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In this one, we’re talking about AMD’s total beat-down on last-gen GPU prices, Intel moving RAM (HBM) to CPUs, the Newegg GPU mess, Epyc CPUs, and our trip to Taiwan coming up to tour PC hardware manufacturer facilities!
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00:00 – Recapping the Week!
00:52 – Special Factory Tours, Travel Special, & PC Part Prototypes
03:33 – GN Discount Code & Thanks to the Audience
05:14 – AMD Kicking NVIDIA’s Ass in Last-Gen Prices
10:08 – Intel HBM on CPUs, No DDR Needed
15:07 – Lian Li Special Tool for 4090 Compatibility
15:56 – ASRock’s Highest-Effort Motherboard (Sonic)
18:00 – AMD Goes to War with Intel on Big CPUs
21:33 – ASUS Launches PSUs with New Standards
23:43 – Lian Li’s Updated & Impressive Unifan 2 Design
25:05 – AV1 Growing in Video Domination
26:58 – Newegg Revisit: Missing GPUs & Reporting Challenges
42:00 – Noctua Plastic Spacers for Fans
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[Music] Hey everyone welcome back to the Hardware news where you have for the Week this is a special episode it's Going to be extra long we have a good Amount of topics packed in we're Visiting the intel hbm on CPU story has Some interesting implications for the Future we'll also be talking about how AMD is absolutely kicking on videos to Ask for last gen GPU sales right now We'll be revisiting the Newegg story and Talking about our upcoming factory tour Trip to Taiwan so let's get started Before that this video is brought to you By be quiet and there's silent wins for Fans the silent wins four vans Market Themselves as being useful on radiators Tower coolers and cases alike the fans Have a six-pole motor and use a fluid Dynamic bearing which helps with the Noise profile and with longevity the Fans use anti-vibration mounts for Reduced noise transfer to the case and Have a rated lifespan of 300 000 hours Learn more at the link in the Description below so first up our trip To Taiwan coming up we're super excited About this three of us will be spending Two weeks in Taiwan we'll be going Mostly around Taipei Italian some of the Other cities there and touring factories You can think of this like a travel Special version of GN we've done a lot
Of these in the past we used to do them Multiple times per year touring Factories headquarters interviewing Engineers and interesting people in the Industry but uh obviously since covid we Haven't really been able to do that Again so a lot of you have probably Never seen those series from us in the Past and if you haven't we have a Factory tour playlist you can check out To get a preview of what's to come we're Super excited about it there is it's Unbelievable the opportunities we get When we travel to see how the parts we Use all of us every day are actually Manufactured gives you a lot of Perspective and that Machinery is just Super cool to watch work there's a lot Of automation that goes into it these Days that's really impressive for uh for Computer components so we're hyped to Bring you those episodes and it's an Excellent opportunity for all of us to Learn more about how this stuff is made We'll be learning right alongside you as We put together the story talk to and Interview the people who are the experts And then show how various components Actually get designed engineered and Manufactured so that'll be added to our Existing factory tour playlist that we Have on the channel and then there's Some other fun content we've mixed in so We're going to look at some prototypes
Of new products that are coming up Within the next few months a couple of Companies have agreed to give us a First-hand look some of them are case And cooling manufacturers and the case Industry has been really buzzing lately So there's some cool stuff to look at There you'll get a preview of it on our Channel before it's even shown in its Final State and additionally we're going To do some more Market Tours those are Always fun shopping for computer parts In another country is a different Experience for us and it normally lets Us see okay how do the prices compare to What we're used to and does that affect Our judgment if we were to review it With these prices in mind so there's Lots of other normal content lined up Too we're probably going to do normal Content scattered between some of the Taiwan content so no we're not flying Back and forth multiple times it's just There's some stuff we're getting done Before we leave and uh the 7900 XTX and XT review use will hit while we're Overseas but because we have people who Will be doing the testing at home base Plus people who are traveling we're able Now to actually get it all done with two Teams in two different countries which Is super cool because we've never been Able to do that before so Patrick will Be at home base working on testing and
Analysis of the 700 xdx he's going to Send me the data and then I'm going to Work on processing the review writing it Up and we'll present it and host it in Taipei so that'll be pretty different But just giving you a heads up on that That leads into a brief one for the next Topic which is the GM discount code on The store right now you might have Noticed we ran a few GN store ads the Last few videos when we did best CPUs And best gpus and that is part of the Plan we've been trying to enact over Time now for a couple years at this Point where we try to pull as many Third-party advertisers out of the Videos as we can as we further establish Editorial separation so when you see ads For our own store it's a good thing Because that means we're able to fully Self-fund some some portion of that Month we were operating without any Third party funding other than from our Audience so right now we have the code Thanks Steve for 10 off everything on The store we chose that code because When we asked our viewers what was your Favorite corporate meme from the last Few years they all chose that one so Thanks Intel now despite the insane Demand we've seen we still have a good Amount of coasters in stock they make Excellent gifts for the holidays coming Up you can grab those on the store and
