, but don’t want to spend more than $50 on the high quality module and then have to bring your own lens, the official Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2 is the one to get. This 8-MP camera uses a Sony IMX219 sensor that gives it really solid image quality, records video at up 1080p, 30 fps and is a big improvement over the 5-MP OmniVision OV5647 that was in the V1 camera.
There are a number of third-party Raspberry Pi camera modules on the market, with some costing around $10 or less. However, most of these use the older, OV5647 sensor which provides far worse image quality.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
4. Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II
Best Keyboard for Raspberry Pi
Best-in-class typing experience
Trackpoint for navigation
Both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth wireless
Long battery life
Expensive
Whether you want to control your Raspberry Pi from the couch or you have it on a table and don’t want to waste space, getting one of the best wireless keyboards is a good idea. It’s particularly helpful to have a wireless keyboard with a pointing device so you don’t need to also drag around a mouse.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II is the best keyboard for Raspberry Pi thanks to its excellent key feel, multiple connectivity options and built-in TrackPoint pointing stick. The keyboard looks and types just like those on Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of business laptops, offering plenty of tactile feedback and a deep (for a non-mechanical), 1.8mm of key travel. The TrackPoint pointing stick sits between the G and H keys, allowing you to navigate around the Raspberry Pi’s desktop, without even lifting your hands off of the home row.
The Thinkpad TrackPoint II has both 2.4-GHz (via a dongle) and Bluetooth connectivity which you can toggle between using a hardware switch. So, if you have two Raspberry Pis or one Pi and one PC, you can switch back and forth with ease. Charging via USB-C, the keyboard promises up to two months of battery life on a charge.
Read: Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II review
(Image credit: Amazon)
Raspberry Pi 4 Official Power Supply
Best Raspberry Pi Power Supply
Provides just the right amount of power
Built for Pi
No on/off switch
Not the cheapest option
If you’re going to use a Raspberry Pi 4, you need a USB-C power supply that offers at least 3 amps of juice with a roughly 5-volt output. We’ve found that the best USB-C laptop chargers are capable of delivering this kind of power (albeit often with 4.8 – 4.9 volts, which still works), but if you don’t have a powerful charger handy or need one just for your Pi, the official Raspberry Pi power supply is your best choice.
Rated for 5.1 volts and 3 amps, the official Raspberry Pi 4 power supply has good build quality and a nice design. Available in black or white, it’s a small rectangle, emblazoned with the Raspberry Pi logo and a strong, built-in Type-C cable that’s 59 inches (1.5m) long. Unlike some third-party competitors, it doesn’t come with an on / off switch, but it is compatible with cheap on / off adapters you can attach to the end. You may find competitors for a few dollars less, but the official Raspberry Pi 4 power supply is a sure thing.
If you are shopping for any other Raspberry Pi, including the Raspberry Pi Zero or Raspberry Pi 3 or below, you’ll need a power supply that outputs to a micro-USB port and only requires 2.5 amps and 5 volts. There’s also an official Raspberry Pi charger for these older models.
(Image credit: Amazon)
6. Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro
Best Raspberry Pi HAT
Analog to digital conversion
Motor controller
LED lights
Built-in breadboard
No pass-thru for other HATs
The Raspberry Pi’s 40 GPIO pins are arguably its most important feature. Using these pins (see our GPIO pinout), you can attach an entire universe of electronics, including motors, sensors and lights. There’s a huge ecosystem of add-on boards, appropriately called HATs (hardware attached on top) that plug directly into the GPIO pins and matching the same layout as the Pi. These add on boards give you all kinds of added functionality, from LED light matrixes to touch screens and motor controllers for robotics projects.
Sitting at the very top of our list of Best Raspberry Pi HATs, each of which has a different purpose, the Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro provides a smorgasbord of features that you can use in a wide variety of projects. While the Raspberry Pi doesn’t come with an analog to digital converter like Arduino does (see Raspberry Pi vs Arduino), the Explorer HAT Pro provides four ADCs you can use with joysticks or potentiometers. It also packs two motor controllers, four colorful LED lights, four touch pads and four crocodile clips for attaching other electronics. Oh and it comes with a small breadboard you can stick on top and use for mounting and wiring electronics. Every serious Raspberry Pi fan should have one of these on hand.
(Image credit: Amazon)
7. Pimoroni Fan Shim
Best Cooling for Raspberry Pi
Great cooling
HATs go on top of it
Expensive in the US
If you’re using a Raspberry Pi 4, you definitely need some kind of cooling, whether it’s a heat sink, an aluminum with passive cooling built in or, best of all, a fan. The Pimoroni Fan Shim is powerful, easy-to-install and unobtrusive. You just push it down onto the left most side of your GPIO pin header and it does a fantastic job of cooling your Pi. You can even use a Pimoroni Fan Shim on a Raspberry Pi 4 that’s been overclocked all the way to 2.1 GHz, without seeing any throttling.
You can just let the Fan Shim run all the time or you can download Pimoroni’s software, which allows you to set temperature thresholds for it.
Read: Pimoroni Heatsink and Fan Shim Tested
(Image credit: Silicon Power)
8. Silicon Power 32GB 3D NAND microSD Card
Best Raspberry Pi microSD Card
Inexpensive
Leading performance
White surface you can write on
Slow boot times
Unless you’ve specifically configured yours to boot from an SSD (see our article on How to Boot Raspberry Pi from USB), every Raspberry Pi uses a microSD card as its primary storage drive. We maintain a list of the Best microSD cards for Raspberry Pi and have chosen the 32GB Silicon Power 3D NAND card as the top choice.
Unless you’re hosting a media server or have a ridiculous amount of ROMS on a game emulator, a 32GB microSD card provides more than enough storage for Raspberry Pi OS and a ton of applications. The operating system and preloaded applications take up far less than 8GB by themselves.
In our tests, the Silicon Power 3D NAND microSD card had the fastest application open times and the best combination of random reads and writes. Considering that it’s also less expensive than most 32GB cards and that its white surface provides a little room for you to write on it (with marker), this is currently the best card around.
(Image credit: Amazon)
9. GPIO Reference Board
Helpful Accessory
Helpful reference
Cheap
You can look this up online
Each of the Raspberry Pi’s 40 GPIO pins has a different function so it’s hard to keep track of which does what. For example, some of the pins provide I2C communication while others offer power and others are just for grounding. You can look at a GPIO pinout guide such as ours, but sometimes it’s just easier to put the list of functions right on top of the pins.
GPIO reference boards are tiny, non-electronic headers that you place on top of the pins to show you which one has which name. There are many different brands and models for sale and all do pretty much the same thing so there’s no need to be picky about which one you buy. Most have small holes on top that you can use to hang them on a keychain and take them wherever you go.
(Image credit: Amazon)
10. micro HDMI to HDMI Adapters
Must-Have for Pi 4
Very helpful and work well
You still need an HDMI cable
While most of the earlier Raspberry Pi models have a single, full-size HDMI port, the Raspberry Pi 4 has dual micro HDMI ports that can each output to a monitor at up to 4K resolution. While there’s a good chance you already have one or more HDMI cables lying around the house, most of us don’t have micro HDMI cables, because it’s a rarely used connector.
