HW News - Major Windows Privacy Concerns, Noctua's "New" Fan, AMD Epyc in AM5 Desktops

[Music]

hey everyone welcome back to their

Hardware news recap for the week in this

one we'll be talking about IGN acquiring

gamer Network mainly because when I woke

up and checked the news I saw IGN

acquires GN as a title and I was like

wait wait wait what I immediately began

making plans for a 1 through 10 rating

system where we'd only use the options

of 8 through 10 and sometimes seven if

it's really bad and then I found out

that it was gamer Network and not us but

uh we'll also be talking about new AMD

epic CPUs that are for desktop platforms

actually super cool uh noctua has a

painfully priced set of noctua Home

Products

like frames for fans that are

exceedingly expensive to mount them to

Furniture before that this video is

brought to you by montech and the k95

pro case the k95 pro is a dual chamber

enclosure with configurable options for

storage and power supplies the k95 has a

deep 35 mm cable channel for management

support for dual power supplies if you

want it which could be useful for a

thread rer system and ample radiator and

fan mounting options scattered around

the top back bottom side and front of

the case the front also can be mesh or

solid with the mesh running a higher

paracity for more breathability learn

more at the link in the description

below first up a call for some community

help from you all we would like some

answers for a survey to try and better

understand some of the GPU power cable

and connector situation so we've been

working on a 12vt high power deep dive

on and off for the past year or so now

because we have some remaining questions

we'd like to just kind of close the loop

on and get to the bottom of we last

looked into 12vt high power back when it

had first launched it was a very fluid

situation very fastpac there's new

information daily and now with all this

extra time in between for the situation

to really fully develop we would like to

get some insight from the audience on

what it looks like and it's time to kind

of dig deep on this so here's what we've

got going on we have a Google form that

we've created and we would like everyone

to fill it out so that includes people

who have never used 12vt high power uh

includes people with failures people who

have not had a failure but have used it

people who've had failures with pcie 6

and8 pins and again just to really

emphasize here also people who have

never had a GPU power cable failure of

any kind uh or those who haven't even

used one of the two kind of main types

of them the goal is to use this form to

collect as much neutral data as possible

we think the audience the community in

general is probably the sort of cleanest

source of information for this because

we can talk to manufacturers off or

maybe on record uh and end of the day

though I personally would just trust the

audience more to get us just the the

volume we need of answers to kind of

better understand things so this data

will only be used by GN it will be

presented in a video but it'll be an

aggregate so you're going to be a number

in a chart effectively and we'll produce

that at the end of our deep dive

research we're doing right now the

Link's in the description you can also

go to the URL we're going to put it on

the screen right now if you want to type

it in it is a genius link so it's

ge. us SL GPU pwr so genie. us/ GPU pwr

basically is what it is this deep dive

is going to take probably another couple

months so it'll be a little while we

have some time to collect answers uh

from the audience and we have time to

finish some uh conducting some

interviews we're doing some additional

failure lab analysis we've actually sent

in some uh adapters we'll talk about as

well so the form asks you a few things

it asks if you've had a GP power cable

failure ever again that includes 12vt

high power and six or8 pin it asks

follow-ups if you answer yes if you

answer no then that's it it's those two

questions you can scroll to the bottom

and submit the form there's a natural

tendency to report failures so again we

want to emphasize that we consider it

equally important for everyone with and

without a failure of some kind to answer

the survey we want as clean data as we

can get there's no way to eliminate

sample bias but hopefully by just kind

of emphasizing that repeatedly um we'll

get as close as we can to it now as for

the content so we have a lot coming up

for this it'll be another couple months

like I said uh we sent in some cable mod

adapters to a failure analysis lab to

look at how the specific adapters we

sent in fail it's really interesting

actually have some crosssections maybe

we'll show one of them in be rooll and

these were unique enough design or

manufacturing failures that cable mod

recalled them we covered that previously