Use the code for 10 off we also have Large mod mats in stock and shipping now The inventory is starting to run low on Those so if you want one for PC building Projects coming up or for just a work Surface to act as a durable heat Resistant anti-static surface for your Projects you should grab one now because We will probably run it out within the Next few weeks we also have Mouse mats And Tool kits available and it's pretty Clear that all that money goes back into The business because we've really Expanded our testing capabilities this Year we've hired two people just Recently who've really helped us to Leave deviate the content Pipeline and Start putting out the more videos you've Likely noticed while keeping the quality Level and we get to do this overseas Trip to show you how components are made So thanks everyone for visiting the Store stored on cameras exercise okay First story AMD is kicking and videos of Ass right now on last gen prizes it's Not a surprise that Nvidia and Andy both Are trying to purge their previous stock Before well on Nvidia side they probably Eventually dropped the RTX 40 prices and Released lower end 40 series cards and For AMD more of the same really so it's It's different that Nvidia chose to Launch the 4090 without a 4080 at the Same time and that's because they were
Running low on the high end inventory Before the lower end stuff which is Evident because they're still 30 60s TI's 30 70s 3080s in stock brand new Some of them not even released yet like Maxon has some that are coming out uh Which is interesting because that means You know they probably have been used in A mining operation unless maybe they Recovered and refurbed but that'd be Pretty expensive Reverb to give it an Entirely new cooler so anyway AMD and Nvidia their plans working because the Last gen stuff is far more viable and Interesting right now than the current Gen stuff but that's not necessarily a Bad thing because the second hand Market Is also getting flooded so there's some Price competition there where you see 150 differences between some of the used Cards and newer cards for things to pay Attention to we did that video on best Gpus but the prices have moved around a Little bit since then so just as an Addendum to that we were looking around We saw the 6700 XT and the 6700 Especially are extremely compelling now They and the 6750 actually the same Family those have dropped into the 300s Um there might be some even lower than That but approaching 300 bucks is a Crazy good deal for some of those cards We also noticed some 6600 xt's pop up we Thought they were all gone since they
Were refreshed by the 6650 but the 6600 XT is a couple of them we spotted for 200 flat which is easily the best Possible value at that price point it Kicks the ass of the GTX 1660 super from Nvidia and the RTX 3050 isn't even close Like 100 bucks more depending on when And where you look then as for the 6800 XT and the 6900 XT those are in a little Bit closer competition with a 3080 Because the 3080 is still an extremely Compelling card it starts to pull away From some of the AMD stuff at say 4K and Obviously it has a major advantage and Ray Trace performance which is true for All the the sort of price for price on Video cards but if you're not that Interested in Ray tracing and 4K is Maybe not super important to you the AMD 68xt the 6800 even 6900 XT 6950 XT those Are actually really compelling right now The prices they're at and that's mostly Or especially true for say 1440 or 1080p High refresh gaming where price for Price the 30 series at like 1080 1440 it Often gets beaten by amd's competitors In rasterization performance so the Market is actually it's really Interesting to look at right now this is All following news of being the lowest GPU sales or if it was of all time or in A decade or whatever but it's really not A surprise the same thing happened with The 20 series launch where the 10 series
Flooded the market post mining collapse At that time and the Tennessee is really Compelling there's still New Old Stock That they needed to sell and so you have This influx of second hand and first Party cards hit the market compete with Each other Drive prices down and oops The 20 Series has trouble moving Inventory when it launches and the same Is true here with the 40 series and We'll see how the 7000 series works out For AMD then pushing back that launch Might actually benefit them a little bit Because it allows the market to purge More of the inventory before the 7000 Series cards hit so that might be a Strategic play and not necessarily just A play because they're not ready yet now For us we're really excited about this Because even though it's bad for NVIDIA And AMD is some extent Intel they're not Really in this market that much it Doesn't actually affect the media in a Negative way it actions in a positive Way because people are excited to build Again they can get into it for Relatively cheap and it makes PC build Videos suddenly extremely interesting Because we have all these different Combinations where there's competition At those price classes and we're going To be doing a PC build in Taiwan to sort Of play with that idea as a as a video Concept and go shopping and build a PC
