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Are CPUs in Trouble? — Transcript

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0:05Welcome back to Harbor Unboxed. It is
0:07time for the October Q&A. We did miss
0:10last month's Q&A, didn't we? Because
0:11>> we were planning on it and then someone
0:14got sick.
0:15>> Not going to point any fingers.
0:16>> No need to name names or anything like
0:18that, but somebody did get the flu and
0:20get a bit wrecked for a few weeks and
0:21they're they're like 90% better now. So,
0:24I think we should do the October Q&A
0:26here. Anyway, enough of that. Let's get
0:28into it. Today's sponsor spot is brought
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1:04So, for more information, please check
1:06the link in the video description.
1:09Here's a nice simple question to kick
1:10things off. There's no it depends.
1:12There's no qualifiers of any kind for
1:14this one. It's just straight down the
1:16line. Real simple answer. What in
1:19brackets used GPUs do you find most
1:22appealing in the sub $200 and sub $300
1:26price brackets? So, I think it's just
1:27whatever GPUs, but because there's no
1:29real GPUs, like new new GPUs in those
1:32price brackets, we have to sort of turn
1:34to used.
1:35>> What is there new? There's like the the
1:37RX 9050, if you can find it.
1:41>> The RTX 30, the RTX 5050, sorry, is now
1:45above $300, I believe. So, that's out of
1:47contention. And there's maybe one ARC
1:49card,
1:49>> I think. Yeah, the the um uh the well
1:52they've got the ASRock Challenger B570
1:54that's currently available for $260 US,
1:58>> which
1:59>> as far as new products go, that's really
2:01good value because it's should be
2:03cheaper than the RX950 and it's
2:05generally quite a bit faster.
2:07>> Um
2:09only qualifier there being that you have
2:11to have resizable bar. Without it,
2:13performance is terrible. I think it's
2:15fair to say everyone would have
2:17resizable bar at this point. you can go
2:18back pretty far on I don't think the
2:20resizable bar thing is really a concern
2:22at this point in time.
2:23>> Most motherboards have got BIOS updates
2:25that allow it to be supported on very
2:27old platforms. Uh it's about 25% faster
2:30than an RX6600 on average, but if you
2:34turn to the used market, it is about 60%
2:37more expensive than a typical asking
2:39price of a used RX6600.
2:42So,
2:44you know, the 6600's pretty slow. So,
2:46getting 25% more performance over that
2:48is nothing to sneeze at, but it is quite
2:51a bit more. But then you're also
2:52comparing new and used, which is kind of
2:54chalk and cheese. So, I think if we're
2:57talking about new cards, it's pretty
2:59hard to beat a B570 right now. The ARC
3:01B570. I think that's probably the best
3:04way to go.
3:04>> It's probably the only option as well
3:06because the 9050 that we were talking
3:07about isn't even available in a lot of
3:09regions.
3:10But it's also crap. Like very bad value.
3:13>> It sucks. But it also isn't going to be
3:15an option for a lot of people,
3:16especially in North America where it's
3:18supposedly I mean I'm sure you can
3:20import it, but it's not available. It's
3:22not supposed to be available for that
3:23region, making the B570 almost the
3:26default new winner.
3:27>> Y that's right.
3:28>> And again, maybe you'll see like a 30 uh
3:31sorry 50/50 slide into that price range,
3:33but that isn't a good card either. So
3:36>> yeah, real bad. Real real bad. Uh, and
3:39then if you're looking at used stuff,
3:40again, this is the doing used content is
3:43really difficult because I could say I
3:46got a 3070 for like $150, but that's not
3:49the typical asking price. So, having a
3:51look at the more typical asking price,
3:53something like an RTX 3070 is around
3:55$250 US. So,
3:57>> Mhm.,
3:57>> you know, not great value in my opinion.
4:00As I said, the RX6600, you're looking at
4:02about $160 to $180 for that.
4:06you know, that's that's okay. Uh,
4:08something like an RTX 2070 Super,
4:11they're usually around $150 to $180. In
4:14terms of performance, they are pretty
4:15much
4:17pretty similar to a B570. I'm not
4:19really, it depends on the games, the
4:20settings, and how well the ARC works and
4:22all that sort of stuff, but I think if
4:23you tested say an 18 game average,
4:25they'd be pretty similar. So, that's
4:28that's pretty good value. It's about
4:29$100 less than the new B570.
4:33Uh, you can get an Intel Arc A750
4:36secondhand for like $120 $150, but I
4:38think at that point you'd probably just
4:39get the Super uh, and a 2080 Super
4:42apparently they're like $180 to $200.
4:45But again, these are rough guide prices
4:47and they have been climbing more
4:48recently. So, some of these because I've
4:50done an average over the last little
4:52period, the cards sold over like a month
4:55ago were cheaper than the ones that are
4:56selling now because prices have just
4:58continued to skyrocket. So it's
5:01>> but you're looking generally at sort of
5:03your two to three generations ago sort
5:05of products 30 series 6000 series.
5:08>> Yeah. There's nothing in like the 7000
5:09series. Nothing in the 4000 series.
