HW News - Intel is a Cluster, NVIDIA Blackwell Boosts Production, Sony "Still Learning"

[Music]

hello welcome back to another Harbor

news recap of the week in this one I'll

be ranting about mythological and DND

creature names as it pertains to

computer hardware it's very important

it's been a a big problem in this

industry and we finally had enough we'll

also be talking about Intel speaking of

big problems in the industry this would

be in response to the ongoing

instability issues that have really

built up over the last month in

particular additionally we'll be talking

about Sony and how it says it's still

learning even though it's been in this

industry for video games for like half a

century or something depending on how

you count it or at least decades uh and

its response to the hell divers 2 issues

that it caused let's get started before

that this video is brought to you by

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description below up first we're

shooting the third version of this story

about int's motherboard and CPU power

problems because it keeps changing so I

think as soon as we finish this episode

we're going to kind of here you go get

it out the door because they might

change it again uh Intel CPU and

motherboard situation is a complete

cluster fcq at this point and at the

center of all of it is a problem that

has now existed for eight years from

Intel at least since coffee Lake maybe

before then where it acts the Perpetual

victim of Asus MSI and gigabyte uh as it

seems to insist Intel has absolutely no

control over the power Behavior out of

the box that motherboard vendors enforce

on Intel CPUs even though Intel in fact

controls the entire ecosystem start to

finish um so at this point given the

stability we have all seen the chickens

have hatched before the egg in front of

the cart I think that's how the saying

goes and Intel has finally had more

problems than just thermal ones with

CPUs after some rumors earlier this week

about a potential change to pl1 and pl2

which stated that they functionally

would have the power and significantly

harm performance Intel decided to put

out a formal statement instead the

company said this quote several

motherboard manufacturers have released

bu bios profiles labeled Intel Baseline

profile however these bios profiles are

not the same as the Intel default

settings recommendations that Intel has

recently shared with its Partners

regarding the instability issues

reported on 13th and 14th gen kqq

processors these Intel Baseline profile

bio settings appear to be based on power

delivery guidance previously provided by

Intel to manufacturers describing the

various power delivery options for 13th

and 14th generation kcbe processors

based on motherboard capabilities in all

bold Intel is not recommending

motherboard manufacturers to use

Baseline power delivery settings on

boards capable of higher values they

continued with Intel's recommended Intel

default settings are a combination of

thermal and power delivery features

along with a selection of possible power

delivery profiles based on motherboard

capabilities Intel recommends customers

implement the highest power delivery

profile compatible with each individual

motherboard design as noted in this

table and this is the table they

included so this image doesn't list any

Baseline settings instead it lists

performance and extreme PL 1 through 4

and some other settings the bigger news

here reading between the lines that

Intel's basically saying hey we're not

enforcing this whole 125 watt pl1 188

watt pl2 thing that you all have been

talking about uh so that seems at least

that's our takea away from it um which

is maybe more of a response to earlier

stories this week than it is useful in

any other way seems like Intel at this

point is just trying to get in front of

that part of the story

which we'll see what they do over the

next month uh because it was a uh we'll

see it the problem that Intel faces is

if they change things too much they have

a bait and switch where they've

drastically impacted performance

potentially uh or even a little bit in

exchange for getting stability if it's

not stable at Baseline setting sorry I

can't use that word anymore they've

changed the definition for that too if

it's not stable in the socket out of the

box with whatever settings are applied

then it's not really fair to count that

performance as the sort of usable

performance of the product so they're

trying to avoid a a situation where they

get caught in a bait and switch but also

trying to improve the stability so

that's where Intel is right now what it

is saying explicitly is that it doesn't

recommend using lower settings than a

board can handle which is kind of what

got them into this situation to begin

with although technically they're

referencing these settings now uh it's

also suggesting explicitly that

customers use the highest profile that's

what they're saying so unfortunately

this is the exact behavior that caused

this whole mess to begin with and even

still motherboard vendors have deviated

from Intel's table that they've just

provided because that's what they do

because Intel doesn't actually try to

control anything they just say out of

our hands we're just poor old little

Intel we can't stop them from setting

crazy settings that are unstable or in

the very least are uh impossible to cool

that's not us Intel has created the

entirety of the situation from start to

finish the way they handle their

partners and the way they handle their

power settings where Intel's desperation

to continue to blast performance by just

increasing the frequency and the power

over the last several Generations has

caught up to them and that's why we have

these stability problems now and it's

also why this is a complete mess over

the past week and I was trying to

calculate how many more times can I

swear in this episode uh complete mess