At the current prices so as for NVIDIA Maybe the pressure is just not high Enough for them to care to drop the Prices maybe they have enough inventory That they can wait for amd's inventory To run out and then they're the only one Again but either way at the moment AMD Really is kicking nvidia's ass pretty Much I I mean at 200 bucks Easy Choice 300 350 Easy Choice AMD you get up to the 3080 there's a little bit more variance There so that's where you have to think About it a little harder but I mean Other than that it's like There's really I mean the 4080 is going To have a hard time right now obviously It didn't even sell out at launch day Okay next story it's Intel announces First MCM or multi-chip module solutions For data center for CVS and gpus these Are Under the max branding and uh it Follows a number of successful years for AMD doing this where at one point Intel Remarks that it was gluing its CPUs Together AMD that is so now Intel is Also using glue maybe they've realized It's not so bad when you do more than Sniff it so the new Zeon Max CPUs are The sapphire rapid solutions that have Been in development for a while now and These are really interesting because uh They're chip up based but they also have Hbm on the package on the rest of the
Solution so you've got basically on die Memory the CPUs feature up to 56 Performance cores hosted on four dies That Intel calls tiles and it's also got 64 gigabytes of hbm2e all connected by Intel's emip or embed Interconnect Bridge the hbm makes this Really interesting because the first Time it's been available on any x86 CPU And it could be big for memory bound Applications since there's RAM on the Chip users will be able to choose one of Three modes of operation one of those is Hbm only mode which means running Without any traditional memory dimms and Relying entirely on the onboard memory Another is HPM flat mode which allows For use of the onboard HPM and Traditional DDR with all of it visible To the OS this would require software Optimizations to take full advantage of The hbm but it's really an interesting Combination finally there's a HPM Caching mode this also uses both hbm and DDR but with the hbm as a high speed Cache in front of traditional memory and It's invisible to the OS it's like some Sort of weird ghost of opt-in at this Point so just like any normal CPU cache Or the relationship between RAM and Storage like a hard drive anytime you You can keep data ready in Faster memory Solutions it's going to speed up Processing because it results in fewer
Cycles wasted where the core is just Waiting for new information so pretty Interesting and also claims that Xeon Will be able to perform with improved Performance per watt over competing AMD Epic Solutions amd's just announced its Own CPUs we'll talk about those shortly And uh it says that the Epic Solutions Based on Zen 3 so this would be the ones Before the brand new announced send four Solutions are underperforming versus Intel's new Xeon for per watt the rated TDP for the full version of the Xeon Max Is 350 Watts so per socket power is Rising in both server and in desktop as We all know Intel is claiming a 1.2 x to 4.8 X gain versus its previous Generation in several real world use Cases as it claims as well moving to Gpus Intel's new GPU Max series is the Ponte Vecchio codename design with over A hundred billion transistors total for The whole package the largest GPU Max Design has 128 XE cores and 128 Ray Tracing units four times as many as in The rk770 and of course architecturally They're different as well so 128 Gigabytes of HPM 2E being included with 408 megabytes of what they call Rambo L2 Cache makes this thing a monster for Caching and memory these will be Available in several server-specific Form factors depending on the need but Also has standard pcie cards like the
GPU Max 1100 the 1100 is similar in Construction to the AMD Instinct mi-210 That we just tore down with Wendell of Level one text on our Channel Intel also Shared a little bit about future Products and products on its announced Roadmap at this point things that are Coming up uh one of them is an upcoming Data center solution called Rialto Bridge it's the code name that scales up To 160 XE cores and uh an insane 800 Watts on a single module so there's your Power consumption the second is the unit Provide package with CPU GPU and hbm on A board that Intel is calling an xpu and That is codenamed Falcon Shores Intel Provided few details but this will Likely be similar to amd's Epic based Apus on the software side Intel noted That it's using its new one API to bind To the CPU and the GPU together which is Intended to allow software developers to More easily leverage both the CPU and GPU compute simultaneously depending on Whatever works best for a specific load And just for fun Intel also showed off a Few crazy water quilt servers in a Laboratory data center packed with its Max Hardware power density is so high Right now these applications that error No longer cuts it at least not alone These new Intel Max products will be Available in the supermarket January 2023 of course we don't cover them but
The server side stuff does work its way Into consumer in some form or another Normally within only a couple years Depending on what it is how ridiculous It is so we would wouldn't be shocked to Start seeing some of these design Advancements find their way into Intel Consumer products which is why we like To report on it up next Leanne Lee has An RTX 49d case compatibility Tool uh This is a pretty quick one it's Amusing maybe not in the best way but Leonie's posted a dedicated page showing Compatibility between cases and a couple Of different RTX 490s that we're Assuming it bought and test fit and the Tool is simple it's a drop down you pick The case you pick a card if they have it And it gives you three different symbols Either doesn't fit at all definitely Fits and then fits but kind of asterisk You need to use a slim cable it's Honestly pretty helpful for either Current owners of the cases or those Still making a decision that said the List doesn't guarantee good they're all Performance so be aware of how close the Cards fans are going to be to things Like power supply shrouds or glass side Panels even if it fits it might still be A bad performance fit up next this may Be the most important announcement in The hardware industry that we've covered Ever we briefly alluded to the rumors
