HW News - EVGA Responds, Apple Sued by US, ASUS ROG Ally Price Drop, RTX 50 Rumors

[Music]

been a busy two weeks in Hardware news

while I was out of town but we're back

now we're filming an update on all the

stuff going on first story is going to

be on EVGA there was a power supply swap

that went horribly wrong as a result of

negligence on evga's part however we do

have an update on that uh now that it's

been out in the news for a little bit

we're able to talk to them talk to the

customer looks like things are moving in

a positive direction so we'll update you

on that additionally apple is getting

sued by the US Department of Justice so

government versus apple is uh is a

pretty large fight we we talked about

that one RTX 50 Series rumors have

abounded as a result of the Blackwell

coverage that's uh been up the last

couple weeks so there's a lot more news

on Blackwell GPS for consumer in the

future probably called the RTX 5050

series but we'll see maybe they'll it

will surprise us bring GTX back from the

debt or they won't and we have some

other stories actually it's a really

packed news episode so will be a fun one

before that this video is brought to you

by thermal take on the tower 300 the

tower 300 is a full-on showcase PC case

built to present the computer straight

on with its angled tempered glass

windows or on a unique Moun stand to

show off the build in new ways the tower

300 has a layout that positions the GPU

fans against the mesh panel with

ventilation on the opposite side for

liquid coolers and CPUs there's also an

included 2 140 mm fans up top the panels

use a quick access toolless system to be

quickly popped in and out for

maintenance and you can learn more at

the link in the description below all

right first one is evj so while

traveling last week I got a an

interesting email from a viewer who

spoke of a failed power supply Swap and

this is a really unfortunate story for

the viewer where due to negligence by

evga's uh remaining RMA Department the

viewer ended up with two fried storage

devices and we'll talk through that but

the basics of how this happens is mixed

and match cables you should never mix

and match cables in this instance it's

not the customer's fault uh however just

as a general warning the way you make

sure this doesn't happen to you is if

you're swapping power supplies ever you

should also make sure the cables you're

using came with the power supply now

normally that wouldn't be even a thought

in your mind if you're replacing your

power supply with the same model power

supply I personally would not have

swapped the cables I would have left

them in the system just like the viewer

did here and I would have put the new

power supply brick in and connected it

cuz of the same model you wouldn't think

anything of it if no one told you uh

unfortunately what happened is that

there was a silent and running pinout

change and that was not intentional the

the pinout change itself was accidental

so the short version of the story so far

is that the customer filed an R for the

actual power supply brick not the cables

uh EVGA enabled the customer to send the

power supply unit in and leave the

cables in the system to make the swap as

easy as possible also slightly reduces

their costs but uh unfortunately evj and

its Factory changed the pinout of the

SATA cables at least not sure if they

changed any others uh and this means

that reusing the same power supply

should not be done the bigger concern is

data loss and fortunately this

particular user keeps Cloud backups it

sounds like of just about everything

from talking with the user and they lost

a little bit of data but not everything

so that's maybe the the silver lining

for them and also a fantastic lesson for

the rest of us that part is all already

out there so here's the new information

I called evj once I got back I also

emailed the customer try and start

figuring out what's what's the next

steps for this story and what happened

was EVGA said there was a safety

regulation running change that resulted

in an update to the power supply this

was not supposed to Encompass an update

to the pinout just the power supply uh

that was in

2022 and the change was in compliance

with with the IEC which is the

international electr technical

commission that issued a safety standard

change which as we understand it looking

into it is something that happens

outside of EVGA that's not an EVGA thing

that's an international commission thing

uh it kind of gets pushed out to

everyone mostly the factories so there's

thus far there's absolutely nothing

wrong with any of this making a change

to a product to accommodate some new

international spec or guideline or like

there's an EU requirement whatever

that's there's nothing wrong on there

the problem came in when uh B there's