To connect the Raspberry Pi 4 to a screen, you’ll either need a micro HDMI to HDMI cable or a micro HDMI to HDMI adapter you can connect an existing cable to. Cable Matters, a well-known and reputable brand, sells a pair of such adapters for just $10. That’s much cheaper than a single micro HDMI to HDMI cable, which goes for $8 to 10 for just one. I’ve been using these Cable Matters adapters for more than a year now and they’ve worked really well.
(Image credit: Amazon)
11. Electronics Kit with Breadboard, Wires
Great for learning
Helpful for prototyping
No soldering necessary
You can use your Raspberry Pi as a game emulator, a server or a desktop PC, but the real fun begins when you start connecting electronics to its GPIO pins. Of course, to even get started playing with GPIO connectors, you need some interesting things to connect to them such as lights, sensors and resistors.
The market is filled with electronics kits that come with a slew of LED lights, resistors, jumper cables, buttons and other bits and bobs you need to get started. Most importantly, all of these kits come with at least one breadboard, a white plastic surface filled with holes you can use to route and test circuits, no soldering required.
There are plenty of good kits from no-name brands on Amazon, but the Freenove LCD 1602 Starter kit caught our eye, because it comes with an ADC chip for analog-to-digital conversion, an LCD text screen and a GPIO extension board you can use to route all your pins over to the breadboard at once.
(Image credit: Amazon)
12. USB 3 microSD Card Reader
Need it to read and write
PC with USB port quired
In order to write Raspberry Pi OS (or a different OS) to a microSD card, you’ll need some kind of microSD card reader that you can attach to your PC. Just about any make or model will do as long as it reads SDHC and SDXC cards and, preferably, connects via USB 3.0. I’ve been using the Jahovans X USB 3.0 card reader, which currently goes for $5.99, for almost a year now and it has worked really well.
You can also attach a microSD card reader to your Pi and use it to create a disk image backup of your Raspberry Pi.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
13. Raspberry Pi Zero Official Case
Best Case for Raspberry Pi Zero
GPIO Access
Camera Access
Official Pi design
Can’t have both GPIO and Camera at once
We’re not huge fans of the Official Raspberry Pi 4 case, because it covers the GPIO pins and camera slots. However, the Official Raspberry Pi Zero case is a completely different as it comes with three different covers: one which has a camera hole (so you can make a Raspberry Pi body camera), another which exposes the GPIO pins and a third which covers the whole thing. The official Raspberry Pi Zero case also has the official burgundy and white colors of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
It seems that Dell’s PowerEdge R6525 rack server is already available with AMD’s EPYC Milan chips. Dell Canada (via momomo_us) has already listed a couple of Zen 3 parts as processor options for the dual-socket 1U system, inadvertently exposing their specifications and pricing.
In terms of similaries, Milan will preserve the same configuration as Rome, meaning the chips will arrive with eight compute dies and one I/O die. Once again, the server processors will max out at 64 cores, but with significant upgrades. For Milan, AMD has switched over to the Zen 3 microarchitecture and TSMC’s reported 7nm+ process node. Zen 3 alone will be able to catapult Milan performance-wise, since the microarchitecture has done miracles for AMD’s consumer-focused Ryzen 5000 lineup.
Milan seamlessly fits into the SP3 socket, so compatibility won’t be an issue even for previous-generation motherboards. We expect Milan to operate within 120W to 280W thermal limits and provide the same features as Rome, such as eight-channel support for DDR4 and PCIe 4.0.
AMD EPYC Milan Specifications and Pricing
Processor
Pricing (Converted from CAD)
Cores / Threads
Base Clock (GHz)
L3 Cache (MB)
TDP (W)
EPYC 7763
$8,184.99
64 / 128
2.45
256
280
EPYC 7H12
$7,703.91
64 / 128
2.60
256
280
EPYC 7713
$7,215.34
64 / 128
2.00
256
225
EPYC 7662
$6,183.26
64 / 128
2.00
256
225
EPYC 7543
$2,709.32
32 / 64
2.80
256
225
EPYC 7542
$2,426.08
32 / 64
2.90
128
225
The EPYC 7763 is one of many expected 64-core EPYC Zen 3 chips from AMD. This model in particular has a 2.45 GHz base clock, a 256MB L3 cache and a 280W TDP. In comparison to the existing EPYC 7H12, the EPYC 7763 will only be 6.2% more expensive, according to Dell Canada’s pricing.
The EPYC 7713 shows identical specifications to the current EPYC 7662, but bear in mind that the first comes wielding Zen 3 cores. The EPYC 7713 could carry a price tag that’s 16.7% higher than that of the EPYC 7662.
AMD EPYC Milan Pricing (Image credit: Dell Canada)
The EPYC 7543, on the other hand, seems to have a 100 MHz lower base clock speed than the EPYC 7542. But it shouldn’t impact the EPYC 7543’s performance since Zen 3 ushers in some significant IPC gains. Furthermore, the EPYC 7542 has double the L3 cache in comparison to the EPYC 7542. Pricing-wise, the EPYC 7543 might only cost 11.7% more than the EPYC 7542.
Overall, Milan doesn’t appear to be more costly than Rome. From the processors that Dell has listed, we’re looking at price escalation that spans between 6.2% to 16.7%. Considering the performance increases that should come along with the price changes, we’re sure AMD won’t have too much trouble finding customers.
Robinhood has started restricting trading in cryptocurrencies this morning, just as the price of joke cryptocurrency Dogecoin has soared more than 300 percent in 24 hours. CNBCreports that Robinhood users started noticing instant deposits for cryptocurrencies were no longer working on Friday morning, and the company has confirmed it has put restrictions in place.
“Due to extraordinary market conditions, we’ve temporarily turned off Instant buying power for crypto,” says a Robinhood spokesperson in a statement to CNBC. “Customers can still use settled funds to buy crypto. We’ll keep monitoring market conditions and communicating with our customers.”
Dogecoin price on Friday morning.Image: Coindesk
Dogecoin came to life in 2013 off the back of a Twitter joke — a play on bitcoin and the doge meme. Its price started soaring yesterday, and Dogecoin currently stands at a more than $7 billion market cap thanks to a huge volume of transactions over the past 24 hours.
The market activity and restrictions over the past 24 hours have now made Dogecoin a popular meme among the r/WallStreetBets investors. Dogecoin has been consistently spammed in the WallStreetBets Discord server over the past couple of days.
Bitcoin is also on the move, up nearly 20 percent over the past 24 hours. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also changed his Twitter profile to include #bitcoin and tweeted “in retrospect, it was inevitable.”
Elon Musk’s Twitter profile now mentions bitcoin.
Robinhood’s latest crypto restrictions come less than a day after the company moved to restrict its users from buying or trading any of the popular Reddit r/WallStreetBets stocks, including GameStop ($GME), AMC ($AMC), BlackBerry ($BB), Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY), Nokia ($NOK), and more.
It’s a move that has been met with widespread criticism, and Google was forced to salvage Robinhood’s one-star rating on the Google Play Store by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviews after unhappy users review-bombed the app. Robinhood says it will now allow “limited buys” of stocks like GameStop starting Friday.
