Tesla Model 3 configurator - on-line in July

At the recent shareholders meeting Elon Musk did some announcements and clarifications about current and future products, but the most important of them is about the Model 3. Production is about to begin any day now (initially only for Tesla and Space X employees), then by the end of July reservation holders will get an e-mail with an invite to configure their Model 3.

The configurator will look like this, probably without the interior options. Elon didn't state it definitively, but suggested that you'll be able to choose wheel size (18" or 19") and body color, that's it. All the other options will be the a combination of the most frequently requested and easiest to manufacture.

What we already know for sure, is that the first batch of Model 3s will come with the largest battery pack and rear wheel drive. It's not clear yet whether they'll push for all glass roof, or go with the simple metal roof. It will probably depend on the supplier's performance, assuming they are not making it in-house, yet.

Elon joked about the first batch of Model S, which had no options at all, you just ordered "one Model S". It also came with the largest, 85kWh battery pack (probably for value and proof of range) and only rear wheel drive. Later they added more complexity with the Performance (P85) option, which meant you'll get a less efficient, but a lot faster/larger motor and more aggressive electronics/settings. Then they added a second motor in the front for all-wheel-drive and more efficiency on highways and in city traffic...and so on...

About the battery pack we know that the smaller space under the Model 3 allows for 75kWh max. with current Li-ion technology (2170 Gigafactory cells), so that's what customers are hoping for, but it might be less than that, like 70kWh in the first year of production. Don't get me wrong, that is still a lot of energy. For comparison the Chevy Bolt EV has a 60kWh battery pack and has a 230+ mile range. These first Model 3s will most likely exceed that - if I had to guess, I'd say they'll have a 250+ mile EPA rating.

The Chevy Bolt EV uses a permanent magnet motor, which requires rare earth metals (not too ECO friendly), but offers very good regen braking. Tesla uses 3-phase induction motors with a copper rotor, which makes them more environmentally friendly and completely recyclable, but have a slightly less efficient regen braking, as the motor requires some power to generate the - otherwise absent - magnetic field.

The Model 3 motors will most likely have less performance than Model S and X motors, but the durability target is 1,000,000 miles with minimal maintenance (lubrication oil change every 1-2 years or 50.000-100.000 miles). Model 3 will eventually come with all-wheel-drive option in late 2017 or early 2018. To be clear, early production Model 3s will not be upgradable to dual motor AWD. If you'll want AWD you can return your Model 3 to Tesla for a fair price and order a new Model 3 with the additional options you need.

Please visit Tesla's website for more information.

AMD Athlon X4 845 Carrizo - update

In my old Haswell system I had the Cooler Master Hyper TX2 cooler on the Celeron G1820 dual core processor with a 54W TDP, and it was very silent, there was no need for the fan to speed up beyond ~1500RPM. So when I decided to upgrade to the AMD Athlon X4 845 quad core processor, which had a 65W official TDP, I thought the RPM may go up slightly, but nothing noticeable, as the Cooler Master Hyper TX2 can handle up to 125W TDP processors. That was nice thought ... but in reality, my new AMD processor can go up to 90W TDP, twice the TDP of my old Haswell Celeron.

This is how my system is put together now. You can see how stupid it is to have such a small system in a large ATX case, but I'm not going to invest in a new one, as this one cost me like 5 USD 10 years ago and does its job. The most I'm willing to do is a DIY mATX project. It was done already by many DIY-ers, but I think I can bring some new ideas to the table. All I'll need for this to happen is time and money ... only one of which is missing (money).

With the default settings the AMD Athlon X4 845 Carrizo CPU was getting really hot, as the FAN profile had a target of 70*C. While gaming, the temperature stayed around 65*C, which I was very uncomfortable with.

My solution was to set the CPU TDP to 45W from the UEFI BIOS and target CPU temperature to 60*C. Now temperatures stay under 60 degrees, and the FAN is almost always under 65% speed, 1500-2200RPM ... BUT when I'm playing DOTA 2 and running other applications too (~90% CPU utilization), the fan ramps up to 100%, above 3000RPM.