really no other way to describe it other

than just a colossal [ __ ] up where the

factory EJ's Factory changed the pin out

this is both of their fault this is EJ's

fault for not validating it uh and

trusting at face value is the Factory's

fault for swapping it so that pin out

change not necessary but it is what

makes the power supply immediately

problematic if you were ever to mix and

match cables from one production run to

another and EVGA said that it was

internally aware of this uh and that

over a year ago when this was all

happening it put a plan in place to deal

with this situation it said this to us

quote we had set up an internal

procedure for rmas for these model

numbers based on serial range to make

sure the customer would get the right

version for their cables typically the

customer just sends the brick back to us

and they leave the cables in there the

procedure was in place and also stated

that if for some reason evj did not have

the correct models customer service

would send the customer a full G5 power

supply meaning with cables with a note

to let them know that they would need to

upgrade their power supply so everything

matches but where we fell short is that

while this policy had been enforced for

the year since the change happened due

to some internal operation error the raw

power supply brick was sent to the

customer evj also noted that when a

customer reports damage to customer

service as a result of something like

this or as a result of one of their

products they have a policy where that

customer's case is supposed to be

escalated to senior management or to

basically a director level for

resolution but in this instance uh it

was not escalated EVGA said that it's in

contact with the customer and it expects

quote an amicable resolution to take

care of his case uh Senior Management

told us that it has reviewed the points

at which the policy fell apart

internally for this and that it was uh

reviewing those with customer service

teams to make sure it doesn't happen

again we also sent an email to the

viewer the viewer said this quote thank

you very much for getting a hold of EVGA

about this I did actually hear from a

product manager there yesterday and he

seemed genuinely apologetic and wanted

to make the situation right I forwarded

him receipts showing the replacement

cost of the two drives and his latest

response yesterday afternoon was thank

you for providing the extra information

please allow me a little more time to

work on this case and follow up with you

the viewer is restoring those backups

will be as soon as they have new drives

and uh is still finalizing the details

with evj on the resolution itself if for

any reason at all this does not reach

anything other than an acceptable or

better solution then we'll follow up on

it again uh most likely this is

hopefully where the story ends and the

customers happy with it um but we're in

contact with h with the viewers so if

that's not the case then we'll let you

all know quick update filming after the

fact you to I just got word back from

the viewer and the viewer says that EVGA

has resolved the issue to their

satisfaction replac the drives they

worked everything out now for some quick

commentary so a few things here first of

all just with this specific issue this

is clearly extremely negligent on part

of the company it's great to have policy

it's very

important if if we take that comment at

face value that basically they're

policies but due to a process error they

weren't followed which to me sounds like

maybe a uh I don't know they've had a

lot of turnover they've lost most of

their staff anyone who's still there not

really sure how overwork they are how

experienced they are uh it's a skeleton

crew and so whatever the case may be

it's sounds like if we believe there was

a policy it just wasn't followed and the

best way to solve that is to not need

the policy and if you have something

like the the pinout changes and you're

aware of it to me at least the sort of

most uh anxiety reducing solution to

this problem would be to say okay the

policy is if a customer has this power

supply any serial range any year of

production you replace the whole thing

the cables you tell them they have to

replace the cables it really seems like

the best solution would be you know

sorry for the inconvenience we need you

to replace all of it unfortunately again

evj is basically in Skeleton Crew status

this is something everyone's known for

quite a while now they left gpus very

publicly the motherboard team left I

mean we filmed basically their exit

interview where uh the two best from

word developers there went to ASRock as

I understand or maybe one of them and

one went to the another company and we

filmed that with with kpen alongside

them so I bring that up because we've

had people email recently actually about