Choosing the best motherboard is in many ways the most integral part of your PC build, although choosing the best graphics card and best CPU often get more attention. Every part of your PC plugs into the motherboard you choose. Its form factor dictates the size of your computer and how much you can plug into it, and the chipset / CPU socket define what kind of processor you can install.
Motherboards (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Motherboards—particularly high-end models—are often made up of a confusing collection of features, and can range in price from sub-$60 (£50) budget boards to as much as $1,000 or more. We’re here to help untangle the complexities and make sure you pick the right model for your needs, without blowing too much of your build budget for other parts.
Speaking build budgets, if you’re looking to save some money while shopping , you should check out our feature about the eight features you probably don’t need on a motherboard.
And if you’re after a brand-new board from Intel’s new Z590 or AMD’s X570 linuep, note that motherboard prices for both platforms have increased over previous generations, at least in part due to support for PCIe 4.0. Just note that while AMD’s B550 boards support PCIe 4.0 now with a Zen 2/3-based processor, the Intel Z490 boards that list PCIe 4.0 support (and all new Z590 boards) will only activate that support when paired with a next-generation Rocket Lake-S CPU. Those processors aren’t quite here yet, but should arrive in the next few months.
TLDR
Get the right socket for your CPU: You can find great CPUs from either Intel or AMD, but whatever CPU you buy, make sure that your board has the correct socket to support it. The latest mainstream AMD chips use AM4 sockets while current Intel 10th and upcoming 11th Gen Core CPUs work in LGA 1200 sockets.
Smaller boards = fewer slots and features. Motherboards come in three main sizes, from largest to smallest: ATX, Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX (Yes, Mini is smaller than Micro). You can use a smaller chassis with the micro or mini boards, but you’ll have to settle for fewer PCIe slots, RAM slots and other connectors.
You can spend under $150: You can often find a decent motherboard for less than $150. But if you want to overclock an Intel chip, you want PCIe 4.0 or you need a lot of ports, you will have to spend more, often more than $200. High-end desktop chips like AMD Threadripper require expensive $200-plus motherboards.
Pay for built-in Wi-Fi, high-end ports only if you need them. Don’t spend extra for wireless if you are using a wired connection. You can futureproof your PC by getting USB 3.1 Gen 2 and / or Thunderbolt 3 support, as well as PCIe 4.0.
The Basics: Chipsets, Board Size, Connectors & Ports
If you’re after a refresher on motherboard basics, including the differences between chipsets, motherboard sizes, connector and port features, and RAM slots, you can find them in our Motherboard Basics feature. There we dive deep into the complexities of board design and features, so you’ll know exactly what to look for (or ignore) when shopping for a motherboard.
Motherboards
How much can you spend on a motherboard?
Prices range from below $50 (£40) on the low-end to above $1000 (£772) for premium boards that support HEDT (High-End Desktop) chips like Core X and Threadripper. Here’s roughly what you get at each price range:
Up to $100/£80: You can get overclockable boards for AMD chips (even with the premium, last-generation X370 chipset) in this range. But with Intel, you’re stuck with stock speeds (though that may change with Intel’s upcoming B560 and H570 boards). Depending on sale prices, you can get a host of features, including onboard Wi-Fi, although Wi-Fi-equipped boards usually start above $80/£60.
Sub $150/£140: Boards with Intel’s Z490 and chipset, which you’ll need for overclocking, start at the low end of this range. You also start to see more AMD boards with higher-end chipsets (X570) and premium features such as RGB lights lights and Wi-Fi. Note that, when we wrote this, pricing for the full range of Intel’s latest Z590 motherboards was still very much up in the air.
Sub $200/£180: As you start to climb into the premium tier, you’ll see more RGB lights, beefier heatsinks and better power phases and VRMs (voltage regulation modules)–which are important for competitive overclocking. You’ll also find a better selection of ports at this level, including a greater number of USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 2 connectors. The bulk of Intel’s Z490 boards also start in this range, right around or above $150.
$200/£180+: For mainstream platforms, before Z490 and X570, this was the truly premium price range, where you’d see the best board components, giant (often very stylized) heatsinks, and I/O covers designed to deliver a slick, premium look. Extreme overclocking features, which mainstream builders don’t need, are also often a key feature set.
For more recent chipsets like Z490 and Z590, the truly premium boards start above about $250.
Also in this price tier, you’ll find HEDT motherboards for CPUs with very high core counts (Intel Core X and AMD Threadripper). Threadripper boards in particular start at around $300 (£250).
What CPU are you using with your motherboard?
The CPU you’re planning on pairing with your board will narrow down your options, since the CPU socket on a given motherboard will only work with the chip line it was designed for.
For instance, if you’re buying an Intel 10th or 11th Generation Core processor, you’ll need a board with an LGA 1200 socket. Older 9th Generation processors need boards with an LGA 1151 socket. AMD makes this process a bit less confusing because (for now at least) the company uses the same AM4 socket for all of its mainstream current-gen chips, from Athlons all the way up to 16-core Ryzen 9 parts, although you may run into complications installing newer CPUs on previous-generation motherboards. Intel, on the other hand, has a tendency in recent years to switch sockets (or at least socket compatibility) from one generation to the next, although that’s not the case this generation, with Socket 1200 sticking around for two generations.
For the true high-end, both Intel (LGA 2066) and AMD (TR4) have different sockets to accommodate the larger size and power draw of their Core X and Threadripper processors. For more on processor considerations, see our CPU Buying Guide.
Sockets
Enthusiast/Mainstream
HEDT
Intel
LGA 1200
LGA 2066
AMD
AM4
TR4
What size motherboard do you want?
We’ve covered this in detail in our Motherboard Diagram feature. But most modern motherboards come in three sizes.
ATX is the de facto standard and offers the most space for plugs and slots.
Micro-ATX is 2.4-inches shorter, which means less room for expansion slots.
Mini-ITX can make for a tiny PC, but you’ll usually only have room for one add-in card (like a graphics card), and fewer connectors for storage and RAM.
What ports do you need?
It’s always important to check the I/O area on a motherboard to make sure it has the external connection options you’re after, but also check for USB headers on the motherboard. These will let you add more ports via front-panel connection on your PC case, or via inexpensive expansion slot brackets at the back.
Here’s a list of common ports, and our take on each:
USB 3 / USB 3.1 Gen1: You can never have too many of these, because they work with most peripherals.
USB 2: Slower than USB 3 / 3.1, but more than adequate for keyboards, mice and many other devices.
USB 3.1/3.2 Gen2: Not many peripherals take advantage of this standard yet, but it delivers 10 Gbps of bandwidth, which is double what you get with USB 3.1 Gen 1 / USB 3.0. USB 3.2 Gen2 2×2 doubles that bandwidth again, with two 10 Gbps lanes. You’ll often only find one of these ports on mid- and high-end boards.
USB Type-C: These ports could be either USB 3.1 Gen1 or USB 3.1 Gen2 compatible and are designed for newer devices such as phones. A few are also just USB 2.0, and often get labeled as Audio USB-C ports, aimed at connecting USB-C headsets.
HDMI / DisplayPort Video out: You only need these if you plan to use integrated graphics. Discrete cards have their own ports.
Audio ports: Important if you plan to connect analog speakers or headphones.
PS/2 ports: Give you compatibility with really old keyboards and mice.