I also have to mention that on my current MSI A68HM-E33 motherboard doesn't really react to the TDP setting. The main difference I have noticed between 45W/65W is that the CPU gets hot quicker with the 65W setting, but temps and fan RPM stay at almost exactly the same level as with the 45W TDP setting, maybe 1-2 degrees higher.

AMD Athlon X4 845 Carrizo finally in my system!

After reading a lot of negative reviews about delivery and feeling pessimistic about my chances, the courier phoned me Saturday morning and arrived in 5 minutes with two separate packages: one sealed bag with the CPU and another sealed bag with the mainboard. So the components arrived in less than 48 hours. My only complaint is that the warranty papers "weren't straight" and the boxes were quite banged up.

I assembled the parts outside the case. And stared at it for a while ...

Then I realized the processor was getting too hot and the cooler too noisy, so I switched the cooler to the Cooler Master Hyper TX2, with a little mod to hold it in place. The stock cooler's original mounting mechanism was too tall for my cooler, as it is a 95W TDP model. If the stock cooler was the 65W TDP model it would have worked ... so after a little DIY magic I mounted the cooler with two zip ties and a strong piece of metal to reach across.

So now the video card is very close to the modded CPU cooler and temperatures were still high, so I did two more modifications to my PC.

I voided the warranty of the power supply, as I took it apart, bent the heatsink fins to have more space for the fan and mounted it with silicone screws. Now the 12cm fan can spin at full speed without murdering my ears. I also added a second 12cm in the front of the case (where the 5.25" bays are), which also pulls out warm air, not at full speed though.

NOTE: my PC is above the monitors on a shelf, so none of the fans will blow in my direction, just sideways.

With the current configuration, my system is about 2x faster than my old dual core Haswell Celeron G1820. I can play DOTA 2 (second lowest graphics setting) and watch a 720p Youtube video on the other monitor without any issues. With 25*C room temperature the video card stays under 50*C and the CPU under 65*C at full load. I did do a little overclock via FSB, as I felt cheated when I saw the processor's frequency at 3.75GHz instead of 3.8GHz... so I increased the FSB from 100MHz to 101MHz 😎 now it's at 3833MHz.

Today I put my PC together with the parts I had at hand, but in the future I'll replace both 12cm fans and get a better mounting mechanism for the Cooler Master Hyper TX2. All the fans in my system are the cheapest...

Some time further in the future I'll upgrade my ATI Radeon HD 5550 512MB GDDR5 video card and possibly my 60GB SSD too, but for now it's good as it is, I started and will continue enjoying it 😎

AMD Athlon X4 845 was my second choice

My new processor hasn't arrived yet, so I have some more time to research it before putting the PC together.

Yes, the AMD Athlon X4 845 quad core processor was my second choice, as the slightly more expensive Kaveri A8-7600 with the quite fast iGPU was more tempting. When comparing the two processors, I noticed other differences too, like:

• the Athlon 845 has only 2MB of L2 cache, but has 2x more and better L1 cache
• the Athlon 845 is one generation newer, so it executes about 15% more IPC (instructions per clock) than the old Kaveri chips
• I really want to upgrade my video card in the future, in which case the iGPU would have been a waste of money (The A8-7600 processor is about 15 USD more expensive than the Athlon X4)
• the Athlon 845 should be 10% faster than the older Kaveri A8-7600 APU

I read many comments on the internet about the cooler that comes with the Athlon chip. The majority has a bad opinion about it, but the technical aspects are actually quite good. In fact it features a silent fan and the heat sink itself can handle up to 95W TDP processors. Even though the Athlon processor cannot be overclocked, it's nice to have a higher performance cooler, because then it can run much quieter than on the 95W processor it was meant for.

The cooler doesn't have heat pipes, nor a copper base, but it's large enough to keep the 65W processor under 60*C even at low fan RPM. There is just one problem I'll have to fix with this cooler, I need to isolate the fan from the heat sink, because if it's firmly attached with screws, then all the vibration gets transmitted to the heat sink, processor, mainboard ... then to the case.