so they did a US recall we wanted to

learn more about that we sent them in

story isn't only about them though

they're a part of it but we're going to

be looking at Big Picture stuff so the

ATX spec PCI Sig submissions Nvidia Dell

involvement the history of design and

hopefully uh some numbers from our

viewers we're working on this as a

completely clean slate if you please

take a few minutes to fill out that form

it's linked down below you can do it

while you're listening to the rest of

this episode and we consider this to be

one of the most important parts of our

research for the upcoming piece so we'll

leave this open for a while and we'll be

reminding you about it over the next

month or two in various news updates to

just try and get as much as we can so uh

thanks for your patience with that the

only way we can really come to any kind

of useful data here is if we have a a

large volume of submissions and answers

and we appreciate your help as we

continue on this

research piece and uh we'll be putting

it together over the next couple months

so remember again that we want to hear

about your experience with all types of

GPU power cables and I think that pretty

much Recaps it so uh looking forward to

following it up but let's move on to the

next story all right we're starting with

the big acquisition which is IGN buying

a bunch of stuff uh the tech industry

has been consolidating its media

Publications for decades now so big

names like Z Davis perch and future have

been in the game there's a couple others

out there as well and I own several the

properties on the web this is also true

of the gaming space and then of course

game development space we've been

talking about Acquisitions Microsoft

buying every Studio it can so that it

can then lay those people

off interesting strategy we'll see how

it works on May 21st IGN announced that

it had acquired gamer Network which

includes Outlets like dicebreaker

Eurogamer gamesindustry.biz Rock Paper

Shotgun which I've actually really liked

historically and

vg247 IGN notes that gamer Network quote

also holds shairs in outside Xbox

digital Foundry and hook shot which

operates Nintendo life push Square pure

Xbox and time extension when we went to

IGN's News section to learn about IGN's

acquisition we found it amusing that

IGN's subheader on IGN's story about

IGN's acquisition read quote the digital

brands have been acquired for an

undisclosed sum which makes it sound

like a thirdparty report on the

quisition how much was it for we don't

know also we bought it but uh we don't

know to be fair the writer probably

wasn't informed on that but uh IGN had

sort of their their cheeky way of saying

we're not going to tell you IGN's the

largest games media publication it's

owned by zif Davis zif Davis bought it

in 2013 and zif Davis is it's from like

the 1920s and owns just a lot of tech

hobby gaming and health Publications

it's a massive conglomerate um that

specializes and being able to sell ads

is kind of my read on it but along with

IGN the aformentioned gamer Network

Publications will also join map Genie

how long to beat and Humble Bundle at

one point Z Davis also ran 1up.com

ugo.com games spy.com probably a lot of

you remember games spy before their

respective closures so we'll pour one

out for them but in some ways the big

media conglomerates feel kind of like

automakers where uh they there's a ton

of different badges on cars but

ultimately if you kind of the traces

back up there's not that many owners of

all of those Brands and a lot of them

end up being owned by the same companies

um and so that's kind of what we're

seeing here now uh ZIP Davis also owns

PC mag Mashable and I thought this was

an interesting speed test not a media

site but an interesting one and for

reference some of the mega conglomerates

in the space aside from them include

future which is uh it previously owned

Maximum PC before that one closed it

currently owns Tom's guide PC Gamer

radar and several sites that are outside

of our space subsequently owns anitech

Tom's Hardware and then again some that

are outside of our space for that I'm

unfamiliar with generally speaking the

massive conglomerates sort of squeeze

SEO out of properties and stuff them

with as many ads as they can what we're

curious about here is if IGN does that

with its new properties because IGN I

guess if someone wants to start

cataloging rock paper shotgun and the

other Acquisitions here today and then

do it again over the next year what I'd

be curious to see is how much does the

page layout change and how do the ad

interactions change on those sites

because I don't think you you make these

huge Acquisitions unless you're trying

to find a way to change the content to

stuff it with SEO and and try to boost

it to just generate more uh more uh page