for this past week because it seems like

nobody knows what's going on and uh

Intel is the one that needs to step in

and be the leader of its own ecosystem

here and say Here's what we're doing uh

everybody do this now but that's not

what's well at least based on this today

it doesn't seem like that's what's

happening at least not in a strong

enough way to really fully resolve thing

so in other words there's really not

much news all this does is kind of

refute parts of some of the major uh

previous

commentary and we've now shot this three

times and at the end of it all really it

does seem like it's just a clown car

full of Intel CPUs that are being driven

by the motherboards except the Intel

CPUs and the car are the only ones with

a driver's license so I don't know if

that makes any sense that that's what

we're going to go with for the

descriptor of the problem let's move on

to the next story I don't want to film

this again next one's going to be Sony

we'll just get the get these out of the

way First Sony had some hell divers 2

problems the end of this I've got quite

a few opinions on what's going on but

just for the the news and the fact up

front so hell divers 2 developers

Arrowhead last week uh and the games

player base were put through a turmoil

by evil empire Sony uh and that's the

game's publisher so Sony published a

mandate that all PC players would have

to link PlayStation Network or PSN

accounts to their steam accounts in

order to continue playing the original

steam post now updated stated that the

requirement had been made quote

temporarily optional due to technical

issues at the explosively popular launch

of the game but that the grace period

they said would expire Sony said this

account linking plays a critical role in

protecting our players and upholding the

values of Safety and Security provided

on PlayStation PlayStation Studios games

now as you all know this directly

basically states that uh being on Sony's

Network instantly makes you safe and

that's why there is an entire website

devoted to security breaches and

vulnerabilities it's October 2023 breach

of employee personal information for

example or it's September one in 2023 of

260 gabt of files it's August 2017

breach of Sony social media accounts and

various others so they have experience

in security Sony also said this quote as

such as of May 6th all new hell divers 2

players on Steam will be required to

connect their Steam account to a

Playstation network account current

players on Steam will start to see the

mandatory login from May 30th and will

be required to have linked a steam and

Playstation network account by 4th

PlayStation Network accounts are free

and easy to set up uh asterisk unless

you literally can't set them up come

back to the Hat we understand that while

this may be an inconvenience to some of

you this step will help us to continue

to build a community that you all are

proud to be a part of many thanks for

your continued support of Hell divers 2

signed Sony interactive entertainment

there's a trend between this story and

the first one uh there's a few problems

with this but right off the bat it is

incredibly scummy to change

like this after the launch of the

product cuz it now no longer functions

the same way now if you think well

making an account no big deal first of

all say that to all the GeForce

experience users who've complained about

it for years they finally are pulling

that back but secondly in some regions

and countries it is actually not

possible to comply with the terms of

service of this network and make an

account for it so they've set up an

unwinable scenario for a lot of users

that this has all been changed now but

that's why a lot of people were so upset

about it so we just think it's it's not

right to change a behavior that will

actually take away access to the product

or significantly alter it in a

meaningful way after the customer has

not only bought it but invested

significant time in it which puts them

in a situation they may have to

compromise on other values they care

about in order to keep using that

product and so that's kind of our

problem with it now even though the PSN

integration was technically there from

the start and technically mentioned on

the steam page it was easily bypassed

and it had no impact on user experience

one of our staff members got the game at

launch and just skipped it and never

thought about it again until now in fact

the mandatory account link was requested

by Sony 6 months ahead of launch

according to developer arrowheads CEO

and it was his decision to suspend the

requirement a few hours after launch

more seriously PSN isn't even available

in a whole host of countries players in

those regions would be forced to never

play the game again even though they

bought it and played it for months or

lie about the location and break the to

and see where that gets them if it's

ever a problem it's one thing to Bar

some regions in the first place due to

trade restrictions or simple

unwillingness to do business with those

markets but to take it away after the

sale has been made is absolutely

disgusting in my opinion tan amount to

theft uh so entering some light

speculation here we assume what happened

is that Sony thought it would look great

to pump the numbers of PSN signups

leading into a a fiscal quarter or a

filing or something um whatever I mean I

don't know it's it's money driven

because Sony went into this calculated

they would have known or if they didn't

they're unbelievably incompetent I don't

think they're that stupid they would

have known there would be push back they

would have known there'd be a loss of

some players who can't meet that

requirement uh

legitimately and they chose to forge

ahead anyway and the only reason I

personally can think of for a large

company like Sony to do that is money uh

and so the only reason they would walk

that back is money so anyway the game's