Thunderbolt: Very rare to find this built into motherboards, but some boards support it through dedicated add-on cards. Provides the fastest possible connections, up to 40 Gbps.
While you may not need many USB 3.1 Gen 2 or Type-C ports today, they are good ways to future-proof your PC.
How many RAM slots do you need?
Most mainstream boards these days have four RAM slots, although compact Mini-ITX models often have just two, and high-end HEDT boards (like the one pictured below) frequently offer eight. The amount of slots of course limits the amount of RAM you can install.
But for mainstream tasks and games, 16GB is sufficient and 32GB is ample. And even with just two slots, you can install as much as 64GB of RAM. Note, though, that you will often pay a premium for denser 64 and 32GB kit that uses two sticks, rather than a kit that’s spread across four sticks.
What expansion slots do you need?
You’re most likely to come across just two types these days: the short PCIe x1 shot (often used for things like USB and SATA expansion), and the longer PCIe x16 slot (used for graphics cards, RAID cards, and extremely fast PCIe storage like Intel’s Optane 905 SSD). If you’re just planning on installing a single graphics card, a couple of SATA/M.2 drives, and perhaps a video capture or sound card, you should be fine with most ATX or Micro-ATX boards, which offer at least one x16 slot and one or two x1 slots.
But note that recent X570 and B550 as well as upcoming Intel Rocket Lake-S boards (and, confusingly, some previous-generation Z490 boards) also support PCIe 4.0 rather than the 3.0 that’s been standard for the past several years. PCIe 4.0 technically doubles the available bandwidth of every PCIe lane. But outside of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, most devices haven’t taken major advantage of PCIe 4.0 yet. So think of it as some future-proofing on your board.
However, figuring out how many drives and cards you can install is tricky, because no matter how many physical slots you have, there’s a limited number of HSIO (high-speed input/output) lanes and PCIe lanes that all of your components must share. We could spend 3,000 words trying to explain how these lanes work, but the bottom line is that many mainstream motherboards compensate for bandwidth limitations by switching some connections off when you install hardware in specific slots.
For example, adding a PCIe M.2 drive may disable some SATA ports, or installing a card in a third PCIe slot may disable a second (or third) M.2 slot, etc. These issues vary greatly by motherboard model, so you’ll need to consult online manuals before buying–especially if you’re planning on loading up your board with lots of components.
That said, if you are planning on plugging lots of drives and cards into your PC, it’s worth considering one of the high-end HEDT platforms, as they have more PCIe lanes to work with. All of AMD’s Threadripper processors have 64 lanes (60 from the CPU, 4 from the chipset), while Intel’s competing Core X platform provides up to 44 lanes, depending on the CPU, and up to 24 more from the chipset. So if you’re planning on plugging, for instance, multiple graphics cards and a RAID array of PCIe/NVMe storage, or other bandwidth-hungry hardware into your system, these higher-end platforms are definitely the way to go.
Which chipset should you get?
Your CPU choice will dictate your compatible chipset options, and if you opt for the highest-end consumer Intel or AMD chips (Core X or Threadripper), you’ll only have one choice (X299 for Intel or X399 for AMD). But for mainstream users who just want to install a single graphics card and a few drives, you can often get the features you’re after by opting for a chipset below Intel’s Z590 or X570 for AMD.
Previously, if you chose, say, an H470, B460, or H410 board on the Intel side, you’d lose the option to overclock, though only a handful of mainstream Intel chips are unlocked for overclocking anyway (those with product names that end in the letter “K”). But that looks to be changing with upcoming Intel 500-series boards. Stay tuned to our motherboard reviews for more info there as we get to test a new round of mainstream Intel boards.
On the AMD side, the B550/X570 (as well as older B450, B350 and B300) chipsets still support overclocking. Although you will lose some fast USB and SATA ports and PCIe lanes over the X570 chipset, enough of those connectivity options remain to support most mainstream computing tasks. If you need more ports and drives, stepping up to an X570 board is worth the money, especially considering that many higher-priced B550 boars are just as (if not more) expensive than many X570 offerings.
Do you plan to overclock?
As we noted in the chipset section above, if you plan to overlock on the Intel side, for older boards, you’ll need to opt for a Z490 chipset and a CPU with a “K” in its model name (like the Core i7-8700K), or step up to the high-end X299 platform and a Skylake X chip. It looks like lesser Intel 500 series boards will also make overclocking possible, though you’ll still need an unlocked “K” processor. On the AMD side, things are a lot simpler, with nearly all current-generation Ryzen chips supporting overclocking, and all but the lowest-end chipsets (A320 and A300) supporting overclocking as well.
But that doesn’t mean that mainstream users should overclock their processors. As we said in our CPU Buying Guide, in order to make your CPU achieve higher clock speeds than it’s rated for out of the box, you’ll likely spend extra on an enhanced cooling system and a high-end motherboard. By the time you factor in all these extra costs, you may be better off budgeting another $50-$100 (£40-80) for a CPU that comes with higher clock speeds out of the box.
Now, if you already have a top-of-the-line chip and want to push it even further, or you just enjoy the challenge, by all means, spend the extra money and time to squeeze out that extra speed.
What about audio?
Unless you’re a serious audiophile, you happen to get faulty hardware, or you opt for the lowest-end motherboard possible while still expecting exquisite sound, you should get by with on-board audio these days just fine.
Motherboard audio quality is primarily defined by the audio codec (aka the audio processing chip) a given board uses. So, if you’re a stickler for sound quality, you can look up the codec a given board uses before buying and see if it’s a mid-range or high-end model. Alternatively, you can, of course, still opt for a dedicated sound card, or USB speakers that move the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) hardware outside of the PC altogether, like the Audioengine A2+.
Given the sheer number of features that board makers sometimes slap on motherboards–particularly high-end models–it’s impossible to discuss them all. But here are a few to keep an eye on:
On-board on/off switches: These can be handy in the initial build process, or if your system is being housed in an open case for benchmarking/component testing. But for the average user, on-board buttons (which sometimes also include buttons to clear the CMOS or do basic overclocking) aren’t necessary.
LED diagnostic readouts: The tiny speaker that plugs into motherboard headers to provide diagnostic beeps when something goes wrong is going the way of the dodo. In its place, many mid-to-high-end boards now include a two-or-three-digit display for the same purpose, giving you an alpha-numeric code when something goes wrong. This can be a real help when building a PC or upgrading and you either forget to plug something in, something isn’t seated properly, or one of your components turns out to be faulty.
Wi-Fi Card: If you don’t have Ethernet near your computer, you want this. And if you plan on keeping your PC around for years to come, look into a board with Wi-Fi 6.
Dual Ethernet ports: A single Gigabit Ethernet port has plenty of bandwidth for Internet traffic, so this is helpful mainly if you plan to use the computer as a server and the board can aggregate the two connections into one. For those with heavy-duty wired network needs, look for a board with 2.5Gb or 10Gb Ethernet.
For more on what features you don’t need, see our 8 Motherboard Features You Probably Don’t Need.
How important are aesthetics to you?
If the only time you’re going to see your system’s innards is when it’s powered down with the side panel off, there’s no reason to opt for RGB lights or flashy I/O covers and heatsinks. However, if your case has a window, you should get a board that you like looking at–with lights if you like them.