And one of our previous news episodes But now we are proud to talk about the The groundbreaking news ASRock has brought Sanic to motherboards [Music] That's Sanic ASRock is timing the launch Of its z790pg Sonic along with the Release of the new Sonic Frontiers game This is no longer a rumor it is now Actual news it has an entirely Sonic Themed landing page for the new board It's the most effort we've seen azark Put into anything and the Aesthetics are What matter here the board features a Rotating ring pictured on the rear i o Cover blue and silver coloring the word Sonic not once or twice but a total of At least five times the chipset play Also has Sonic's face and you'll see him On the back of the board as well so You'll need to find one of those ancient Clear Plexiglas cases to really Appreciate this one even the UEFI is a Specially Sonic themed moving on to the Technical aspects we now can confirm as Actual news the v-core vrm has 14 phases And the rest of the board has several Fast features like PCH gen5 two and a Half GBE for networking and support for Ddr5 6800 and then we get to the real Questions the existential ones the that ASRock has pioneered by asking for us And at the bottom of the page if you Scroll down you'll see that as rock asks
What type of users suit for something We've all been wondering ASRock for a Long time what type of users suit for Well ASRock has an answer 75 modder 95 Modern gamer 100 Sonic the Hedgehog Lover actual quote and uh we assume that The rest of the marketing goes into Fort Minor's lyrics if you're a big fan of a Character PG Sonic is available from Newegg for 250 bucks right now it's no Longer a rumor that that is the actual Product listing up next Andy's epic Announcements so AMD had some server Announcements of its own this time for Zen for to compete with Intel's Xeon Max Announcements of about the same week and This is for the AMD epic 9004 series it Is codenamed Genoa and it is based on Done for architecture that's the same as In the ryzen 7000 CPUs the new CPUs Range on from 16 to 96 cores on a single CPU package with up to 384 megabytes of L3 cache with support for ddr5 and pcie Gen 5. socket power is up as well it Ranges from 200 to 400 watts and Physically the 9004 series is on the new Sp5 socket which has a more square shape Versus the rectangular one of previous Generations back to the first epics and Threadrippers architecturally and just In packaging these are really Interesting because AMD is now packing Up to 12 CPU dies with eight cores each Onto one package and four clusters of
Three all surrounding a central larger i O die so it's basically all flanking i o Which if if you followed epic or Threaded for at all you know that that's Massive on these I mean compared to Ryzen desktop there is a lot of i o on These and to expand on that the i o die Gives a crazy 12 channels of ddr5 up to Six terabytes 128 fans of pcie Gen 5 the Infinity fabric interconnect of course And various other capabilities and this Is the same approach as previous Generations it's just that it's been Scaled up to higher density on newer Architecture and smaller five nanometer Process for the core dies now another Interesting thing is that AMD can cut These down all the way to just one core Per CPU die which would spread the power And therefore the thermal load across a Large surface area in theory this would Allow a much higher clock in zen4 core To perform faster while still having Access to all of the fast I O and Massive cache for workloads that are Much more thread bound whether or not AMD does this or a user decides to Toggle the cores this way is one story But it shows that AMD has a lot of Flexibility in doing its architecture This way we talked about Intel's claims For servers largely because we don't Benchmark servers so we can't tell you To check back for our own benchmarks we
Won't have any it's only fair then that We also talk about amd's claims so AMD Is coming up to a 1.9 x raw performance Increase over its previous generation Epic CPUs and it has already been Working with industry and press Partners Ahead of the public announcements so There should be some data out there from People who do testing on it if you're Interested in a deep dive Wendell of Level one tax should have a video up on The level one text Channel by now and uh Definitely worth a watch because the Stuff they put out is high quality and Top Notch for this type of component as For the pricing and the rest so 1K unit Pricing for the Epic 9004 Series starts At just over a thousand dollars U.S and It goes all the way up to 12 Grand Kind of a large range typically this Kind of CPU is purchased as part of a Whole server so it gets a little weird On the cost estimation there and Partners like HP and Asus are the ones Who would provide those they have a Couple servers already available it's Interesting though to see the Advancement of these high-end Architectures and multi-chip Designs Across the entire market now where Intel's getting into it Nvidia has Written white papers in the past years And years ago about MCM design and as Time goes on they're starting to look