I found an excellent anti-vibration material in the strangest place: in the sole of a work safety shoe. That material is a bit soft, but also doesn't lose it's form over time. It's some kind of rubber sponge/foam thing ... meant to protect your feet when you're working long hours on hard floors.

So I'll cut small peaces from this material and replace the screws with it, leaving a small gap between the fan and heat sink, in order to let the fan vibrate without transmitting it to the rest of the computer.

First I'll have to see how silent the fan is, but unfortunately current brushless motor technology isn't all that great. Switching between the 4 phases creates significant vibrations...

A word about ALTEX.RO ... many customers are dissatisfied with their services, as delivery time can reach 10 days and beyond. BUT this store guarantees the smallest price, or they pay you 2x the difference, if you find the product cheaper somewhere else. In fact is it the cheapest store most of the time, but the price difference can sometimes be just a couple of cents, so in these cases you might think about shopping somewhere else, at the second or third cheapest places, as they offer better service and shorter delivery times.

ASRock X299E-ITX/AC

ASRock attempted to bring high end processors to the ITX form factor before, and more or less succeeded, even though two memory channels and some ports/slots were sacrificed.
This year at Computex ASRock had a new attempt on display, the X299E-IT/AC compact ITX form factor motherboard, created for the upcoming multi-core monster CPUs from Intel.

This board doesn't sacrifice memory channels, as ASRock decided to switch to SODIMM memory, which is mall enough to fit 4 slots on the small motherboard. It also has a full size PCI-Express x16 3.0 slot for a graphics card or possibly for a riser card with more slots

The socket is an LGA 2066, which has about the same number of pins as the LGA 2011, so we can jump to the conclusion that Intel is not changing the architecture that much. In fact this platform will feature Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors starting from 4c/8t models right up to 18c/36t models with a 1.999USD price tag.

The funny thing about these upcoming Intel processors is that high core count models were added to the list in a rush, without any details. It almost seems like a knee-jerk reaction to AMD's upcoming Threadripper 10, 12 , 14, 16 core and Epyc 32 core processors, which will come in a new huge LGA socket and promise fierce fight for multi-core supremacy at every price point.

Donald Trump and the Paris Accord - IMO

Honestly I couldn't follow his speech, nor could I read it in text form, but I think I got the gist of it:

• he doesn't believe in science
• the Paris accord is/was unfair to the USA
• coal mining and burning creates lots of jobs

At this point in time Elon Musk would be pulling his hair out, if he wasn't already too busy solving these exact problems, which were (and still are) created by ignorant politicians. Elon Musk is the exact opposite of Donald Trump. He invested everything in his companies, works long hours and always has long term goals like: 

• colonizing Mars
• electrifying all transport on Earth 
• making power generation as green as possible

None of these goals can be reached in less than 20 years, so you might already see why an old man isn't particularly suited to lead a country or even a small company. A 70 year old person doesn't have 20 year long plans anymore - (s)he thinks ahead 1-2 years at most, as sickness and death are always near.

That's all I had to say about leaders ... now let's look at simple citizens...

Today you cannot change anything in policy, as protests will never ever change the mind of someone like Trump, so you must wait until the next election to vote against anyone who resembles Trump, Hillary ... or any ignorant old guy/gal.

Today you can do what you can to reduce your own polluting activities and and take away pollution from the air, that's right, you can!

Smart heating and cooling for your house

Today you can get very efficient air conditioning systems, ~350% to be more exact, which for every 1000W of electricity consumed bring in or move out at least 3500W of thermal energy. They do this with heat pumps, which don't create thermal energy, they just move it from one end of the system to another. They cost about 700USD/room.

For comparison, burning gas, wood, pellets ...etc. for heat can only reach about 95% efficiency with a traditional heating system or up to 120% with a more recent one, as it captures additional energy from condensation from the outgoing hot air. This solution takes O2 from the air and also pollutes the air right outside your house/apartment.

Today you can install heat recovery ventilation systems, which cost about 1000USD/room. They recover about 90% of the heat from outgoing used air without mixing it with incoming fresh air.

Today you can install a smart AC management system, which shuts off the AC and ventilation in unoccupied rooms.