Just keep in mind that, particularly if you’re a novice builder, a dark motherboard can make building or updating your system more difficult, as on-board labels will be harder to see. Also, if you are building a system that you want to look as clean as possible (that is, with few visible wires snaking around the motherboard), look for a board with its fan and USB headers placed around the edges, and SATA and USB 3 header ports that point to the side, rather than sticking up vertically. This will make accomplishing a clean build much easier.
MORE: Best Motherboards
MORE: All Motherboard Content
MORE: How to Sell Your Used PC Components
Want to comment on this story? Let us know what you think in the Tom’s Hardware Forums.
I would like to thank Asustor for supplying the review sample.
Asustor recently introduced the Lockerstor 4 NAS, a four-bay NAS with some interesting features. For starters, it uses a capable quad-core Intel Celeron processor for a NAS, with burst frequency of up to 2.7 GHz. Such a server has to strike a balance between power and energy consumption when it comes to the CPU since it operates continuously around the clock. A power-hungry CPU would increase the thermal load, which requires active cooling. Active cooling, on the other hand, is not as reliable as passive cooling and may get noisy. Keeping internal NAS temperatures low is of immense importance for other reasons as well—it ensures less storage-related issues over the long run. While aggressive fan-speed profiles will work, no one wants a noisy NAS at home.
Another interesting feature is the HDMI 2.0a port, which supports up to 4K resolution with a refresh rate of 60 Hz. In combination with the Asustor Portal applications, which include Plex, this NAS can be a powerful multimedia hub. Besides multimedia, there are other scenarios where an HDMI port may come in handy (e.g., surveillance). Below are a few more strong points that speak for the AS6604T.
Two 2.5 Gbit Ethernet ports
Pair of M.2 NVMe SSD ports (only be usable for cache purposes).
Upgradable RAM
Dual file-system support for internal storage (btrfs and EXT4)
Finally, if four bays are not enough for your needs some time down the line, you can easily expand your storage by connecting other Asustor NAS units over the bundled USB 3.2 ports.
Specifications
Asustor Lockerstor 4 (AS6604T) Specifications
Processor
Intel Celeron J4125 Quad Core 2.0 GHz (burst frequency of up to 2.7 GHz)
Operating System
Embedded Linux
Memory
4 GB SO-DIMM DDR4 (upgradable)
Flash Memory
8 GB eMMC
Storage
4x 3.5″https://www.techpowerup.com/2.5″ SATA II/III
M.2 Drive Slots (SSD Cache)
2x M.2 PCIe (NVMe) *M.2 2280
RAID Levels:
Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10
Maximum Drive Bays with Expansion Unit
16
Maximum Internal Capacity (Raw)
72 TB (18 TB HDD x4, real capacity depends on the RAID type)
Maximum Capacity (Raw) with Expansion Units
288 TB (18 TB HDD x16, real capacity depends on the RAID types)
File System (Internal Drives)
EXT4, btrfs
File System (External Drives)
EXT4
EXT3
FAT32
NTFS
HFS+
exFAT
btrfs
iSCSI
Target & Initiator
Hot-Swap
4x
Networking
2.5 Gigabit Ethernet x2 (2.5G/1G/100M)
HDMI Output
1x HDMI 2.0a
Expansion
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1
IP Cameras
up to 40 (4x are included)
Dimensions
185.5 (H) x 170 (W) x 230 (D) mm
Weight
2.96 kg
Power Consumption
27.6 W (Operation) 12.6 W (Disk Hibernation) 0.75 W (Sleep Mode) (with Seagate Ironwolf 16 TB)
Discord is now helping the r/WallStreetBets team moderate its new server. The company originally banned the group yesterday due to “hateful and discriminatory content” and revealed it had sent repeated warnings to the team managing the community.
Those warnings, for whatever reason, were ignored, but now the r/WallStreetBets team and Discord are working together. Discord staff are actively working with the server’s team to help with moderation. At least one Discord staffer, who is now in the new WallStreetBets server, is also helping with infrastructure problems related to the rapid growth the community is experiencing.
“WallStreetBets members have set up a new server and we are working with them,” says a Discord spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “We will welcome the group back so long as they improve their moderation practices and follow our Community Guidelines. We have reached out to the moderators to provide them with support and advice, like we do for many of our large communities.”
Discord was left in an awkward position yesterday, after the largely unmoderated server suddenly grew in size and got out of control. It could either let hate speech continue in a community it wouldn’t normally ban or act to shut it down after repeated warnings. The ban appears to have worked to get the r/WallStreetBets moderators to respond.
Hours after the ban, the moderators of the subreddit criticized Discord publicly. “We blocked all bad words with a bot, which should be enough, but apparently if someone can say a bad word with weird unicode icelandic characters and someone can screenshot it you don’t get to hang out with your friends anymore,” said the r/WallStreetBets subreddit moderators.
The new WallStreetBets Discord server currently has 296,000 members, and it continues to grow every second. It has played a central role in the subreddit’s ongoing mission to drive up the price of GameStop and AMC stock. We’ve been following the Discord server growth over the past few days, and while it was full of profanity and racial slurs yesterday, whatever work Discord is doing behind the scenes appears to be working to reduce that content today.
There are now fewer people screaming in calls, using racial slurs, or blasting music to the hundreds listening in. The memes are now mainly emoji and text, rather than images that often included offensive material.
We’ve asked Discord exactly what is being done to improve moderation for text-, image-, and audio-based communications and how the company was able to resolve its differences with the WallStreetBets. The company wasn’t able to provide details at the time of publication.
Stealth has produced an all-new waterproof mini-PC with an IP67 water resistance rating, the WPC-905. The unit is designed to be used as an IoT device, server, or workstation in harsh environmental conditions. The starting price for the WPC-905 is $3,195.
But for that price, you get a fully waterproof enclosure, including rear I/O. You can kit your WPC-905 with a low-powered 8th Gen Intel “UE” processor, a single stick of 8GB, 16GB or 32GB DDR4 RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage. But keep in mind, pricing goes up dramatically once you go beyond the baseline specs.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Stealth)
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(Image credit: Stealth)
To ensure full waterproof capability, the unit has a fully waterproof rear I/O, which includes one DVI-D IP67 rated display output, a power input, one RS-232 Serial Port, two 2-port USB 2.0 ports, and dual networking ports.
Each port is connected to the PC via an M12 port, this port is completely waterproof and requires custom cables/adapters if you want to connect peripherals, display outputs, or other devices to the WPC-905.
For over $3,000, that might seem like a lot for the specs the WPC-905 offers. However, in the business world, if you need a machine that can work well in harsh conditions and perform mission-critical work, buying a device like this can be well worth it.
In the wake of Robinhood’s surprise trading block, a new class of Reddit investors are looking for apps that will let them plow their money into their favorite stocks. On Thursday morning, Robinhood announced that it would temporarily block investors from purchasing or trading companies including GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Nokia, all of which have been the subject of unexpected rallies over the past few days. But for the online communities that fueled those rallies, the block is being treated as an outright betrayal.
Discussion about switching ramped up on Twitter and in investment discords after Robinhood halted buying and trading on stock, citing “recent volatility” in the market with the aforementioned stock as the reason it prevented additional trading.