Less and less like the glorified uh sort Of desktop CPUs they used to be and this Is just actually the way of the future For CPUs up next Asus launching some new Power supplies these are the strix gold Aura power supplies uh the only reason We really thought these were worth Talking about is because they are not Only 80 plus gold rated for the 80 plus Efficiency testing but they also got Cybernetics rankings where cybernetics Performs additional tasks we've talked About this in our past content uh they Go beyond just doing efficiency they Also test for things like protection Mechanisms so 80 plus although it tests For efficiency zero testing for quality Of things like over current protection Short circuit protection or Power Protection but cybernetics does that Stuff so anyway Asus has a cybernetics Gold ranking for efficiency that's near The middle of their range a little Different than the 80 plus range and it Has what they call an A plus rating for Noise these power supplies the main Features are that their ATX 3.0 native Compatible and they have native 12 volt High power support for video cards they Ship at 750 and 1200 watt capacities the Chassis is made from aluminum rather Than steel and it acts as an additional Heatsink for the unit something that's Fairly common although in power supplies
Most of these are made of steel so They're not leveraging the full area There's also an argb Rog logo yeah There's a lot of letters that you can Control via digital three pin header I Swear all those letters actually mean Something Although at some point we're going to Start forgetting what they mean and They'll just it's just we're going to be Reading the alphabet basically as we do These News videos so we don't have the Pricing at this time power supplies Aren't retail yet they should follow Somewhere between the tough and the Rog Thor lines they come with a 10-year Warranty for basic functionality and Three years for the LEDs which Little bad actually we're about to jump To the next story but thinking about it For literally five seconds longer feels Very bad because it's like the cheapest Part just just warranty the whole damn Thing Uh Or build it in a way where the user can Maybe Submit a request for a replacement LED Strip or something so they can just swap It out if you're worried about shipping The whole power supply back and forth or Use better quality LEDs or get rid of The LEDs uh out next Leon Lee has a new Unifan SLS version 2. So lately has
Updated its addressable RGB fans if You've heard of the unifans in the past We cover them back when they were Prototypes they've been out on the Market for a while now though they can All sort of bridge together to reduce Cable clutter by connecting with each Other so the unifan slv2 is the new one It's different from the infinity mirror Version that you saw previously if you Followed these these fans retain the Signature feature of snapping together In series Without cables and now you can Also join clusters of fans together with An extension cable this means up to six Fans can be run off a single header on Liam Lee's controller which itself Supports a maximum of 16 fans they've Also made slight adjustments elsewhere In the design like slimming down the Connectors and bringing the light bars Closer together where the fans are Joined for a more uniform look on Functional note They are thicker than Their predecessors at 28 millimeters Which should help with static pressure Performance that very slight about three Millimeter increase in thickness might Affect compatibility in some very Tightly constrained builds but for the Most part uh especially in open showcase Style builds it's not going to make a Difference at least in terms of Compatibility now the new SLS are
Available for 27 for a single fan for 120 mil 30 for the 140 or as a three Pack 120s with the controller ninety Dollars up next some news about F of MPEG OBS and av1 support av1 has been a Big topic Intel pushed it pretty hard Because they were first to Market with Sort of a complete set of av1 and code Decode options in Hardware Nvidia name They've been pushing it as well now and OBS and FM pack have both added support For nvidia's new hardware av-1 encoder And that's fine with RTX 4090 and future 40 series gpus and the case of f of MPEG The speed uplift was reported as 75 Percent to 100 percent with the av1 Solution so pretty good av-1 is Basically the successor to h.265 it was Developed by the alliance for open media Av1 promises better video quality at Lower bit rates as well as overall Efficiency improvements Hardware av-1 Encoding was first introduced to the Desktop by Intel with its Alchemist gpus But with relatively few people buying Those and videos implementation will see Far wider use amd's already in a 3G Views will also have support for av1 Later this year for OBS Studio you need To be on at least version 28.1 of the Latest Windows release No Linux yet and Use a 40 series card in Alpha Vamp packs Nvn av1 update the developer noted Findings from preliminary testing saying
Quote the encoder seems to be trading Blows with hebc and VNC in terms of Quality at low bit rate CBR settings it Seems to outperform it even the quote Noted that using this slow preset to av1 Envy encoder outperformed hebc NV Encoder in terms of encoding speed That's that 75 to 100 number and they Said needless to say it always massively Outperformed h.264 in terms of quality For a given bit rate now we haven't Tested it yet but and it's only a matter Of time at this point until av1 starts Taking over uh it is a lot more Efficient so it's worse things need to Go it was just a matter of Hardware Support and software support catching up With each other now the next story here Is a revisit of the Newegg story that we Ran a couple weeks ago but now with new Information so previously we put Together some coverage of a Reddit Thread where the user claimed to have Received weights from Newegg rather or At least somewhere in the chain between Newegg and the customer rather than a GPU actually we have those weights So just to show them because people are I mean it's A curious issue so it's worth showing Here is weight number one here's weight Number two this box weighs the exact Same as this box with the GPU and the Accessories inside of it it does not