visits and AD views or if you're going

to just stuff it with more ads but keep

the content the same um I guess there's

room for in between but uh call it

cynical I guess but as an opinion when

these Mega conglomerates are involved

it's really hard to see AEM motive other

than we can make more money than they're

making now and get our investment back

because otherwise why would you do it uh

maybe a little different for the smaller

groups but this is these are all this is

huge at this point so all right big

consolidation gaming media then next one

AMD epic entry level CPUs this is

actually really cool so amd's announced

epic CPUs for the am5 socket and that

means you'll be able to get epic Parts

in a consumer platform which has some

interesting tradeoffs we aren't

well-versed in the server CPU space in

general so we're going to keep this to

as much of just the news as we can and

then what I want to do with this is link

up with Wendell from level one Tex at

hopefully compx in about two weeks or so

uh link up with him and maybe do

something talking about this or just

build a system with him when we get back

all right so the news these epic 404

series chips create a new entry level

for the server Market the Enterprise

Market generally seeks out features like

platform Security Management uh official

support for error correcting R dims

things like that they also typically

favor stability over just about anything

else for servers under the lid the new

SKS are familiar to rise and desktop

CPUs they range from four to 16 cores

with two 3D vcash variants mixed in

official AMD tdps range from 65 to 170

Watts desktop limitations such as only

having two memory channels and being

Limited to single socket configuration

still apply as right now there are no

dual socket am5 motherboards to our

knowledge but that would be one hell of

a board and uh I would want to buy it

for a video if every one is made it

seems not likely though despite these

limitations AMD thinks they'll offer

much better performance for the price

compared to equivalent Intel Zeon not a

surprise that AMD would think that anch

reported on pricing and shows that price

has range from 230 bucks for the six

core up to $700 for the 16 core

also though there's a new four core part

which is called the 4124 P that should

go for

$150 and given the general dir of four

core parts from AMD uh at least good

ones in in recent years that's kind of

on its own something that maybe we'll

buy and do a video with uh if we miss

with these though it'll likely be in

collaboration with Wendell so check P

for that love working with him on stuff

and uh a PC build sounds like a a fun

way to work with these all right next

one this is a quick but kind of fun

follow-up story to the Nvidia and

mediate Tech may be working together on

a handheld product uh that we ran last

week that was a rumor this week there's

one more breadcrumb leading to a

potential future for NVIDIA in the world

of AI

PCS yep that's what they're called now

the term was coined

recently to drive sales and uh I've even

seen it in retail establishments so it's

a thing I guess we'll all have to get

used to it now this also means that the

PC comes with neural network processing

capabilities locally and uh Bloomberg

held an interview with CEOs Jensen Juan

of Nvidia and Michael Dell of

Dell why you come to us for the news we

can put those things together also bill

mcdermit of service now where Bloomberg

posed the question Jensen

where is nvidia's place in the aipc I I

know you as gaming that's again I grew

up with the gaming side of Nvidia do you

have a place in the aipc market come

back next year there there's yeah

exactly there bunch of bunch of Nvidia

gpus and Dell PCS so that's a ominous

and kind of an indicator as to the

answer Jensen Hanan pivots the

conversation away from this to

generalities about how impactful AI will

be in gaming productivity and basically

consumer type tasks and Bloomberg then

pushed again uh asking directly if

Nvidia plans to make a CPU and GPU combo

for PCs like what it did with graze

hopper in the data center which I really

respect from the reporter to ask the

question again in as direct way as

possible uh predictably though Jensen

Juan deflected but I did think it was uh

a good way to follow up the question

here's the deflection we want to support

every CPU uh the world makes and there

there are places that want EX 86 we

support x86 there places that prefer arm

we support arm every

CPU maybe even their own is our read on

that one now it's clear that Juan wants

to keep his Poker Face pretty good at it

and doesn't want to play along with the

teasing and hinting game that Michael

Dell was maybe going for but he it looks

like they're may be doing something and

nvidia's been working with arm for a

little while now so we wouldn't be