player base immediately went into a

complete frenzy and uh enacted a a

fourth wall breaking major order of

their own and started review bombing on

the

uh on Steam with over 200,000 negative

reviews and Arrowhead CEO uh chimed in

with support but also just looked

utterly defeated it it was genuinely sad

to read some of the response from the

CEO I mean it to be frank like some of

the Twitter posts from the CEO you read

it and you're like this is I think I

have identified depression like I think

that's what this is um and it kind of

paints that picture of like this

powerlessness despite a prior uh

potential business agreement and it's

because of how much the game uh

completely flipped from this absolute

positive win in recent weeks to what it

was uh he tweeted this is this the

moment to tweet what you guys don't have

phones uh some good humor at least on a

serious note we are talking Solutions

with PlayStation especially for non PSN

countries your voice has been heard and

I'm doing everything I can to speak for

the community but I don't have the final

say now it's important for everyone here

to bear in mind that the contract

between Arrowhead and Sony like we said

for hell divers 2 was made years ago

generally speaking the publisher is the

party that controls distribution that's

the whole point of having a publisher

now unfortunately there was some

collateral damage here where the

original hell divers game which has

nothing to do with this situation was

also caught up in review bombing the

change came in on Friday by Monday Sony

spoke up and posted to Twitter or X and

the original steam post was updated

quote hell divers fans we've heard your

feedback on the hell divers 2 account

linking update the May 6th update which

which would have required Steam and

Playstation network account linking for

new players and for current players

beginning May 30th will not be moving

forward we're still let try that again

we're still learning we we're still

learning oh poor Sony they're they're

just learning they're just figuring it

out they're new to this cut them some

slack they're still

learning that makes it okay what is best

for PC players and your feedback has

been invaluable thanks again for your

continued support of Hell divers 2 and

we'll keep you updated on future plans

so number one they reverse the decision

that's good uh it shouldn't have

happened in the first place number two

Sony can back off with the we're still

learning absolute nonsense because the

company was founded 77 years ago it was

founded like World War II era 1946 I

think is what we saw for the original

company founding date and even if you

want to focus only on Playstation

1994 December

94 uh and that is enough time on its own

to no longer be still learning if you're

still learning about things as basic as

G do you think the customers would be

mad if we broke the game for some of

them after 30 years in business uh

then uh I don't I really don't know what

to say like yes everybody is constantly

learning hopefully that's kind of the

plan this is like learning how to

breathe when you've been alive for 30

plus years in just PlayStation alone it

doesn't it's just bull it's nonsense um

and uh it is an appeal to this sort of

sense of empathy for a gigantic company

that is worth by market cap over 100

billion do playing to the pity me we're

learning approach really I obviously

found it very frustrating because it's

like like just post and say whoa we

screwed that up uh sorry we're reverting

it immediately and we won't do it again

like that's that's really all that

needed to be said so anyway uh heal

divers 2 is probably the worst game Sony

could have chosen this for it's been uh

the players have spent months banding

together to achieve things in game for

CommunityWide goals so they basically

chose a community that has structured

itself on working together to combat

large alien well maybe not the alien

part but to combat large strange

creatures um and uh at least everyone's

probably going to get a cool Cape out of

it now so that's good let's move on to

the D andd and mythology stuff Sparkle

announced its new Intel Arc Rock cards

this past week following up at it's elf

orc and Titan lineup and there was a com

that really grinds my gears with this

one where someone said Sparkle is just

copying the Asus Rog by changing the G

and RG to C and Roc and first of all

nerds the rock is a mythological bird

has absolutely nothing to do with the

Asus Republic of Gamers and we've

actually spoken in the past about how

Sparkle's entire naming scheme has

flawed because it ranks Orcs as

hierarchically better than elves but as

we all know the only actual meaningful

difference between them comes that

character creation where on page 16 of

players handbook one edition 3.5 we can

see that elves have a natural plus two

modifier to dexterity a minus two to

Constitution but they have a wide

diverse range of weapon proficiency and

Orcs don't even appear in the player's

handbook version 1 3.5 in fact the

closest thing we get to is half works on

pages 18 and 19 where we see a plus two

strength and not just one but two

negative offsets to int and Charisma for

a true full orc we have to turn to page

203 the monster manual one addition 3.5

to find the elevated strength and

fortitude however neither dexterity nor

strength is inherently spe to the other

but given that sparkle hierarchy clearly

rank strength is the most important

because the orc is higher than the elf

it follows that the Titan is its Best in

Class the company is now introducing the

rock which is the well-known of course

well documented legendary bird of prey

found in cbath the Sailor and thought to

have originated from the Massi Crown

Eagle now despite the Massi Crown Eagle

coming from Madagascar another potential

origin of the rock is actually from the

aporous elephant bird eggs The Rock has

extremely mixed documentation between

Source material in both Dungeons and