Since the decision, Robinhood’s app on the App Store has received thousands of one-star reviews as a form of practice known as review bombing. On the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, angry Robinhood users are calling for a class action lawsuit because “allowing people to only sell is the definition of market manipulation,” according to one post. There’s even a new subreddit specifically for suing the company. Another Robinhood user tweeted that after years of being on the platform, the move felt like a “slap to the face,” adding “to be regulated in a time of absolute prime opportunities is an embarrassment.”
On Twitter, beloved rapper and Fyre Fest promoter Ja Rule did not mince words: “Yo this is a fucking CRIME what @RobinhoodApp is doin.”
Robinhood has been central to much of the chaos within the financial sector over the last few days. Investors from r/WallStreetBets or its private Discord server used the personal finance app to inflate GameStop and other stocks as a blow against Wall Street hedge funds. But now that Robinhood has taken steps to stem the rally, the r/WallStreetBets community feels betrayed — and is already looking for alternatives.
The list of brokerages that have stopped allowing trades and buys of the aforementioned stock continue to grow: Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, and Interactive Brokers, and WeBull have all halted trading. But Public, an app similar to Robinhood, has continued to allow buys and trades without restriction, although the app “has added Safety Labels to help inform and provide context to our users before they make a trade,” a spokesperson told The Verge.
For Robinhood competitors like Public, it’s a golden opportunity. In fact, Public is doubling the free stock slice for member referrals today. Popular YouTube personality Casey Neistat tweeted on Thursday morning just after the Robinhood halting began that “everyone complaining about @RobinhoodApp delisting GameStop and I’m over here on @public about to get Bill Gates rich.” He later said that no one should take investment advice from him and that he’s an investor in Public.
“Also im an investor in public and i hope this ridiculous behavior from Robinhood brings attention to superior companies (like Public),” Neistat tweeted.
Switching to a competitor will still add some friction — and might cost investors valuable time in an exceptionally volatile situation. When creating an account on Public, for instance people may have to wait a few days for their application to be approved, according to a message that appears during the signup process. If people are trying to get in on GameStop and AMC while the magic rally is still in effect, that delay might defeat the purpose — although at least one Verge reporter had their account approved in the same day.
Most apps also allow investors to transfer their portfolios from other brokerages, including Robinhood, which could be faster. But there’s still likely to be a significant delay.
Webull is another investment app, and the FAQ states that “in most cases, account application is approved automatically.” Webull’s website also states that people can trade in the same day if “you deposit via ACH before 4:00 pm on a trading day” — basically, if funds are transferred from something like a bank to Webull. The site also states, however, that people “will get a provisional credit (up to $1000 depending on the incoming deposit) of buying power after your deposit,” which gives people “provisional buying power to trade.”
Transferring stocks from one app to another, or flocking to another app to buy stocks, seems tedious — but as long as it’s unclear when Robinhood and other brokerages will allow purchases, GameStop’s new stockholders are left with no other choice. At the time of publication, GameStop’s stock was sitting at $155 — down from yesterday’s high of $468, but still more than triple where the stock was last week.
“You’d think with a brand name like Robinhood you’d be all about the working class outsmarting the rich,” popular YouTube creator Ricky “FaZe Banks” Bengston tweeted. “You guys fkn blew it.”
Robinhood has added new limits to its app to restrict users from buying or trading any of the popular Reddit r/WallStreetBets stocks, including GameStop ($GME), AMC ($AMC), BlackBerry ($BB), Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY), Nokia ($NOK), and more. Users will still be allowed to close out existing positions but won’t be able to buy more of the stocks. The company is citing “recent volatility” in the market as the reasoning behind the change.
We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary. In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD and $NOK. We also raised margin requirements for certain securities.
The development is the latest in an ongoing saga that has seen a group of Reddit users from the WallStreetBets subreddit band together in an effort to drive up the stock prices of companies like GameStop and BlackBerry, in defiance of traditional hedge funds that had shorted those firms. Robinhood — a popular stock market application that allows amateur day traders to purchase those stocks without fees — has been a key tool in the Reddit group’s ability to push prices up.
Robinhood isn’t the only major company to stop accepting new trades for GameStop and AMC — more traditional brokerages like Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade also restricted trading around GameStop and AMC on Wednesday, citing unprecedented trading activity.
The move has infuriated members of the WallStreetBets subreddit. A top post on the subreddit this morning calls the decision “market manipulation,” with angry comments calling for users to “dump robinhood for good” and lamenting the ensuring fall in stock prices that shortly followed the announcement. The group’s official moderator account has also protested the decision by Robinhood, highlighting the unfairness of the fact that day traders cannot make new investments in the stocks when traditional firms still can.
Individual investors are being stripped of their ability to trade on @RobinhoodApp
Meanwhile hedge funds and institutional investors can continue to trade as normal.
What do you call a market that removes retail investors ability to buy to save institutional investors shorts? https://t.co/G0hQFJDaG4
— wsb mod (@wsbmod) January 28, 2021
A sticked post on the thread from moderators also implores users “No witch hunts on Robinhood please.” It’s a reflection on the recent turmoil that has hit the /r/WallStreetBets community as part of its nearly overnight success, which has seen the group’s Discord server banned for “hateful and discriminatory content” and the subreddit itself temporarily made private as the group struggles to moderate the massive influx of new users.
A real-life trading floor is noisy. You can find traders shouting at each other, especially when the markets are volatile and stock is moving fast. That same environment has been replicated online this week, thanks to Discord.
Getting inside offers a surreal look at an emerging virtual trade floor where people are yelling at each other to invest into GameStop or AMC stocks. Dozens of people join the server every second, and one channel has a stream of memes that looks like pure chaos.
Welcome to the world of r/WallStreetBets.
The r/WallStreetBets Discord server.
Discord is usually the tool of choice for gamers to communicate with friends, Twitch streamers to grow a community, or just small groups of people to share similar interests. It’s a hugely popular app, with more than 100 million monthly active users. The Reddit community r/WallStreetBets has turned to Discord in recent weeks to organize and communicate in real time, as it seeks to force hedge funds into losing millions of dollars on their bets against struggling retail companies like GameStop and AMC.
Amateur traders are flocking to the Discord server to discuss stock movements, share memes, and participate in what feels like an online game. Every post is littered with emoji reactions that fly off the page within seconds, and the calls are full of people shouting “buy GameStop” or “hold GMC” as stock prices go up and down throughout the day.
At times it feels like it only takes one person to shout something on a call or spam a meme enough times for it to catch on and everyone to run with it. I witnessed hundreds of people hit Twitch yesterday to spam “save AMC” in a variety of live streams. Rapper Soulja Boy’s Twitch stream was swarmed with the messages, after calls to visit his stream. But the group failed to convince him to tweet about the struggling theater chain.
The Discord calls and many of the memes are often full of profanity or racial slurs, leading Discord to ban the r/WallStreetBets server last night. It quickly came back to life a few hours later, though, and has already amassed 200,000 members.
“Can we just get one minute of therapeutic silence,” asked someone on the main Discord call yesterday. A few seconds of silence passed before the ask was met with fart sounds, high-pitched music, and sound boards. The members often joke about the FBI or SEC listening in, which prompts many to spam the “FBI, open up!” audio meme.