surprised it would be potentially major

shake up in the market though it's a

sector that Nvidia hasn't yet really

capitalized on and the same way it's

done with gpus and now software uh and

when the company grows that big I guess

if they want infinite growth it makes

sense they start looking to other parts

of the market that they fill all right

TCL has a Showcase of a 1,00 HZ monitor

now the downside we we hate to inform

them of this after they've already done

all this research and development

manufacturing they have all this cost in

it but un fortunately the human eye can

only see 24 FPS it's just a known fact

it's kind of confusing why they did this

but the good news is that for every

doubling of 24 you actually can see the

future by 1 second pretty cool this LCD

features a 4K resolution screen blurb

sters.com which is a website dedicated

to displays and high refresh rate

testing reported on the Monitor and

wrote quote we had expected 1,00 Hertz

to arrive but we didn't expect it to

debut at the 4K resolution before 1080P

and 1440p so it's fantastic to go

straight to 4K they said end quote the

highest refresh rate consumer Market

monitors we're aware of go up to 540

Hertz we don't really cover monitors but

uh this would be a massive jump from 540

TCL csot is a subsidiary of TCL that

Brands itself on quote promoting the

development of Next Generation display

Technologies no word on how the company

was able to push refresh rates that high

yet from an engineering white paper

standpoint or when and how much a panel

like that might cost at least at the

time of writing but this monitor will

give a big Advantage because if you

think about it if you're able to hit

that 1,000 FPS mark on a 1,00 htz

display that means you will be able to

see

41.6 I think repeating seconds into the

future based on our earlier math of

every doubling gets you another second

into the

future that's not true before like a

bunch of before a bunch of stock Traders

go out and buy this monitor it's not

just to be really clear maybe for legal

reasons it's not how that works but or

maybe it is and I don't want you to know

that figure that one out up next Kingpin

of EVGA Fame has resurfaced and it's on

YouTube so uh evj has slowed its

operations as you all know it appears to

be in basically a maintenance state of

this point covered the story plenty and

uh as we could have predicted alongside

Jay's TUC cents and John when the three

of us broke that story it looks like evj

has mostly winded down in a lot of

capacities but there are still a few

question marks that remain for some of

the key people from evj like Kingpin now

our documentary we made following the

Slowdown showed EJ's famed RMA center

with some of the most skilled

technicians in the industry so you

should check that out if you never

watched it but in a follow-up we made to

that last year we sort of did an exit

interview documenting the departure of

evga's motherboard Engineers for uh the

BIOS and firmware programming Vince AKA

kpin recently resurfaced in a self-made

Studio it's actually occupying the old

EVGA Gaming Center space where he's

starting to make a video series about

things he's working on he hinted at

discussions with manufacturers in the

industry and speaking quote with some

more seriously than others end quote but

didn't announce any immediate employment

at any of the video card manufacturers

his most recent video is just sort of a

fun watch using his engineering

background he demonstrated how claw

machines as in the ones where the claw

drops down and you try to get something

are commonly rigged using voltage tricks

for our team having been to Taiwan over

a dozen times at this point these things

are all over the place there and it's

fun to kind of see how he gets his

multimeter out for something different

than a video card he also shows how you

can opposite rig them to always pay out

and his plan is to fill one with kpin th

paste and make it always pay out at

computex so kpin is planning to feature

his thermal paste claw machine at

computex uh if gskill gives him some

Booth space and we're hoping to catch up

with him at the show to learn more about

what he's working on in general learn

about the kpx stuff maybe some of his

video card manufacturer discussions or

just generally what he's doing today so

we'll probably have a follow up on that

but uh for my part in all of this I'm

going to bring a lot of coins to that

machine because we go through lots of

things past all right it's fun to see

him resurface go check out his channel

we'll link it if you want to see what

he's up to next one MSI claims to

improve its claw performance so when we

reviewed the MSI claw we criticized the

performance and the button

quality ew and the software the

stability and just the general handling