5:12>> So yeah, you've really got to look at
5:14like the Radeon 6000 series and
5:17>> the RTX 30000 series before you start to
5:20get
5:21>> options. I guess the good news with
5:22something like buying a 3070 or even
5:25some of those 20 series products is that
5:26Nvidia has done a reasonable job of
5:28supporting those cards with driver
5:30updates, feature support, you can use
5:32the latest versions of DLSS. And while
5:34those cards are slower for things like
5:36DLSS 4.5, like there's more of a
5:38performance hit using that versus a 40
5:40series card, you can still use it. So
5:43that does help out a bit on the lifespan
5:45of those cards. They're not completely
5:46dead. A lot of those cards though will
5:48be limited by things like the usual VRAM
5:50issues. You know, the 20 2080 Super,
5:532070 Super, the 8 gig GPUs. Same with
5:55the 3070. So, you're not going to be
5:57able to run the highest quality
5:59settings, but even then, like the
6:00performance of the GPU core is not going
6:02to necessarily allow you these days in
6:04modern games to run those highest
6:07settings. So, they're all like, you
6:09know, fine enough options, but yeah, as
6:11you said, they're sort of increasing in
6:12price isn't great. Um, ideally you'd
6:15want to see used cards get cheaper over
6:17time, but when what does a 570 cost
6:19these days? Like nearly $800 or over
6:21$800 US now.
6:23>> Um,
6:25>> pulls everything else up.
6:26>> Yeah, that's right. So, good news if you
6:28have an old GPU because that means if
6:30you if there's just one sitting on a
6:31shelf or whatever, you can sell it for
6:32more. But,
6:34>> um, yeah, those are the sorts of options
6:36that are available. And like I said, you
6:38know, with the way g a lot of games are
6:40today, you they will be usable. Like
6:42it's not like a game like Gears of War
6:44Eday won't run on a 3070. It works. Um
6:48The Witcher 3 remaster, obviously an old
6:50game that people are playing now still
6:51works on those cards, so they're usable,
6:54but obviously they're not going to have
6:56the lifespan that you would hope to see
6:58that we used to get in that sort of
6:59price range. But
7:00>> well, maybe we might have 8 GB GPUs next
7:02generation, so the 3070 will get another
7:04breather.
7:05>> Yeah, who knows? Do you think consumers
7:07would be easily confused when given the
7:09choice between an RX 9050 and the RTX
7:145090? They might be confused by the
7:16difference in price.
7:18>> Yeah, those 5090s, why are they like
7:21five times as much as an entire system
7:23with a 9050 in it?
7:24>> Yeah, I don't think they'd be easily
7:26confused on that one. I don't think
7:27there's Yeah,
7:29>> it it's quite a funny difference in the
7:30the way that the uh numbers are
7:32configured there, but no, I don't think
7:34that's a problem. on it. I don't think
7:36there's anything to be concerned about.
7:37I think the bigger problem is that
7:38there's two variants of the 9050 and one
7:41is well, one's not great and the other
7:42one's horrific, but they share the same
7:44name. So, which we've we've detailed and
7:47covered on the channel already. So, I
7:48think that's the bigger problem with the
7:499050 and the 5090. The bigger problem is
7:52just that it it's no longer a gaming GPU
7:55because it's a workstation GPU. It's up
7:58like workstation prices.
7:59>> Yeah. Yeah. Not great on the 5090 front
8:01these days, unfortunately. I think
8:03people making those jokes, right, that
8:04it would cost you $50,90 US. Y
8:08>> and that's a bargain. Yeah, you're
8:10getting a really good price if you can
8:11get one for that. Um yeah, these days
8:12they're what like $8,000 or something.
8:14So
8:14>> that's absurd.
8:16>> Yeah, not not good for those people
8:18unfortunately that want those cards. But
8:21yeah, when you've got that much VRAM,
8:22they're just popular for AI now. So is
8:24what it is.
8:25>> I bought a DDR5 8000 kit because it was
8:28older stock that hadn't been given the
8:30full AI boom inflation treatment. Okay,
8:32not too bad there. Uh, do you think
8:34there's any realistic chance that the
8:35nextG AMD CPUs will have better support
8:37for faster DDR5 XMPP speeds despite the
8:41memory shortage?
8:42>> They were supposed to this this
8:44generation support DDR58000,
8:47right? But then it turned out to not
8:48really do all that much.
8:50>> Well, it it always
8:52>> in that sense did support it. You could
8:54always run depending on, you know,
8:56motherboards and whatever and memory
8:57support there, but you could run DDR5
8:598000 on your Zen 4 CPUs. It's just that
9:03yeah, either the motherboard support
9:04wasn't there or people realistically
9:06just didn't bother doing it because you
9:07had to change the ratio with the memory
9:09controller, which while it increased
9:11bandwidth, it also increased latency,
9:13which often hurt gaming performance. So,
9:15it just wasn't worth doing or it just
9:17didn't really improve it. So, it just
9:18again wasn't worth doing. That's because
9:21Zen 4 and Zen 5 their IMC the integrated
9:24memory controller which is in the IO die
9:26is pretty much exactly the same. It uses
9:28the same six nanometer IO die. So memory
9:31support and that's why that was such a a
9:34funny thing because when we were saying
9:35Zen 5 is a flop. It doesn't really bring
9:37much to the table. It's not great. A lot
9:39of people were quick to point out oh but
9:40it's got much better memory support. You
9:42know they're now guaranteeing DDR58000.