After last night’s Discord server ban, r/WallStreetBets is rebuilding its Discord community, but a split has emerged. There are now two Discord servers, with an unofficial one at 88,000 members.
Misinformation is common throughout these Discord servers. In the official one, a discussion broke out about the potential for a US-led war to impact stock markets. “There is going to be a war, 100 percent,” claimed one Discord user. “I’m going to bring my gaming chair into the war,” joked another. Fake Elon Musk memes are also as popular as the man himself among this group. “The only thing I want in life is for Elon Musk to tell me I’m beautiful,” said one Discord user praising the Tesla CEO.
Among all the chaos and fake Elon Musk memes, there is some relative organization on the server with calmer heads providing tips to amateur traders. “Only put money in that you can afford to lose,” is a common piece of advice. New members often join and want to know what stock to invest in, but are quickly met with “we are not financial advisors” or “buy what you feel like buying” responses.
I’ve also witnessed what sound like day traders teaching people the basics of options, market retracements, and how to create charts with technical indicators and overlays. Robinhood has made buying and selling stocks as easy as posting a photo to Instagram, and those new to this experiment are eager to learn more.
Others, who have clearly been part of the r/WallStreetBets community for more than a few days, are also quick to advise new members not to try trial broker accounts with fake money for too long. “You need to get used to the emotional reality of a market open,” said one Discord member.
The advice is often interrupted by excitement as GameStop or AMC shares reach new highs. At one point this morning GameStop hit $420 a share in premarket trading, which was met by cheers and surprise on the Discord call.
I personally spend large parts of my day on Discord, but I’ve still never seen anything quite like the r/WallStreetBets server — even in groups with 300,000 members. Dozens of people join every second, and at times it has forced Discord to crash on my high-end gaming PC or take up lots of CPU resources. Even on my iPhone it kills my battery and makes my phone hot to touch.
The question now is how long this mass organized movement can continue on Discord, and the amount of time left in the grand GameStop stock price game. After a ban for “hateful and discriminatory content,” the official r/WallStreetBets Discord server seems less chaotic. But r/WallStreetBets describes itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal,” and a lot of the Reddit comments contain offensive language.
r/WallStreetBets feels like The Button, an online meta-game that first appeared on Reddit for April Fools’ Day in 2015. Redditors rushed to push a button on a 60-second timer that would reset every time it was clicked. It inspired devotion and obsession much like this GameStop stock rally, and even spawned religions and cults.
The Button ended more than two months after its introduction when the timer finally hit zero with no attempts to reset it. There’s no timer here on this Discord and Reddit trade floor experiment, and nobody really knows exactly how and when it’s going to end.
In yet another sign that Intel’s efforts to rebuild its engineering corps might be swift under the new incoming CEO, Intel announced today that Sunil Shenoy, a 33-year Intel veteran who left the company in 2014, will be returning to the company as the senior vice president and general manager of the Design Engineering Group.
News that Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s incoming CEO, would return to the company has sparked optimism among the rank and file as the company seeks to return to its deep technological roots with an engineer at the helm.
Word of Gelsinger’s return has already inspired Glenn Hinton, an Intel Senior Fellow, to return to the company. That was apparently just the beginning, and Gelsinger recently remarked that “you’ll be seeing other announcements of key leaders coming back in,” which has come to quick fruition with the announcement that Shenoy will return after a seven-year hiatus.
Gelsinger is also attracting other talent, too: Guido Appenzeller, who hails from VMware, also announced via Twitter and Linkedin that he is joining Intel as the CTO of the Data Platforms Group. Appenzeller previously worked under Gelsinger at VMware.
Sunil Shenoy returns to Intel from his position at SiFive, where he was the senior vice president and general manager of its RISC-V program. Sunil previously served at Intel as the corporate vice president in charge of Intel’s Platform Engineering Group, where his remit included microprocessor and SoC design across Intel’s product groups. He also led the Visual and Parallel Computing Group and server and PC silicon development R&D and engineering, among other responsibilities.
Shenoy lists ‘setting in place a culture and system for reliable product execution in synch with process technology (the Tick-Tock cadence model)’ among his accomplishments.
Shenoy’s new responsibilities will overlap somewhat with those of the now-departed Jim Keller, but he technically replaces Josh Walden, who had led the group on an interim basis since July (shortly after Keller’s departure). Walden will return to his full-time leadership position over Intel’s Product Assurance and Security (IPAS) and Security Architecture and Engineering (SAE) organizations.
Gelsinger has struck a confident tone said the company remains committed to re-establishing its lead in process node technology, saying he’s “not interested in closing the gaps…but being the unquestioned leader in process technology.” Bringing back experienced leaders like Shenoy is a solid step in that direction.
“Sunil is a proven engineering leader who has deep experience in microprocessor and SoC design and R&D,” said current Intel CEO Bob Swan. “His experience inside and outside of Intel will enable him to combine the best of Intel culture with an entrepreneurial spirit and fresh perspective as we work to strengthen the company’s technical leadership team and to coach and develop a new generation of technical talent.”
Shenoy holds a master’s degree in computer engineering from Syracuse University and an MBA from the University of Oregon. He also holds 16 patents in computer and microprocessor technology.
Shenoy returns on February 1, 2021. He will report to departing Intel CEO Bob Swan for now, and then report directly to Gelsinger when he takes over on February 15, 2021.
The WallStreetBets subreddit, which has seen a significant increase in attention in recent days following the meteoric rise in GameStop’s stock driven in part by traders on the forum, has been made private. Reddit confirmed to The Verge that the subreddit’s moderators were the ones to make it private.
If you try to access the subreddit as of 7:06PM ET, you’ll see a page with this message:
We are experiencing technical difficulties based on unprecedented scale as a result of the newfound interest in WSB. We are unable to ensure Reddit’s content policy and the WSB rules are enforceable without a technology platform that can support automation of this enforcement. WSB will be back.
However, it’s not just people who weren’t subscribed to the subreddit who are no longer able to access it — many users who say they were subscribed are reporting that they can’t view it anymore.
I just got removed from WSB… random. Been on there for half a year
— dawson schrader (@dawson_schrader) January 27, 2021
@wallstreetbets hi, somehow I can’t access the page anymore? I’ve been a member since December? What happened?
— Daam Stevens (@daamsincome) January 27, 2021
The message shown when you try to visit r/WallStreetBets has changed throughout Wednesday evening. Here’s a screenshot of what I saw when I attempted to visit r/wallstreetbets at 6:46PM ET.
Soon after, the description changed to show a different message: “WallStreetBets is under in tents load and is only for approved submitters. In the meantime, please enjoy some spaghetti,” followed by a link to a NSFW video of a man putting spaghetti all over his body.
Earlier on Wednesday, Discord banned the r/WallStreetBets server. The company said that the Discord was banned for “continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.” The subreddit advertises itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal,” and many posts contained offensive language.
Update January 27th, 7:09PM ET: Added new message shown when you attempt to visit r/WallStreetBets.
Reddit traders who have successfully profited off GameStop (GME) stock are now turning their attention to struggling movie theater chain AMC. Reddit board r/wallstreetbets has helped push GameStop stock to record levels in recent days, with the stock closing up 92 percent yesterday alone. It’s part of a chaotic, meme-fueled effort to create an organized short squeeze, and force traditional hedge funds into losing millions of dollars on their bets against struggling companies.