the evj motherboard's not getting 14th

gen firmware updates which doesn't

surprise us at all uh because there's no

one there to do it so you know it's it's

sad it that's the status the company's

in now and losing all the experienced

Talent means we we would expect a couple

things first of all uh my contact there

haven't changed and I I do believe in

full faith that they do want to do the

right thing for people based on what I'm

hearing um the reality is that EVGA is

in a reduced capacity to do the right

thing whether that's literal

availability resources or just things

like you may want to support the boards

but if there's no team to do it what do

you do there's not really a solution so

we would expect a reduced level of

service even if the intention is good um

and and certainly they are beyond the

sort of same day repairs we documented

in our EVGA finale in the RMA facility

in Taiwan on the positive side again

talking with the contacts at evj the

company does still seem to exhibit uh a

desire to maintain the core values of

supporting customers um but again it

just it's not at the same Heights it was

they're extremely lucky in this instance

that the customer had back backups cuz

that would have been catastrophic uh

lesson for you all is keep backups of

your information all right that's the

update to the EVGA story so moving on to

the Apple One the US Department of

Justice is suing Apple over monopolistic

behavior and for what it says is

violation of antitrust laws uh this is

in a press release from the doj which

wrote quote Apple's broad-based

exclusionary conduct makes it harder for

Americans to switch smartphones

undermines Innovation for apps products

and services and imposes extraordinary

costs on developers businesses and

consumers attorney general Merrick B

Garland elaborated saying quote

consumers should not have to pay higher

prices because companies violate

Anti-Trust laws uh it's a a hot take but

we'll see how it goes adding quote we

allege that Apple has maintained

Monopoly power in the smartphone market

not simply by staying ahead of the

competition on its merits but by

violating Federal anti trust law if left

unchallenged Apple will only continue to

strengthen its smartphone Monopoly the

justice department will vigorously

enforce Anti-Trust laws that protect

consumers from higher prices and fewer

choices that is the Justice Department's

legal obligation and what the American

people expect and deserve now going

through some specific potential

anti-competitive Behavior over the years

tile the maker of the smart tracker

device complained that Apple engaged in

anti-competitive Behavior with the

company saying that I iOS 13.5 was

designed to favor Apple's competing find

my app over its own Solution by

disabling the devices tracking

capabilities by default forcing users to

dig through menus to enable it Apple

would then release its own competing air

tag tracker other potential

anti-competitive Behavior involves Apple

forcing credit card companies to go

through Apple pay where Apple would take

a cut on transactions in addition

Spotify filed IL legal complaints

against Apple where it stated the

company's 30% Revenue split was unfair

and said that it also limited spotify's

ability to communicate with its

customers about promotional deals that

they can take advantage of outside of

Apple's platform sounds very familiar to

the next one which is epic similarly on

the gaming side Apple has been involved

in a legal battle against epic games for

the past several years now with sort of

a conclusion and at least one of those

battles the fortnite dev complained

about Apple's 30% cut and being

prevented from releasing its Epic game

store on iOS devices that legal battle

did incur a court ordered injunction

against Apple that states Apple wouldn't

be able to implement anti- steering

measures which means that companies

would be allowed to promote the sale of

their goods and services on iPhones

Beyond Apple's walled ecosystem that

would circumvent Apple's 30% cut

recently however big companies like meta

Microsoft X and match group say that

apple is in violation of this new

injunction there's also the whole

iMessage thing where images and videos

from Android users would get compressed

and degraded so much when sent to Apple

users that they looked like they were

shot on literal potatoes which while

delicious especially in wedge

format don't shoot very good photos

videos however moving on Assistant

Attorney General Jonathan caner of the

Justice Department's Anti-Trust division

stated quote for years Apple responded

to competitive threats by imposing a

series of whacka contractual rules and

restrictions that have allowed Apple to

extract higher prices from consumers

impose higher fees on developers and

creators and to throttle competitive