9:45Like doesn't really have anything to do
9:46with the CPUs. It's more that they've
9:48now updated the motherboards, the AISA
9:50code, the biases to better support 8000,
9:52but it doesn't, by better support, I
9:54mean it just works. It doesn't actually
9:55offer better performance. So whether you
9:57had a 600 series chipset or an 800
10:00series chipset, it was much the same. So
10:02you can run DDR58000 if you want on your
10:04Zen 4 or Zen 5 CPU, it's just not really
10:07worth doing in a lot of instances. Now
10:10with Zen 6, which is what you're hinting
10:11at, that's going to have a new IO die.
10:15So rec newly configured IOD die which
10:18hopefully has better memory support and
10:21yeah will better utilize DDR58000
10:25but all of that's yet to be seen. So
10:26that that's uh we know for a fact it's
10:28getting a new IO die. What that's going
10:30to bring obviously we haven't seen.
10:33>> Yeah. I mean you'd be hoping with a new
10:35IO die that it will improve performance.
10:37I think that' probably be the goal
10:38because that was the thing that
10:40>> we sort of assumed. You can't really
10:43know for sure without testing it, but it
10:44it's assumed that that was one of the
10:46main factors holding back Zen 5 from
10:49higher gaming performance gains because
10:51there was a lot of IPC improvements in
10:54that core design that benefited some
10:56workstation tasks, server applications,
10:58which made it really popular for certain
11:00types of tasks, but it did appear to be
11:03being held back in terms of things like
11:04memory latency for gaming. And so that's
11:07why it didn't have this, you know, Zen
11:095% was kind of the the talk at the time.
11:11never really offered a huge improvement
11:13in those areas, but hopefully with the
11:15new IO die, we will see better memory
11:18support and that will helpful hopefully
11:20improve the overall gaming experience
11:22for people along with all the other
11:23stuff that you'd be hoping to see like
11:25just generally improve performance and
11:27things like that. Supposed to be a
11:28fairly substantial improvement. Um, at
11:31least that's what the rumors are
11:32suggesting in terms of not just the IO
11:34die, but the core designs as well.
11:36potentially more cores per CCD, things
11:38like that, improved IPC, and quite a
11:40substantial change in the nodes as well,
11:42moving up several tiers of process node.
11:45At least that's again that's all what
11:47the rumors and leaks are sort of
11:49suggesting, but I think we'll learn more
11:50early next year. So, not too long to go.
11:53>> All right. Which company do you think
11:55has treated us the best during the AI
11:57apocalypse? I'm glad they say company
11:59and not companies because it would be a
12:01short list, right?
12:02>> Um, well, let's rule out some companies,
12:04right? Let's roll out Nvidia immediately
12:07um for making the $5090 $8,000.
12:10>> Mhm.
12:10>> And everything else.
12:11>> And everything else. Um can we rule out
12:14AMD for anything? Obviously, I think
12:16they kept their CPUs at a fairly
12:17reasonable level, right? So, that's not
12:20too bad. On the GPU front,
12:22>> I don't know. They've tried to do some
12:24uh dodgy stuff with their drivers,
12:25trying to not support older GPUs, which
12:27hasn't been great. And obviously the
12:28FSR4
12:30I think you put AMD in the same camp as
12:32Nvidia because they would like to screw
12:34us over. They've sort of proven that
12:37>> and if if they could leverage the
12:39situation more they would have.
12:41>> So they've sort of leveraged it to the
12:43best of their ability which is kind of
12:44AMD in a nutshell. It's like their
12:46slogan.
12:47>> So actually maybe not for some things.
12:49Um
12:50>> they're not eating into their margins to
12:52keep GPUs at a low price. They're
12:54certainly not doing that. If you look at
12:55the cost of like a 960 XT 16 GB, it's
12:58gone up pretty substantially and it's a
13:00high it's a high margin card. Of course,
13:02I'm not saying that as a business you
13:04should just sell products at cost.
13:06>> Um, but they haven't they've kind of
13:07just pulled in Nvidia for the most part
13:09like Nvidia cards go up so AMD cards go
13:12up by sort of a similar amount.
13:13>> Yeah, it's sort of similar situation.
13:15The Intel is right as well. They've
13:16refocused for the workstation efforts
13:18rather than gaming because that's where
13:19the money is. So, it's like not saying
13:21when you know you can blame them for
13:23that. They are for-profit companies, but
13:25we're answering the question.
13:26>> Yeah. Have they done anything for
13:28gamers? No. Like I'm not
13:30>> there's nothing that comes to mind where
13:31I'm like Intel did this or AMD did this
13:34that helped gamers.
13:35>> Yeah.
