5 Reasons you should get an AMD Ryzen CPU over an Intel CPU

If you've every had your head in the tech-world, you may have heard that AMD launched a new line of desktop CPUs earlier this year after 5 years of absence from the Central Processing Unit market; and there was much rejoicing among aficionados of Personal Computers. Why? There are several reasons why actually, and here's a short list of why you may want to consider siding with Team Red for your next computer build or upgrade...

1. Ryzen is easier on your Wallet

The current lineup of AMD Ryzen CPUs are offered at incredibly competitive prices ranging between $130 - $500, all the while having many of the same specifications and close to the same performance as Intel CPUs but undercutting Intel by about half the price in some cases. In fact here's a full list of the currently available chips with all of the specification and their current value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_(microarchitecture)#Desktop_processors

2. Optimized for Multi-Tasking

If you're one for keeping open multiple tabs in your internet browser, having open multiple browsers or having open multiple programs simultaneously, a Ryzen CPU would be best chip for your workload. While Intel CPUs still reign king of single threaded performance, doing one or a few tasks best, AMD chips often outperform Intel in programs that allocates multiple CPU cores simultaneously. This is beneficial if you are a working professional using multiple programs, a content creator making graphic art, editing photography, mixing sound and music, editing videos or rendering CGI animations and effects. It's also beneficial to those running synthetic benchmarks, simulations and even game streaming and virtual reality.

In fact the video below is an apples to apples comparison between a AMD Ryzen chip and a similar Intel chip. (Spoilers: Intel's better at games, AMD's better at everything else. Often the same conclusion many other testers and reviewers have to say.)

3. Overclockable

Overclocking is the practice of dialing up the speed of your computer hardware, often at the cost of extra power, extra heat and less stability. But with the appropriate motherboard, power supply and CPU cooler, you can push your new Ryzen chip to outperform more than it's intended to be. AMD is practically the champion of overclocking with many of their chips holding world records in overclocked frequencies. See this website to see who the top contenders are: https://valid.x86.fr/records.html 

4. Better for the Free Market

AMD holds a reputation for being the underdog in the computer tech world. It doesn't help that AMD's annual research and development budget dwarfs in comparison to Intel's ($1.056 Billion, AMD vs $13.12 Billion, Intel) and with AMD's lack of a new CPU generation for the last 5 years has left Intel to run rampant, gaining them a favorable market share and allowed Intel to price their products at premium high prices without any major increments in better products over the years; giving Intel a near monopoly in the CPU market. At least until recently, with the release of Ryzen, AMD has gained back a cut of the market but Intel still holds dominance. But AMD isn't going down without a fight, as AMD is kicking up the competition with the announcement of a bigger Ryzen CPU with 16 cores, nicknamed "ThreadRipper". Needless to say, things in the CPU market are about to become a whole lot more interesting.

How to Sound-Insulate a room in a Rental

So you're an aspiring voice talent or musician, living in a rented room, flat or apartment. And you just got yourself a new microphone, however upon doing a little research, you find that the best way to record your works would be in a well sound-insulated room. But if you haven't found that out yet, feel free to learn from this instructional video about voice recording and sound-insulation.

Now say you're in the situation where you and your equipment won't exactly fit in the closet available to you, or you simply don't have one. Your next best option would be to sound-insulate the area you plan to do your recordings in, but the items you have available to you don't do the job well enough. So? What's the best way to sound-insulate your room that isn't permanent nor damaging (and would cause you to default on your deposit)?

There are many ways you can accomplish this, but I will mainly cover one with in this blog. Now this method isn't the least expensive option, but it shouldn't break your bank account, if you budget smart.

Now what you'll need to start with is some foam, you can get this at any number of places for a variety of prices, shapes and colors but what would yield the best results for you is acoustic foam. Why? Due to it's cut shape, it performs a lot better in absorbing sounds than a flat surface of foam.

Now Acoustic foam can be pretty pricy depending on the cut, color, quantity and material you get. You can achieve the results you're looking for with cheaper foams at the sacrifice of of some non-essential features like color-choice, extra surface area and being fire-retardant and heat-resistant (so please don't smoke or light candles around cheap sound-absorption materials.)

Now for this blog, I'll be showing you what I've done to my room. If you are seeking to insulate your room, you don't have to follow this tutorial word for word, but instead use it as a guideline for what you wish to do.

Step 1) Purchase your foam (In this case, I ordered 24 square foot pieces of 2" Pyramid cut foam, for $2 a square)

Step 2) Find a sheets of semi-rigid material to apply your foam to. (This can be something as simple as square foot cutouts of cardboard, but in my case I got 24 square foot cuts of sheet foam to aid in sound absorption)

Step 3) Find an adhesive to glue your foam and rigid materials together (A spray-on adhesive works best for this situation, doesn't need to be heavy duty as your materials are fairly light weight.)








Step 4) Measure, and Glue your materials together in ventilated room or outside (make sure to line up your squares correctly and allow it to dry and ventilate for 30 minutes to an hour or two.)

Step 5) Apply masking or poster tape to back of foam squares. (A light to medium-duty tape that's easy to remove will be perfect. Your materials are fairly light weight, so you won't need much tape.)

Step 6) Determine where you want to apply your foam squares and tape them up. (You'll generally want a higher concentration of sound insulation where your microphone is.)

Fell free to make decorative patterns with your foam

Apply more foam where your microphone is closest

Now you are ready to record, and if you're not satisfied with the placement of your foam, you can easily rearrange it to your liking. You can also wield better results with the strategic placement of paintings, photos, tapestries, posters, curtains, or even clothes and costumes from within your closet or upon your wall with temporary wall hooks.

This is one of several approaches to temporary, undamaging sound insulation. A tad more costly than than other DIY options but the outcome is much more professional and decorative than others. And, I kept this project well under $100 (£64) in total. A small price to pay for some high-quality recordings! Thanks for reading!