Have the GPU inside of it though that's What's in there so we did get the Weights in so previously we pulled that Story because we became uncertain about It about 15 to 20 minutes after Publishing it I killed it super fast as Soon as I had even a name clean I've Been uncertain because that's what we Try to do here we try to make sure that The coverage is good so we were pretty Confident in the research which included Talking to Newegg and the customer but Then some early YouTube comments came in That made claims about the Reddit user's Post history and we also had a lead on Getting the weights in from the user now Those claims in the comments about the User's Post history came out to be Inaccurate and basically misrepresented So it sort of felt like a waste of our Time and a waste of of a video really to Pull it based on that but in the pure Sense the word waste it wasn't because We learned some valuable lessons from it We'll talk about those in a minute at The end of this section but uh the Suggestion was that the user who made The claims about the weights is a CNC Machinist which in itself is innocuous Us however because of what I don't know If that's aluminum Billet or what that Is but because of what the the weights Look like I think people are connecting CNC machinist these things look like
Things that would come out of a CNC shop Therefore fraud I was able to Independently verify the user's Profession and it is not CNC machinist So if we could stop making things up on Reddit that'd be great so those comments Were just flat out wrong but it was Worth I mean looking into it anyway once We got that information that's what We're talking about here today is like I Want you all to know that as soon as I See new evidence that makes me question Something and I don't think I have an Answer for it I am totally fine Absolutely just killing a video posting An explanation which is exactly what we Did and following our process to make Sure what we put out was correct or if It wasn't to fix it so that's what the Process was if Parts of it feel wasted you know parts Of it not because We get to show what our uh behind the Scenes plan is for the situation but Obviously it kind of sucks to then find Out that the commas pointed us down a Rabbit hole Um but I do take some fault for not like Feeling 100 confident in it we'll talk In a minute about that so Um those counts were not accurate now The other comments there were some uh Two of them specifically that I saw Before I pulled the video that suggested
The user participated in subreddits About fraud and about defrauding Companies and uh that was one of the Reasons we're like okay let's just look Into this and make sure that that's not True or if it is that we change it so None of those comments were accurate we Weren't sure at the time though and uh Ultimately after a week of looking into This we've basically we were finally Able to root cause these two uh first 12 High power cables now internet cons We're able to root cause these two Claims back to two individual Reddit Posts that misattributed a few things One of them a 3D printing post by the User was misattributed as the user being A CNC machinist very different things And secondly the one about The alleged participation in subreddits About fraud we were unable to find any Evidence for that we contacted a couple Of the people who made those claims they Did not provide any evidence of that I suppose it's possible there were Deleted comments I couldn't find any There's a few tools out there for that It seemed to no one had screenshotted That and so anyway we just we weren't Able to confirm that particular claim However the fact that I'm using Qualifiers right now like I couldn't Find any we didn't get any screenshots We couldn't confirm it that's enough
Reason to explain why we were like okay Let's just pull the video because I'm Not sure enough to leave it there so we See this every now and then like for Some of our recent reviews about uh gpus For example I saw a few Reddit comments That we're doing a tldw that inserted Some data that wasn't ours I don't know Where it came from but we didn't say Those numbers and they'll still get Upvotes on it because it's a tldw the People DW and so if the comment is Written confidently enough and seems Reasonable it just gets upvoted and That's how that misinformation spreads Like Um about the CNC machinist thing that's The one I I can be more certain about Anyway here's a quick recap of the Events and the order they happened uh Just in case you missed so point one the User ordered an RTX 4090 on launch day And received a package from Newegg Gamers Nexus has retrieved uncut Surveillance footage from the customer And reviewed it frame by frame in some Sections the shipping box appeared to Have its outer packaging tape cut on one Side when it was delivered to the Customer next we have uncut footage Showing the customer arriving home some Hours later so this means that from I Can see in the footage that truck Arrived the guy got out of it and