13:35>> Um Yeah. Even with things like some of
13:37the bundles, it's like they weren't
13:39>> like they tried a little bit and then
13:41they're just kind of like, eh, you know,
13:43memory is what it is. So,
13:45>> yeah. Yeah, I mean you can't really
13:46point to other like there's no point
13:48saying a case manufacturer was good or
13:51whatever because they can't really take
13:54advantage of the current situation. It's
13:56is it the same for like ASUS, MSI,
13:58Gigabyte and so on as well? Obviously,
14:01they've refocused some products towards
14:03the AI thing, but there's they they not
14:05much they could do really. there's not
14:07much they could do, but also they
14:09haven't done any like I know what you're
14:11saying like that there's no option
14:13because they're basically beholden to
14:14what Nvidia is charging for GPUs and
14:17same with like your motherboard sales
14:18are kind of dictated by whether it's
14:21worth buying a CPU and DRAM
14:24>> but yeah there's nothing I can really
14:26point to and sort of say wow they tried
14:27to make this really good value option
14:30for people or like a some sort of
14:32product that would help to offset the
14:34cost of building a PC right Well, cuz
14:37you know, if it's really expensive to
14:39buy a GPU and, you know, DRAM, then I
14:42guess component manufacturers could be
14:44like, well, let's try and make some
14:45really cheap stuff so that your overall
14:47build cost is sort of similar, but you
14:49know, you're spending a bit more on the
14:50memory and a bit less on other
14:51components. But we haven't really seen
14:52that. I don't think they can to be fair.
14:55>> Well, we we haven't seen an example from
14:57say MSI or ASUS where they've put their
14:59hand up and said, you know, stressful
15:01times, difficult times for gamers. If
15:03your MSI gaming trio or whatever melts
15:07or has a failure, you know, we will
15:08replace it. We won't just refund you the
15:10original purchase price. That's right.
15:12So, we haven't seen any of the companies
15:13put their hand up and say they'll do
15:15anything extra above and beyond for
15:16their customers like that
15:18>> or make it easier to buy certain
15:20products that are often out of stock for
15:22existing customers like, oh, you'd
15:23bought, let's say you're like a MSI
15:27Supreme buyer or something and they sort
15:29of have you on record as being that sort
15:30of buy and then maybe they'll offer you
15:32the latest batch of GPUs that keep going
15:34up in price at, you know, like an early,
15:37you know, an early bird sort of deal. We
15:38haven't seen any of that. It's just
15:40like, let's put them on the market and
15:41if they're sold for $8,000 590 is now,
15:45too bad.
15:46>> Um, you know, Nvidia's done that pop-up
15:48store thing, which is kind of funny. I I
15:49think that's probably a way to get
15:51around false advertising on the pricing.
15:54>> So, we've we've got plenty of examples
15:55of companies being anti-consumer and
15:58basically atrocious customer support.
16:00So, more recently, we had PNY where a
16:02customer had the cable melt, which is
16:04now a more of a waiting for that to
16:07happen than if it'll happen. it seems to
16:08be. And they didn't honor that because
16:11they were using they weren't using the
16:14adapter that came with the graphics
16:15card. They were using the official cable
16:17with the power supply, which was once
16:19upon a time thought to be the way you
16:21should do it rather than using the
16:22adapter. And initially they also
16:26publicly said that it they would it
16:29wouldn't it wouldn't validate your
16:31warranty if you used the official power
16:34supply cable, but because it's
16:36convenient to backpedal on that, they're
16:38doing that now. So anyway, that was a
16:39that was a bad situation. We've seen
16:41plenty of memory brands not replace
16:45memory and just offer, you know, the
16:46purchase price and
16:47>> or SSDs. Same thing happening in that in
16:50that market as well. Lewis Rossman um is
16:53suing Samsung for I think it was a 990
16:55Pro or something. They wouldn't replace
16:58or or repair that drive. They just
16:59wanted to refund the original purchase
17:01price which obviously leaves someone
17:03like him or anyone high and dry in the
17:04current market. And that's inexcusable
17:06for a brand like Samsung who actually
17:08makes the product in full, not like
17:10Corsair who buys all the components and
17:11then just sells the the finished
17:13product.
17:15So, I think one company that comes to
17:18mind where we've only seen good news
17:20would be GSkill. Um, there was a story
17:23recently where someone bought an open
17:26box memory kit for a I think it was 64
17:29gigs or something absurd like that for
17:31$150, you know, a year ago or something.
17:34>> It would have to be a year ago.
17:35>> Well, yeah. I'm just not sure how far
17:38back it was. Clear before October last
17:40year.
17:41>> Yeah. Pre-apocalypse when
17:42pre-apocalypse.