Alternatives from rival Technologies he

added quote today's lawsuit seeks to

hold Apple accountable and it sure

cannot deploy the same unlawful playbook

in other vital markets the obvious thing

to point out is that Apple isn't

anywhere near a literal mon in the sense

of uh iOS versus Android or just phone

distribution in general where Android

maintains an extremely healthy and

strong market share overall but the

monopolistic accusations are related to

Anti-Trust issues in general where apple

is behaving in such a way as to be

functionally predatory of its own

customers it locks them into an

ecosystem it makes it difficult or

impossible to maintain the Integrity of

that user's uh basically life as it

lives on their

phone if they want to move over to a

different platform like Android and so

that's kind of the Crux of the issue

here uh and these issues also lead to

increased unnecessary e-w and increased

unnecessary spending due to those

predatory lockings it's just wholesale

bad for the consumer if the doj is

successful with this lawsuit it could

send some shivers down the spines of

some of the gigantic technology

corporations uh as they continue to uh

capture their customer base and in

particular we were thinking Nvidia might

be paying very close attention to this

especially with its current situation in

the AI space gaming it's got plenty of

market share but AI is where there's

still this evolution of licenses and

contracts uh potential for lockin

potential for these walled Gardens as

apple is all often referred to as having

and so Nvidia may be paying very close

attention to this one for those reasons

now this would Mark the third time that

the justice department has sued Apple in

the past 14 years but the third time's

the charm as we all know uh Return of

the kin Return of the Jedi both famous

thirds this one the return of the

lawsuit looking forward to seeing how it

goes next story sort of a Roundup of

recent RTX 50 Series rumors there've

been a number of them over the past two

weeks now so we just put them all to one

story uh and of course as the Blackwell

GPU got detailed at nvidia's recent GTC

event some of these became maybe a

little more concrete so uh first up

there's a leak from noted Hardware

leaker copy 7 Kimmy who reported that

nvidia's alleged upcoming Flagship for

the RTX 50 Series will be code named uh

GPU core GB 202 and it will Feature A

384-bit Memory bus configuration like

the RTX 490 before it and then CAU by 7

Kimmy expressed that they'd still like

to see a 512-bit memory interface but

not this time the Tweet said although I

still have fantasies about 512 bit the

memory interface configuration of GB 20x

is not much different from that of 010x

and while the memory bus may not see an

improvement Nvidia will be leveraging

gddr 7 with its 50 Series cards this

much is effectively confirmed at this

point from GTC with companies like

Samsung speaking to their new gddr 7

lineup so nvidia's VP of G product

management stated quote Nvidia is

excited that our work with jedc has

helped to make Pam signaling the

foundational technology for gddr 7

helping customers get the most

performance out of their GPU this

comment was made in a jedc press release

and it suggests that at least some of

nvidia's upcoming 50 Series cards may

use gdr 7 if not all of them in actually

a lot of the generations past Nvidia

will mix and match the different current

uh gddr Technologies to enable lower

cost cost products stay lower cost so

depending on if they want to make

anything lower end than a 60 class card

although that may get the the bump down

too but uh depending on what they're

trying to Target for price we may still

see some usage of some form of gdr 6 as

well so this came into play when via

Twitter copy 7 commit was asked by

someone what speed gdr 7 will run out

out of the gate and responded with 28

gbits per second presumably based on

some kind of leaked information we don't

need leaks we're going though because

there's some official information as

well but even 28 as a starting point

would be a relatively large jump over

what the 490 offers the current memory

speed for the 490 is effectively 21 GBS

per second um depending on if you want

to use actual or effective numbers now

Samsung had its own comments in a jedc

press release as well and Samsung showed

that there's some Headroom for

improvement here in gdr 7 technology

where they expect their speeds to go

upward of 32 gbits per second uh and

Nvidia often tweaks the uh the range the

speed of its memory depending on how

late in the product cycle it is how

mature the memory is the cost so it

really wouldn't be a surprise to see

anything from 28 to 32 and everything in

between uh for these cards andv video

recently showcased it's blackw GPU

architecture at GTC for AI acceleration