Deliver the package a couple hours later You see the customer arrive and come up To inspect the package and document the Package the customer next contacted Newegg and claimed that the card was not Present filing the claim for a refund or RMA and the customer used the photo that We saw the customer take in the porch Camera footage the customer had not yet Posted on Reddit next Newegg immediately Locked the customer's account without Any contact or communication this is Where we believe Newegg is at fault and They have as we understand it improved At this point because of this instance So even in cases of investigating if a Customer's claim is legitimate or is Fraudulent probably not the best Solution to just basically ban their Account and lock them out of any of Their past order history plus any Reasonable means to get the issue Resolved if they are in fact telling the Truth it just sort of puts the customer In a panicked position where they've Lost any tools Beyond maybe a chargeback Or the internet Reddit to try and get a Resolution next within a few days of Opening the ticket and after the account Was locked the customer posted the photo To Reddit next the Newegg began the Process of reopening the customer's Account and Gamers and access reached Out to Newegg for comment and next after
That the customer's account was reopened And finally Newegg concluded its Investigation and refunded the customer When asked why it locked the customer's Account without any communication Newegg Told us the following quote our current Process has been to not email the Customer initially that their account Was blocked if they contact us we send An email explaining the process we're Reevaluating this process and to add Some contacts for just how hard this Week was for Newegg and why we were Getting blown up in our inbox about Newegg here's what that week looked like To them so a user obviously there's the One showing the weights the user who Posted the weights on Reddit there was a User who posted to Reddit claiming that Have received only two of seven items That user also emailed us the user Claims difficulty working with Newegg Support the user then noted that Newegg Denied the claim after two weeks and the User filed a charge back with the bank Now that user eventually got refunded And Newegg gave them a 100 gift card and Newegg also as a make good gave them Direct contact with the head of support So we think this at least was resolved Reasonably next a user posted photos of Receiving rocks rather than a GPU there Was also a user who posted photos Receiving an empty box with packing and
ESD bags but no GPU and this is where It's one of the lessons I've learned or Relearned the past week these issues are Just too hard to prove without a doubt Where the fault lies it could be new AG It could be between Newegg and the Customer it could be the customer's Fraudulent and a scammer and is trying To leverage the internet or media to get What they want and in the case of this One we don't feel that way we put a lot Of research into it we got the uncut Porch camera footage I mean I feel good Enough I'm not 100 confident though so Long story short is it possible that the User tricked us of course it's possible We don't think it's likely and we've Chosen to give the customer here the Benefit of Doubt just like we've chosen To give Newegg the benefit of the doubt And assume that the theft happened Either at a factory or something or Somewhere between Newegg and the Customer but that's the inherent Challenge with this whole thing and why We're really not going to be covering This type of stuff in the future fraud Is fairly uncommon as a percentage of Total orders of course the company the Retailer should never just assume by Default that it's fraud that's something We talked with Newegg about in the past And they're really working hard on Assuming the customer is telling the
Truth and I do think they're doing a Better job here than they used to Um however it's still a thing that can Happen it's just basically impossible to Prove it at our level we're really at New X level either so there's a few Resolutions for those let's go through Those too for the story about the two of Seven items we already said it these Received the refund for the rocks our Understanding is the user received the Refund for the empty box with the ESD Bags they also received a refund the two Of seven items I understand how it Happens because uh we didn't talk about This one but we had an issue with Newegg Not too long ago where I had uh through One of our staff accounts ordered a I Forget what it was ordered something Overnighted it or next date maybe it was A CPU and that item came with an Accessory that was free and included and The accessory arrived overnight I think It was like a laptop bag or something But the actual thing I wanted and needed Overnight for work didn't arrive for Three more days so I can understand Where there's some shipping Logistics Issues in there so to recap ultimately The biggest problem here on NewEgg side We think was freezing the customer Accounts without communication our Understanding is they've remedied that That's good we're satisfied with that
Answer Um the company the VP contact that we Liked from our meeting we had our Earlier in the year is no longer at Newegg so that was disappointing to hear However clearly someone's taken some Charge and is trying to do the right Thing because they I mean they refunded All those people so Um and also in some instances in talking With them over the past few weeks they Refund people who don't make giant Reddit posts so it's not always just a Response to public pressure which I Think is the cynical reaction that They're going to get Um so they're in a challenging position Trying to prove what happened to the GPU There's a lot of cameras in their Warehouse and they have metal detectors So they don't think that any employees Would have the Privacy to really steal Something so they think it's happening After them but Um you know ultimately there's insurance That helps with this too many instances Of fraud claims though and shipping Claims and their premiums go up and That'll get passed on the customers so That's something that they have to think About our first story so a couple things Here even though there's Reddit sleuth Comments where as far as we can tell Inaccurate and let us down a rabbit hole