AMC appears to be next on the list. Overnight, online traders at r/wallstreetbets’ Discord server spent hours creating memes and spamming AMC emoji in an effort to convince thousands of people to buy AMC stock. Hundreds swarmed rapper Soulja Boy’s live Twitch stream in a failed endeavor to get him to tweet about AMC. At one point in an ongoing Discord call — with dozens of participants shouting profanity and racial slurs — traders thought Elon Musk was on the call. After many called for quiet and to “let Elon speak,” everyone soon realized it was just a prankster using a fake Elon Musk sound board.
It was a surreal moment in what has become the hottest online game.
AMC stock up more than 400 percent in pre-market trading.
The AMC memes appear to be working, though. During pre-market trading, AMC was up more than 400 percent at one point before opening up more than 250 percent. The movie theater chain has struggled with pandemic-related losses, but it did raise more than $400 million in financing on Monday to help it stay afloat through 2021.
The mob of investors are taking part in this incredibly high-risk game in an attempt to punish hedge funds and professional financiers and make some quick cash. Thousands are buying into the idea of pummeling Wall Street professionals, and they’re using Reddit, Discord, Twitter, and Twitch to sell more people on gaming the system.
It works by targeting stocks that have a high amount of short selling attached to them, which is why GameStop and AMC are great targets after struggling through the pandemic. Short selling is a process that lets traders borrow shares for a fee and then sell them for a high price, and buy them back at a lower price to return them. Reddit is trying to force the price up so that investors, and especially hedge funds, that are short selling will lose lots of money as the stock rises. Read our full explainer on how Redditors are gaming GameStop stock.
It’s a risky game that highlights a bigger battle over the future of finance, and the idea that you can do anything online. The vast majority of Reddit investors are young and see hedge funds as the old school controlling stocks and shares and bullying companies into administration through their positions. As one poster on r/wallstreetbets put it, it’s “a tug of war between tradition and the future” that has gotten really personal. “We need to take the wealth back from these boomers,” said one member of the Discord call encouraging investment in AMC.
Investing and trading has also become incredibly easy for amateurs, thanks to apps like Robinhood. Millions have used Robinhood to make commission-free trades, and it’s a practice that has become popular during the pandemic with millions stuck at home.
This online trade game also has real life consequences. One big hedge fund, Melvin Capital, has been forced to close out of its GameStop position today with a huge loss expected, likely in the millions of dollars. It’s not clear if we’ll see the same sequence of events with AMC, but Reddit is trying to make it happen.
AMD reported its fourth-quarter 2020 and full-year results today, setting new records as it continues to whittle away market share from its archrival Intel despite the challenges associated with the pandemic and US-China trade war. AMD is making strides in all facets of its operation; CPU, GPU, data center, and console sales are all strong, but exceptional demand driven by the pandemic has led to rolling shortages.
AMD CEO Lisa Su said the shortages primarily impact the gaming (both consoles and gaming CPUs and GPUs) and the low end of the PC market, and overall demand has exceeded its planning. That’s particularly challenging given that, in the first quarter of availability, the company’s Ryzen 5000 processors have sold twice the number of units compared to any other Ryzen series in history.
Su expects to see ‘tightness’ throughout the first half of 2021 until added production capacity comes online. That means we could see a limited supply of AMD’s PC and console chips until the middle of the year. Su also explicitly called out the low end of the PC market and consoles as being impacted the most, meaning higher-margin products are more readily available at retail.
Interestingly, AMD’s inventory swelled during the quarter, reaching $1.4 billion in unsold goods (up from $930 million the prior quarter), which seems odd given that the company has unmet demand. An AMD representative tells us that the company’s inventory values can consist of chips in various stages of production, so it’s possible that AMD’s increased wafer starts at TSMC has resulted in more chips in various stages of production. AMD also confirms that packaging shortages continue to be a pinch point in the supply chain. That implies that there could be plenty of chip dies also awaiting packaging, meaning lithographic capacity at TSMC (i.e., wafer starts) aren’t the only factor impacting the company’s ability to deliver chips.
If there’s one certainty, it’s that AMD is selling every chip it can put on shelves. AMD raked in a record $3.24 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, up 53% over the year prior, and net income weighed in at $1.78 billion, a staggering 948% increase over the prior year, albeit buoyed by an income tax benefit of $1.3 billion.
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On the client group side of the house that produces both consumer CPUs and GPUs, AMD’s $1.96 billion in Q4 revenue marked an 18% YoY and quarterly increase. AMD says higher sales of Ryzen processors drove this performance and average selling prices (ASPs) increased during the quarter, though ASPs lagged the prior year due to a higher mix of Ryzen Mobile sales.
That higher mix of laptop chips isn’t surprising – AMD recently recorded its highest laptop market share in history. AMD also says that its Ryzen 5000 processors doubled the launch sales of any prior-gen Ryzen processor. As a result, annual processor revenue grew 50% even though the PC market only grew 13%, meaning the company gained more market share during the year.
On the graphics side of the house, Su said that demand for Radeon 6000 GPUs is strong, marking the fastest-selling GPU over $549 in AMD’s history, and ASPs are up for both the quarter and the year. The company will launch RDNA 2 GPUs in the first half of 2021.
For the company’s EESC unit, which comprises its data center and semi-custom business, AMD raked in $1.38 billion in revenue, a 176% year-over-year (YoY) increase. Su said that the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox ramp is faster than the previous cycle, which seems to be a given in light of the constant shortages. AMD says that it expects sales of its console chips to stay strong in the first half of the year, bucking the normal historical trend of reduced console sales in Q1.
AMD lumps both data center and game console processors under this same unit, making it hard to determine how much of the revenue gain can be attributed to its server chip business. However, during the earnings call, Su noted that server processor revenue reached an all-time high in the fourth quarter and now comprises “high mid-teens” percentage of the company’s overall revenue (for both the quarter and the year), implying AMD raked in ~$550 to ~$600 million in revenue for EPYC server chips for the quarter, and ~$1.4 billion for the year. That’s a big step forward but still lags behind Intel’s $6.1 billion in data center revenue in 2020.
AMD did note that its EPYC ASPs were higher sequentially, meaning the company is making more money per chip. Meanwhile, Intel has taken a haircut on ASPs, and thus margins, as it has cut pricing to fend off AMD’s EPYC.
AMD began production of its next-gen EPYC Milan in the fourth quarter of last year and sampled to HPC and cloud providers. Su said the company is on track for the official launch in March with very strong ecosystem support.
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AMD’s Q4 gross margins were flat YoY at 45%. For the next quarter, AMD guides for $3.2 billion in revenue, up 79% YoY and down 1% on the quarter.
AMD’s full-year results were exceptional, as well. The company raked in a record $9.76 billion in revenue, a 45% YoY jump, and net income hit $2.5 billion, a staggering 630% increase over the prior year.
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For the full-year 2021 guidance, AMD pegs revenue to grow ~37% (~$13B) and non-GAAP gross margins to weigh in at 47%, driven by growth across all of AMD’s business segments.
AMD also says it is on track to complete its Xilinx acquisition, which should be complete by the end of 2021.
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