17:43>> Yeah. So, still, you know, green trees
17:45and stuff,
17:45>> but yeah, bought open box memory off
17:48eBay, had it fail recently, and GSkill
17:52honored the warranty, replaced the
17:54memory. Can't remember, was it $2,000 or
17:56something worth of memory. So, that
17:58that's a cool story. Uh, and while
18:01people are saying, well GSkill can just
18:03get the memory back, repair it or
18:04whatever, and you know, they're not
18:05losing that kind of money, which may be
18:07the case, their competitors haven't been
18:10doing that. they've just been like,
18:11"Give us the memory back because that's
18:13valuable and we'll basically buy it back
18:16at the original purchase price." And
18:18that a lot of that's been going on, but
18:19Gkill um hasn't been doing that. And
18:21there's been a lot of people in our
18:22comment section saying they recently RMA
18:25memory with GSkill and GSkill took care
18:27of it. So, and they probably are losing
18:29money because it's not, you know, they
18:31have to buy the components like the
18:32memory modules or whatever. And my
18:35understanding is it's not always the
18:36case where they can warranty that type
18:38of thing directly back to the
18:40manufacturer. It's more it's more like
18:42an internal they would used to buy they
18:44need like 110% of the supply they need
18:47or whatever so that the whenever
18:48something fails they just have the
18:50additional chips available. It's all
18:51worked into the price and that sort of
18:53thing. But if the memory modules are
18:55costing so much more now then obviously
18:57it's creating significant pressure. I
19:00think they'd be hoping that, you know,
19:02fingers crossed it was like a controller
19:03that failed or some other component on
19:05the board so that they can, you know,
19:07they don't necessarily have to replace
19:08that memory. Maybe that's how they're
19:09getting away with it not costing them
19:11necessarily as much. But I think it in a
19:14lot of cases it would be costing them.
19:15So the fact that they're willing to do
19:17that um you know is hopefully people
19:19will remember that once these sort of
19:21>> well over regardless of whether it is or
19:23isn't costing them, a lot of their
19:25competitors or pretty much all of their
19:26competitors aren't doing that.
19:28>> Yeah. So that's that's at least one good
19:31news story there and that's maybe the
19:32company because I can't are there any
19:34other examples that you've heard of a
19:36company doing something like that.
19:38>> There there's no warranty claim stuff
19:40that comes to my mind. All we seem to be
19:42hearing is sort of the bad stuff of like
19:44yeah the the refunds instead of
19:46replacements which is one of the things
19:47I'm really really big on that being
19:49unacceptable but I mean it depends on
19:52the laws of your region or whatever as
19:53to how much you can get away with. So,
19:54if the law allows it, then companies of
19:57course will try and do that. I I think
19:59I'd have to throw in companies that are
20:01helping out gamers at the moment. A lot
20:02of the display panel manufacturers,
20:05which I guess are sort of immune to a
20:06lot of the, you know, they're not
20:07they're not necessarily deliberately
20:10doing stuff to benefit gamers, but just
20:12because they're not in that industry,
20:15they they're allowing things to still
20:17get cheaper and better for people. So, a
20:20lot of, you know, what I'd recommend
20:22people if they needed an upgrade right
20:23now is to upgrade a display instead of
20:25the rest of the components just because
20:27monitors continue to get cheaper as
20:29opposed to becoming more expensive for
20:31the same spec. So, it's almost the
20:32reverse of what you see for the
20:35components. So, manufacturers like
20:37Samsung Display and LG Display, so
20:40separate to the electronics who make the
20:42memory and make the other components,
20:44they they're sort of, you know, how
20:46these conglomerates work. They're
20:47technically a different company, but
20:49they're still part of Samsung overall.
20:52Cuz I wouldn't want to say Samsung have
20:54been helping gamers cuz I think they
20:55haven't with the memory side. But if I
20:57could split Samsung electronics and
20:59Samsung Display, I will give it to
21:01Samsung display
21:03>> because nowadays you can buy some really
21:05high quality QDLE panels for like we're
21:08starting to see the 280 Hz versions for
21:10like 350 to $400. Those are really good
21:13quality options. the 4K panels, they're
21:16like $700 for 240 Hz options on sort of
21:19the lower end. We're starting to see
21:21some even cheaper than that from the
21:23different brands. And they're just
21:24continuing to make better stuff and not
21:27squeezing customers on price because,
21:29you know, you could you could see them
21:31doing this thing where if all the
21:33components are getting expense, more
21:34expensive, they just go, well, this is
21:36the reality of gaming now. We'll just
21:38charge more because that's what
21:39everyone's doing. But I think there's
21:41been enough competition and enough, you
21:43know, they're sort of insulated enough
21:44from that market that they're able to
21:47continue to offer better and better
21:48value to gamers to the point where,
21:50yeah, it makes a lot of sense if, you
21:51know, you're just thinking, oh, I've got
21:52a bit of spare money and I want to make
21:54my gaming setup better. It's one of the
21:56areas where it actually makes sense to
21:58to upgrade. And so, yeah, the display
22:00manufacturers probably have a bit of a
22:02shout out there, even if, you know, they
22:04don't actually need memory for their
22:05products. Well, they I should retract
22:08that. They technically do need memory,
22:09just not very much.
22:11>> So, they can get away with it. News in
22:13the US are reporting people buying
22:14secondhand CPUs are being unable to game
22:16with them as processors are blacklisted
22:19by anti-che software. Should a single
22:21piece of hardware be banned or a
22:23combination of processor, motherboard,
22:25and other major components in a similar
22:27way to how the Windows authentication
22:28works? Yeah, this is an interesting
22:30story that came up this week. Um, at
22:33least the week as we're filming this
22:34Q&A. who knows when it's going out.
