Windows 11 Dominates, GPU Performance Benchmarks, and Tech Deals

Windows 11 Surpasses Windows 10

• 📈 Windows 11 has officially become the number one Windows operating system, reaching 51.77% of installations as of July 2025.
• 📉 Windows 10 has now dropped to 45% of installations, with its free security updates ending in October.
• ⏳ The transition mirrors the cadence of Windows 7's end-of-life, with Windows 10 support ending approximately four months after Windows 11 hit the 50% mark.

PCI Express Bandwidth and GPU Performance

• 📊 Puget Systems has quantified the impact of nerfing PCI Express bandwidth, showing a significant performance hit on graphics cards like the RTX 4090.
• ⚡ While PCIe 5.0 with 16 lanes generally performs best, eight lanes of PCIe 5.0 often match 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0.
• ⚠️ Dropping to four lanes of PCIe 5.0 equates to performance similar to eight lanes of PCIe 4.0 or 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, indicating performance degradation.
• ❓ An anomaly was observed in an LLM AI Llama benchmark, where PCIe 5.0 performed worse than PCIe 3.0, with no clear explanation.

Graphics Card Market Trends

• 🚀 The 9070 GRE graphics card, initially exclusive to China, is slowly expanding its availability to regions like Taiwan and Hong Kong.
• 🛒 In contrast, NVIDIA's RTX 5070 is the top-selling GPU according to Steam hardware surveys and Amazon sales data, surpassing older and higher-tier cards.
• 📉 AMD's RX 9000 series GPUs, including the 9070 and 9070 XT, are not appearing in the Steam hardware survey due to market share below 0.15%.
• ⚠️ Intel GPUs are performing poorly, with some older mining cards outselling their current offerings, and they are not represented on the Steam hardware survey.

Tech Deals and Collectibles

• 💰 Deals highlighted include the Cooler Master NR200 Mini ITX case for $52.99, the Steel Series Arctis Nova 4X wireless gaming headset for $67.98, and Sony XM4 noise-cancelling headphones for $194.99.
• 🎨 A Gundam Wing collection collaboration by Hype and Bandai Namco features a $500 HY70 Touch Infinite case, which is a $60 premium over the standard Y70 Infinite.

Project Zuda and Future of x86

• 🛠️ Project Zuda continues development to bring CUDA acceleration to non-NVIDIA GPUs, with a focus on enabling 32-bit physics support.
• 🤝 The project relies on open-source implementations and community assistance for its progress.
• ⚠️ Concerns are raised about the future of x86 architecture if Intel falters, potentially leaving AMD to compete against ARM-based systems from Nvidia and Apple.