we talked about that in a separate video

uh we normally cover the super high-end

data center stuff just cuz it's cool and

interesting even though it's not sort of

core tour coverage because it eventually

Works its way into consumer and copy 7

kimy asserted that GB 202 quote will use

the same process node as GB 100 which is

nvidia's dual die uh data Centric GPU

the leaker continued and said quote I

must clarify once again that tsmc 4N is

based on tsmc 5 not 4 nanometer adding

at least there is a 30% increase in

density the biggest current expectation

here is that there would be an increase

in L1 cash compared to the 30 and 40

series based on the leaks that are out

there now uh so that it's kind of in

step with what Nvidia was talking about

with the 40 series we covered this but

one of its biggest weaknesses was the

4060 4060 TI especially with the 4060 TI

was often embarrassing positioning

compared to the 3060 TI and that was

largely because of the choices that

Nvidia made for memory bandwidth uh via

the boss and this was supposed to be

helped by the cash changes on the 4060

TI which is superior to the 3060 TI for

the cash solusion but it just didn't

work out the way that maybe Nvidia had

hoped uh especially at higher

resolutions where the cash wasn't making

up for the bandwidth uh reduction so

anyway increase in cash is a good thing

memory speed goes up then uh maybe some

of those other issues will be resolved

as well what remains to be seen is if

Nvidia will keep its multi-chip approach

for the consumer cards and and to which

cards that will apply because uh for

cost considerations depending on how

they're deploying the technology in

consumer may be one of those things that

divides the ultra high end from

everything else but at the same time

going with multi- chip approach multi-

die approaches is supposed to be a

cost-saving mechanism so if they're able

to scale that down to the low end where

as this coming generation with the next

one uh theoretically that should make

the cards cheaper to produce like for

like than they are today bar and other

cost concerns like just generally Rising

wafer prices and allocation all right

perhaps one of the worst kept Hardware

secrets of late was the Intel 14900 KS

and Intel has finally announced it and

released

it and

uh it's really only in here to kind of

make fun of because as leaks were

correct to point out the CPU carries a

relatively boring increase in clock

speed it moves up to 6.2 GHz for the max

advertis turbo frequency that is an

increase of about 200 MHz from the 13900

C that came before it it's about the

same over the 14900 K non appended s and

that's kind of boring so uh pricing is

expensive the 14900 k s is

$730 compared to the 14900 K nons

appendage which is

$545 right now both just through the

same retailer on neck so that's a huge

premium it's not worth it at all uh we

don't need to review the part and run a

30 chart publication to tell you it's

not worth buying it is not worth buying

that's that's the review this is it it's

contained in one sentence in this snooze

video you're welcome we've saved you the

time uh so the only way this might make

sense is if you want a better chance at

a good bin for any kind of extreme

overclocking competitive overclocking if

you're an Enthusiast in that sense where

you're genuinely going to push it to

limits and you have some experience

doing so with other in CPUs great uh but

if you're going to put it in a socket

and just run it stock then it really

that is a massive amount of extra money

to spend for not that much performance

and first of all you could also just buy

a 1400k overclock it to the same amount

relatively easily and that's free so uh

power consumption also for running the

14900 K with that increase in clocks

will be substantial uh and that

materializes as cost as well so our

opinion of the Mini review encapsulated

here is you would be better off spending

that extra $100 on literally any other

part in your computer uh if you want

performance go spend on a GPU or on

better memory I $100 will get you way

better memory so that may be the best

move or you keep the money it's a

fascinating concept but uh keeping it

may be a better use for it also it never

hurts to save a little the CPU is

compatible with existing z790 and z690

motherboards Intel is recommending that

users install the latest bios we however

recommend that you don't buy it at all

next story is uh other Intel news this

one a little more

positive sort of they need to go further

still but it's getting better so this is

about Intel's APO which we tested

previously uh this is the application

optimization technology and at launch

APO is basically a tech demo for only

some 14 series CPUs it wasn't even all

of them and it was a means to try and

provide some reason to buy the 14th