22:36Relating to it was one of those esports
22:38games. I can't remember off the top of
22:40my head. It might have been Valerant or
22:41one of those where someone had purchased
22:44like a 5800 X3 or something like that.
22:47secondhand slot into their system, load
22:49up the game that they've been playing
22:50this whole time and found that they were
22:52banned or restricted from accessing the
22:54game because the I guess the developers
22:58or whoever um had banned the CPU ID of
23:01that particular processor,
23:02>> the previous owner of the CPU, the
23:04person who sold it
23:05>> had attempted to cheat in that game and
23:08got caught
23:09>> and you know using all the security
23:12protocols they use now they were able to
23:13blacklist that hardware.
23:14>> Yeah, that's right. So, it's not an
23:17ideal situation. Um, you can see why
23:20they banned the hardware specifically
23:22because they're trying to make sure that
23:24you that specific person can't just make
23:26another account and get around, you
23:28know, easily get around the ban. So, you
23:30want to do something that's more tied to
23:32that specific person. So, I guess
23:34they've gone with this hardware ID. Um,
23:37but yeah, it does screw over people who
23:39then go on to sell that particular
23:41thing. It reminds me of um you know when
23:43phones would get like stolen or whatever
23:45and you could blacklist the IMEI of the
23:48phone from like all networks. It's sort
23:50of similar to that. Now obviously that
23:51kind of makes sense because if someone's
23:53selling like a stolen phone, you should
23:55probably make that useless to prevent
23:57theft.
23:57>> Yeah. It still screws over the person
23:58that ends up buying it.
23:59>> Screws over the person that ends up
24:00buying it, but also this isn't that
24:02situation. It's someone who's
24:04legitimately selling the product. It's
24:05just that that product was banned from
24:07that specific game. Maybe they sold it
24:09knowing that was the case. Most likely.
24:11>> Yeah, most likely.
24:12>> Yeah.
24:13>> Um, so yeah, should they be doing it
24:14with a combination of CPU and
24:16motherboard? Probably. There's probably
24:17a way to sort of tie it to maybe
24:19multiple components.
24:20>> Yeah. I mean, their argument there will
24:21be it's, you know, cheaper or easier to
24:24change one of those components to then
24:25modify the combination so it somewhat
24:27defeats the purpose.
24:29>> A better option would be to locate the
24:31cheaters, round them up.
24:35>> Yeah. So, it was Valerant. I just had a
24:36look. Yeah. It was Valerant and a 5800
24:38X3D that was was banned. So,
24:41>> want to make sure I got the facts there.
24:42But, yeah, rounding them up and and
24:43shipping them off to some sort of
24:45offshore island is probably
24:47>> any island in particular.
24:48>> Um, well, Australia, we have a few that
24:50we use, don't we? No, not
24:53>> um
24:53>> not maybe some um I don't know uh
24:58Swalbard.
25:00I I don't have a better solution for you
25:03because as you say if you the
25:05>> if you make it you know easier then it
25:08sort of defeats the purpose but the
25:10current solution is not great either for
25:12those buying secondhand hardware. It
25:13further
25:14>> you know we always say there's pitfalls
25:16of buying secondhand and this further
25:18taints the you know the purchase of
25:20secondhand hardware
25:21>> increases the risk. So,
25:23>> I think there's ways you could you could
25:24do this and also mitigate the risk,
25:26especially if Valerant Valerance
25:28developer published the list of band CPU
25:30IDs. So, then if you're buying a CPU,
25:33you could request that from the person
25:35selling you the CPU.
25:36>> They could just give you another ID
25:38though.
25:38>> I guess they could, but then you could
25:39be like, well, let's say you buy it off
25:40eBay and they're like, you've
25:42>> Well, you could still do that on eBay
25:44anyway, especially in Australia. You
25:46could say that the CPU doesn't work and
25:48and get it send it back and get
25:50refunded.
25:50>> Yeah, that's right. Those are systems
25:52you'd have to sort of
25:53>> It depends on where they're buying them
25:54and how they're buying their used
25:55hardware and stuff like that.
25:57>> It's not a perfect system, but it's
25:58probably better than um
26:00>> yeah, I guess the advice would be if you
26:02are buying secondhand secondhand
26:04hardware, do it on a platform where the
26:06buyer has a lot of rights and buyer
26:08protection. Uh and here in Australia,
26:10eBay is one of those platforms.
26:12>> Yeah. Make sure they put in the listing
26:14or something that this is not banned on
26:16um not banned on all the anti-cheets.
26:18And then if it is banned, you can then
26:20Yeah. Yeah, because that's the problem
26:22with the anti-che as well is if it gets
26:23banned from Valerant, does it all
26:25automatically get banned from
26:26Counter-Strike and other games that use
26:28similar anti-che or is it just that one
26:30game?
26:30>> Not sure how it works. Yeah,
26:32>> not sure how it works on that front, but
26:34>> yeah, whether or not they do something
26:36like that or yeah, maybe ban multiple
26:39IDs together, but then if you ban the
26:41multiple IDs, it allows the person who's
26:43got the hardware that's been banned to
26:45just switch out one component, right?