of it but according to MSI a recent bios

and MSI centerm softare ware update mean

that the company is able to claw back

some performance MSI says that the most

notable improvements it's tested come by

the way of Forza Horizon 5 which sees a

30% uplift going from an average FPS of

59.4 to 77.5 under their tested settings

MSI also claims that games like Suns of

the forest hell divers 2 and fortnite

have seen notable bumps improving

performance by 23 20 and 28%

respectively the latest bios is E1 t41

im. 109 which is not the name of a

monitor but it should be and MSI is

simply calling IT 109 for which we are

thankful the latest MSI Center m is

1.0.2

45401 which MSI has simplified to

24541 not that big of a change but we'll

take it and this coupling of BIOS and

MSI Center M updates have come alongside

some settings recommendations from MSI

which included resolution of 1080p uh

keeping in-game Graphics quality low

setting XS to Performance if applicable

disabling vsync and turning off FPS

limitations we definitely disagree with

some of these recommendations they are

largely uh scenario driven though so one

of them like FPS limitations enforcing

an FPS limit can be very useful for

things like battery life and likewise uh

just I don't it just having a blanket

apply these settings doesn't really work

for handhelds for a lot of reasons we've

shown but anyway MS I says that it is

quote actively working with Intel to

optimize performance of The Claw uh end

quote considering one of our major

complaints though pertains to frame time

pacing that would be the area we'd

really need to see some improvements

it's not just FPS like average FPS

improvements are great and it's likely

that the frame time uh pacing has

improved with that but uh the frame time

pacing really was one of the biggest

problems with that device so next one

nocta has just launched a new line of

products for the home and nocta has

called it the I just get the name right

here uh it's all cap so it's an acronym

they call the nocta h

m if anyone could tell us what that

stands for we'd appreciate it it the

capitalized each letter so it means

something anyway the two main products

for whatever h means are both fan one is

a desk or a room fan it's a hundred

bucks and the other one is a quote

multi-purpose fan set for device cooling

that's $880 taking a closer look at the

nvfs one room fan shows that it's one of

noct was nf12 by 25 120 mm fans in a

mount with a fan Grill attached to it

powered by an AC adapter with a large

flow amplifying guide on the front

noctua has shown this guide before at

trade shows as far back as about 2018

but it's taken until now to launch the

nvfs 2 is even less impressive it's

pretty much just some new and thicker

rubber corners and gaskets attached to

the same existing fan nocta builds this

one for adding extra cooling to devices

that don't have actual fan mounts on

them such as audio amplifiers video game

consoles routers they show them on top

of a fractal Terra and it's clear that

nocta is pumping the price on these

accessories as the Standalone 12vt DC

power supply is 30 bucks alone and the

mount is $40 oh look we're we're sure

that it's a very nice fan Mount maybe

even great it might even be the best fan

Mount but

$40 and you buy their own fan and you

strap that to the fan Mount it's a very

expensive and kind of I don't know it's

we don't see how these accessory

components can command these prices as

simple as possible it's also kind of

weird that the flow Optimizer guide

which was presumably cfd simulated it's

custom molded it's like this big special

thing that's 15 bucks but to add a

bracket to an existing fan that you

separately purchase that's $40 on its

own all right one of the things we

genuinely appreciate about nocta is that

it is engineering first so the company's

ethos is sort of dedicated to this idea

of like let's get the engineering right

timelines be damned and let's ship

something that's good and we need more

of that in the industry where companies

do take time with things but noct a bit

of constructive feedback for them here

it feels like nocta has gotten so so

stuck on the concept of delivering

Perfection that it's created an an

analysis paralysis situation not only

that but now there's such an expectation

for the next cooling product to be truly

revolutionary that anything less than

that is going to be disappointing to a

lot of their customers it's not a great

spot to be so they're going to have to

ship something killer uh as far as these

Home Products I don't really know how

you get these prices and and have it

make sense so we'll move on Microsoft up

last so at its recent build event

Microsoft unveiled Windows recall

which takes screenshots of your working

environment constantly every 5 seconds

and as the name implies it's designed to

help you recall things