Today these three relatively cheap solutions can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 80%, depending on what technologies you were using before. Newer, modern buildings may already have these high tech solutions installed.

Switch to electric transport

The average american drives about 37 miles in a day, so in theory almost any electric car on the market will work for most people, as even the cheapest EVs can do at least 50 miles on a charge.

Today you can buy a Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt, BMW i3 ...etc. for around 35.000 USD. They have a 150-200 mile range. You can fully charge them at home at night and/or go to a public charging station for 30-50 minutes. Yes, electricity costs less than gas/diesel in almost any part of the world, but the point is that you're polluting 50% less, even if all the electricity you use comes from a coal power plant.

Today most cities have electric public transport (trolley, subway...etc.) and/or electric taxi cabs. These are the best options if you don't want to invest in a battery-electric car yourself.

Today you can organize and get local legislation passed in your city, which can ban fuel burning cars from the city center, near schools and parks ...etc.

Install solar panels or plant large trees for shade

Most houses in the USA can generate the electricity they need, just by having the roofs covered with solar panels.

Today you can browse the internet for a solar system supplier and get something personalized for your house and location, which will pay for itself in 10 or 20 years max.

Today if you live in a warm climate and don't want to invest in solar, you can simply plant tall trees around your house or otherwise cover you roof and walls with vegetation. There are a lot of solutions out there and they are really cheap. Plants use solar energy for photosynthesis, practically turning heat into energy and also creating a nice cool shade.

Personal rig upgrade

My friends and family don't understand why I waited so long for an upgrade. I've been using a Celeron G1820 Haswell PC since it launched ... then it burned out probably because of a faulty PSU and I replaced it with the same processor model, slightly better mainboard.

Today I ordered a relatively old AMD Athlon X4 845 Carrizo processor and a very cheap MSI A68HM-E33 V2 mainboard. The CPU cost me 215RON (52USD) including 19% VAT and the mainboard cost 160RON (39USD) including 19% VAT.

Hopefully these will be the contents of the package, which will allow me to practically double my PC's processing power, from 2775 Passmark points of the Celeron to 5435 Passmark points of the Athlon X4 845. The old Haswell Celeron will actually go into my girlfriend's computer, which is still running a Celeron E3200 from the Core 2 Duo generation, measuring 1378 Passmark points. As it turns out, this will be a speed doubling for her too 😎 The rest of her PC is up to date, in the sense that it has a 120GB SSD + 160GB 2.5" laptop hard drive, 2 x 2GB DDR3 and a business class NEC 19" LCD monitor... it runs Windows 10 PRO x64 well, even with the current processor.

My system has a 60GB SSD + 320GB laptop hard drive, 2 x 4GB DDR3 memory and an old ATI Radeon 5550 512MB video card, which will all go into the new AMD system... powered by a cheap 72% efficiency 450W power supply, with a 12cm relatively silent fan.

The MSI A68HM-E33 V2 mainboard has very few USB ports on the back, but luckily another 4 can be connected to the internal headers. I won't be using the video ports, nor the PCI-Express x16 3.0 slot to its full potential, as the AMD Athlon X4 845 processor only supports 8 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes for the main graphics card slot. For my current graphics card it's no problem, and if I decide to upgrade in the future, I can go up to like an nVidia GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 470.

I probably won't be using the AMD stock cooler, as I have an old Cooler Master Hyper TX2, which can handle up to 125W without any problems, so on the 65W processor it will be very silent. The only part it's missing is the FM2+ mounting bracket, but if I remember correctly, I'll be able to use the one on the stock cooler. I just have to unscrew the fan and it'll come right out.

BUT I'll have to be very careful, as the stock cooler's retention mechanism only connects to two of the six tabs on the plastic bracket of the AM2+ socket, which it was originally intended for, so the system won't be very safe to transport. In fact the FM2+ socket has only two plastic tabs ... so... yeah ...

As the components were ~30% off, I may have to wait up to 10 days for delivery, but I hope they'll bring my package sooner, as I live in a big city (where they have to deliver many packages daily) and they usually optimize logistics to save fuel, so location matters more than time of ordering.