26:46Which I guess I guess they could do if
26:48it if it was just the CPU, they could
26:49switch that out. But if it was a cheaper
26:51component,
26:51>> yeah, you you'd switch out the cheaper
26:53component.
26:53>> You'd switch out. Yeah. May not cost
26:55that much to tie to the graphics card
26:58cuz those are so expensive now that um
27:00>> yeah, the bigger problem is we have
27:02people on the planet that feel the need
27:05to cheat in games.
27:07>> Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense to
27:08me. It's real loser behavior, but
27:10>> big time loser behavior.
27:12>> Maybe we Yeah, we put more effort into
27:14trying to solve that. No, it's probably
27:15too hard. Let's move on. The Premier CPU
27:189800X3D has been widely available and
27:21reasonably priced for a fair amount of
27:23time now. While we're coming up on CES
27:26and Zen 6 early next year, I'm beginning
27:28to see rumblings of CPU demand in AI
27:30machinery. Do you think gamers should be
27:33concerned about a potential CPU shortage
27:35that could end what I think some could
27:37argue is very very fair pricing for
27:39top-end chips?
27:41Yeah, pro problems here. Um, it doesn't
27:45seem like there's been too much of a
27:47consumer CPU shortage just yet. However,
27:51there's been significantly increased CPU
27:54demand for workstation. Well, shouldn't
27:56say just workstation, but servers
27:57specifically. So, your data centers, AI
27:59data centers, those specifically because
28:02of agentic AI. So the ratio of GPUs to
28:06CPUs in servers used to be many GPUs to
28:10one CPU, but with more agent type work
28:12being done where uh you know you send
28:15you know it's kind of like the AI runs
28:18multiple loops and things like that.
28:20that it runs multiple different tasks
28:21all at once and you need a CPU to
28:22coordinate all those different, you
28:24know, AI LLMs from doing work and all
28:27that sort of thing, which is a very
28:28simple explanation of what that is, but
28:30basically they need a lot of CPUs to
28:32coordinate all the different LLMs that
28:33are working across all the GPUs. So,
28:35it's increased CPU demand. The ratio
28:37from CPUs to GPUs is, I guess,
28:40tightening. So, there's more CPUs
28:42relative to GPUs now than they were, and
28:44that is creating additional CPU demand.
28:46Whether or not that forces up the price
28:49of consumer CPUs, it's largely going to
28:51depend on, you know, manufacturing
28:53capacity at your usual sources. So
28:55things like TSMC,
28:57um, if a lot of that demand is going to
28:59AI CPUs, then you would expect that to
29:00impact the consumer market, especially
29:03as they're moving to new process nodes
29:05and things like that. If those are being
29:06used for AI CPUs, then there may be some
29:09impact. But it's not DRAM related. So,
29:12how much impact you would see, it
29:15depends. Um, but it doesn't seem like
29:17it's going to be as bad as you would see
29:19from like DRAM supply where you got a
29:22cartel of memory manufacturers who are
29:24just like 7x the price sounds good to
29:26me. Um, with CPUs, it may just be more
29:29of a more of a slow burn on that one.
29:32But it's hard to say. But have we seen
29:34CPU prices go down at all or has it been
29:37relatively steady?
29:38>> I think relatively steady. Yeah,
29:41normally would probably see it go down
29:43towards this part of the cycle, wouldn't
29:44we?
29:45>> Well, cheaper, more budgetoriented CPUs
29:48generally make sense when you can get a
29:50relatively cheap motherboard and cheap
29:51memory. But with that not being the
29:54case, there's not there's not much point
29:56buying like a budget motherboard or a
29:58budget CPU right now if you've got to
30:00spend, you know, 4 500 whatever US it is
30:04on your memory. So,
30:06>> yeah, that's probably affecting things,
30:08isn't it? But yeah, like it's hard to
30:10say with these sorts of things because
30:11we don't have super good insight into
30:14like exactly
30:17because people always want to make it
30:18seem like the companies have an
30:20incentive to make it seem like their
30:22CPUs are genuinely in super high demand,
30:25right? Because that's the whole bubble
30:26that we're in at the moment. There is
30:28genuinely high demand, but also to keep
30:30it going, you want to make it seem like
30:32it is still in very high demand.
30:34>> So whether or not that is genuinely the
30:35case remains to be seen. We're not
30:38seeing the, like I said, we're not
30:39seeing the impact in the market right
30:40now in the same way that we're seeing it
30:41for SSDs, DRAM, GPUs, those sorts of
30:44things,
30:45>> but there does seem to be increasing
30:47need for CPUs in data centers. So,
30:51>> yeah, I don't know. Have they launched
30:52Z6 for uh data centers yet? I'm not
30:55sure. I don't think they have yet, but
30:58we'll see the impact of that pretty
30:59soon. But then again, like you'd expect
31:02AMD will be coming into this being in
31:03the dominant position anyway. So, their
31:05CPUs will probably still be priced and
31:07have the availability of parts that will
31:09be in demand either way.
31:11>> So, when they come to launch next year
31:13and there's like a
31:15>> jeez what it will be a 10800 X3D if they
31:17go down that line. Not really sure.
31:19Maybe they'll change it to AI or
31:20something.