I still think we're was right to pull That story I wouldn't say it was wasted Time to spend the last few weeks just Looking back into it we could have just Walked away from this which obviously at One point wanted to do and just moved on But I do think it's the right thing to Just close out the storyline Um and talk about what we've learned Here so I wouldn't say I was wasted time Because of that learning now part of the Reason it wasn't wasted time is because Of that qualifier where I said the Reddit sleuth comments as far as we can Tell were inaccurate is that as far as We can tell that I don't like that that Has to be there so anyway we take pride In our reporting and we'd rather be Absolutely sure about our work than have Any questions at all about the accuracy We want you to be confident that we're Not afraid to just kill a video if we Think there's potential for a large Inaccuracy if there's minor ones like For example Um a mislabeling on a chart or maybe the Script read is like saying 55 but the Actual number is like 51 stuff like that We'll just post a top comment which We've done that a lot you can always Check the top comments on reviews for Any of those minor corrections but uh Anyway the technical testing it's easier To hit 99 confidence and just be like
Yep that's almost definitely right let's Move forward but it's a non-social issue And this kind of becomes a social issue So that's why it's harder so this was a Good reminder to not cover something We're not 100 comfortable with just Because of audience demand we had a lot Of emails tweets things like that Because it was day after day weights Instead of a GPU rocks instead of a GPU Missing GPU two out of seven items Locked account uh customer service Problems whatever and it was stacking up To be enough we didn't really want to Cover it because a lot of those things Are hard to prove unless it happens to Us like in the original New York story But I was like okay all right I got it And there's enough pressure and so we Covered it and I think that's the Biggest thing we've learned is trust the Instincts there and make sure that we Are comfortable with covering whatever It is really quick final notes here too So we're aware that there's like a magic Uploader replacement in a video's place Button we don't have that button on YouTube so that's why uh if there's Something we don't like in one of our Videos like a major error that's why It's going to go away and we'd upload a New one or something we're not going to Replace it in place and honestly I don't Want that button anyway because it
Becomes a safety net that we don't want That that sort of permits error because You think it's easy to swap it so that's Not a normal button for creators to have Which I'm just mentioning because I Don't want you thinking that there's Going to be like an In-Place change at Some point it would be a new one and Additionally uh I mean that's all the Stuff we've learned Newegg clearly has Also learned because it changes its Policy it is not assuming a fraudulent Customer at the outset and it's not Starting with freezing Accounts at least As we understand it Uh and so we're happy with that if That's true now New Excel is a lot of things to improve Um clearly but uh I don't know maybe We'll revisit that at some point see how They're doing so for now What we hope you've learned is that if We skip a story there's probably a good Reason okay let's get into the last Topic now for the last story everyone's Favorite manufacturer of let's be fair Beige and brown fans they got two colors And one most fans just do one color Knoxville does two they've launched a New line of plastic spacers called the n A dash is one the company claims these Five millimeter bits of plastic will Provide both airflow and acoustic Advantages for fans in specific
Configurations mostly used as Polar Suction orientation where the fan has to Pull air through something that is Obstructing it like a perforated case Panel or radiator oh in practice this Makes sense anytime you can get some Extra spacing from the fan to the Surface of whatever it's up against it's Going to benefit the fan it can spread Uh its Force across the whole inner Surface of that so you see this with Cases too where pushing it right up Against the mesh versus pulling it back Say an inch it really does have a Profound impact on performance it also Allows it to spread the air as it might More naturally spread it instead of Forcing it through a very constrained Area so anyway the spacers attached to One side of the fan using the same holes That are normally used to hold the Fan's Rubber Corners in place for Knox what That is you can then use any standard Self-tapping fan screw and octopus Anti-vibration rubber mounts also work Or the 35 mil radiator screws to secure The assembly in Place Knoxville Published its own performance review With multiple 12140 mil fans in Different applications it tested them Against a panel with round hexagonal and Slit type holes as well as water cooling Radiators Knoxville claims an average Sound pressure reduction of 2 DBA
Depending on the fan and situation it Even shows a few situations where the Spacer actually hurt performance or Noise so it's nice to see a company not Just cut that out when it has data That's maybe unfavorable as for Price They're available in packs of two for 15 Bucks something you can maybe adds your 120 or 140 fans on your case if you need Something to do so that's it for this One thanks for watching as always Subscribe for more go to Store.gamersaccess.net to grab one of Our coaster packs we have more of the Coaster pack 2 that have just gotten in And they're shipping and in stock now And thanks for watching we'll see you All next time