Dragons and Heroes of Might and Magic

however relying on the 1999 original

release edition of Heroes of Might magic

3 we know that the rock is actually a

stronghold tier five creature it cost

600 gold it has an upgrade to

Thunderbirds and Shiva gives it a plus

one attack for every level after the

fifth Hero level now clearly this has

absolutely nothing to do with Asus

Republic of Gamers the Rog doesn't have

anything to do with the r Sparkle did

not copy Rog and change a letter they

based it on this birt also it's the

video card's going to ship in white

don't ever talk to me or my monster

manual again oh and while we're here I'm

actually making a tabletop product for

the GN store no I'm not joking like for

real uh played a lot of tabletop games

for a very long time wanted to make

something it's super cool it is Tech

themed and I can't say much more than

that it is coming out probably somewhere

in the November area um so we're not

ready to say what it is yet but we've

invested a ton of time and resources

into making something stupid cool so I'm

excited about it we'll talk about that

more later okay up next a new cute pet

video card of sorts video cards posted

this they ran a story about a board

partner called ASL uh if I've heard of

them before I didn't remember them so

ASL is a china-based board partner they

have an almost yes inspired uh video

card featuring a cat and dog decal on

the fans a custom back plate that says

woa on the cat and it's partner in crime

uh bajah he we're going to go with the

dog I'm actually not sure the uh the

characters for that one but we're not

familiar with this IP either way though

we've said a number of times in the past

that unique PC parts are always worth

the time and coverage as long as they

hit that base requirement of still being

functional because adding some diversity

of design to the market really keeps

things fresh and fun uh from the regular

sort of black and RGB styling we get as

long as the card achieves That Base

functionality of keeping relatively cool

and hitting the expected performance

different styles really add more fun to

the builds this is 340 bucks it is an

RTX

460 uh we didn't see any in the US but

they were on Al Express briefly up next

Blackwell is expected to significantly

boost

tsmc's production and demand as you'd

expect so yet another story highlighting

nvidia's dominance in the AI Hardware

Market intelligence firm trendforce has

published a new writeup that notes High

supply chain expectations out of

nvidia's upcoming Blackwell platform

this is the one that is sort of

replacing h100 to as we understand

they're going to be selling alongside

each other for a period but uh that's

the new one so the gb200 is the one that

is of note here and trendforce says

quote shipments could exceed millions of

units by 2025 potentially making up

nearly 40 to 50% of nvidia's high on GPU

Market which is insane if that's

actually how it's going to pan out this

is in stark contrast to predecessor gh2

200 which according to trendforce quote

accounted for approximately 5% of

nvidia's high in GPU shipment so a huge

change to us this might mean that

there's just a lot of pent up demand

from customers especially Enterprise of

of course who were uh in the winds

waiting for the Next Generation it's

just like in consumer Hardware when if

you know there's something new right

around the corner it feels kind of bad

to buy the current one unless it's at a

steep discount or something and uh that

behavior definitely would extend to

Enterprise as well although Enterprise

might be more willing to just keep

things going and buy whatever's

available depending on how large they

are uh we would think though that some

of that demand is why we're seeing this

action now and either way the market

intelligence provider said that

Blackwell is expected to boost tsmc's

Coos total capacity by quote over 150%

in 2024 so Coos stands for chip on wafer

on substrate so nvidia's gb200 and B100

chips are expected to launch later this

year they're not fully out yet and

trendforce anticipates that they quote

will not see significant production

volumes until fourth quarter 24 or 1

quarter 25 story elaborates that quote

the inclusion of gb200 B100 and b200 in

nvidia's B series will boost for Coos

capacity leading tsmc to raise its total

Coos capacity needs for 2024 the

estimated monthly capacity by the end of

the year is expected to reach nearly 40K

and they say that's 150% year-by-year

increase and in terms of how much of

tsmc's Fab capabilities for that

technology Nvidia specifically uh would

occupy the current expectation from what

trend force is saying it could be more

than half which is absolutely insane uh

Nvidia is a monster right now it's crazy

how gargant when it's gotten next one

Microsoft is experimenting with ads in

Windows 11 so uh the company rolled out

it's windows1 Insider preview build

22635 3495 which is our next monitor

name and that's now in the beta Channel

Microsoft wrs we are now trying

recommendations to help you discover

great apps from the Microsoft store

under recommended on the start menu

Microsoft has obviously fallen on hard

times for example it recently became the

world's most valuable company with a

market cap of $ 3.06 trillion but it's

not the universe's most valuable company

as far as we know and they've fallen on

hard times they need this unfortunately

the company says you can disable the ads

by going to settings personalization

start and turning off the toggle for

show recommendations for tips app

promotions and more the company's blog

also posts out that these ads both will

not apply to commercial devices and

finally the post also States we

regularly try out new experiences and

Concepts that may never get released

with Windows insiders to get feedback

now we were able to once again obtain a

tape of the why did I say tape we're

going to go with it we once again