31:21>> We've been there before, haven't we?
31:23With the Intel CPU. So,
31:24>> yeah, whatever they name it, I expect
31:26they will be hotly in demand if they do
31:29retain their crown as the fastest
31:30processor
31:32>> either way. So, we'll see. With many
31:34games lately showing a lot of noise
31:35while using RT and the fact that there
31:38are easy to use mods to solve this, why
31:40do developers leave the games to be
31:43released in that state?
31:46Yeah, I'd love to know the answer to
31:47this one because if you've seen a lot of
31:50my videos over well recently with Gears
31:53of War Eday, but you know, in the past
31:55as well, ray tracing noise is one of the
31:57things I hate the most about modern
31:59games or just any noise of that kind. I
32:01think it's very distracting. that looks
32:02worse and it really defeats the purpose
32:04in my opinion of adding ray tracing
32:06effects. Ray tracing was always supposed
32:08to be something that improves the visual
32:10quality of games. But if you go from
32:12having a game that was stable with
32:13rasterized lighting to being noisy with
32:16quote unquote superior ray trace
32:18lighting, that could actually just be an
32:20overall downgrade in my opinion just
32:22because it looks worse. Um, obviously
32:25some people don't notice this as much as
32:26I do and don't really care all that
32:28much,
32:29>> which I find that a weird take, right?
32:30because you're you're ignoring what I
32:32think is quite an obvious thing to
32:34justify ray tracing looking superior.
32:37But I know it's weird that you notice
32:39the advantages of ray tracing to enjoy
32:41ray tracing, but not the obvious
32:43disadvantages. I don't I guess it's the
32:46thing you could not be sensitive to, but
32:47it's also weird that you're going after
32:50ray tracing for the improved visual
32:53effects when I just just seems
32:56>> Yeah. I don't know. I mean, are people
32:57>> It's like selective hearing.
32:58>> Yeah. If you don't notice the noise,
33:00like I would say if you don't notice the
33:02noise in ray tracing, you should
33:03probably just be using like DLSS ultra
33:05performance mode because the like the
33:08amount of noise you'd get from that is
33:10probably pretty similar to what you'd
33:11see in some ray trace titles. So you may
33:13as well just be using like extreme
33:14levels of crank that frame gen, crank
33:17the upscaling, um do all that sort of
33:19thing because yeah, you just if you're
33:21immune to it, fair enough. I I don't see
33:23how you could be and some of the
33:24surfaces and things we see in games are
33:26so noisy. I don't honestly understand
33:27how you could not see it. But again,
33:30testing displays, I understand people do
33:32have different types of vision and more
33:33sensitive to some effects. So any
33:36anyway, with the noise thing, it's
33:38clearly because hardware isn't powerful
33:41enough. Like they are wanting to do
33:43developers, I mean, are wanting to do a
33:45lot of ray tracing effects in games, but
33:47to actually get those effects running on
33:48hardware that people have, they can't do
33:50it at a high enough quality level. So a
33:52high enough ray count usually. So they
33:54have to do really low ray counts and
33:56that creates a lot of noise which then
33:57needs to be denoised. And so yeah, I
34:01mean there are options like ray
34:02reconstruction that do improve this uh
34:06situation, but I guess my understanding
34:08with ray reconstruction is it does
34:09require some level of input into the
34:12system for it to actually be effective.
34:14So if you go too low on the quality of
34:17ray tracing, ray reconstruction doesn't
34:20work that well. I think with Gears of
34:22War Eday, the developers came out and
34:23said the reason why they didn't use ray
34:25reconstruction was because the
34:27techniques they were using didn't work
34:29with ray reconstruction. So they put it
34:30into ray reconstruction and the output
34:32wasn't the clean visual quality that
34:34we've seen from other input was so bad
34:37it couldn't be fixed.
34:38>> Yeah, that that's just that was my read
34:41on it. Um whether or not they said it in
34:43those words,
34:44>> I think they did. I don't think they
34:45did, but essentially they were using a
34:48system that was very noisy and so
34:50requires these sort of more significant
34:53dinoising effects. I I I don't know. I
34:56would have said in general that if
34:58you're making a game that looks noisy on
34:59scenes that people would use that you
35:01should probably think of some different
35:02techniques to get the lighting quality
35:04that you need. And a game like Gears of
35:06War Eday, in my opinion, because a lot
35:08of the scenes are more static in its
35:10lighting environment, there's no dynamic
35:12time of day. you go into the
35:14environment, the lighting is largely
35:16fixed. It actually probably would have
35:17benefited from more rasterization.
35:20Obviously, you can't do some things
35:21like, you know, reflections probably
35:23would still need it because rasterized
35:25reflections can't do a lot of things,
35:27but for things like, you know, global
35:29illumination and that type of lighting.
35:31Could it have been done with rasterizing
35:33and baking in the lighting? Maybe. I'm
35:35not a developer, so I don't sit here and
35:37say I know all the answers. Um, but
35:39yeah, it's it's a real problem. It's a
35:41real problem with this ray tracing here.
35:42I feel like if we had gotten much more
35:44powerful hardware by now that could do
35:47better quality ray tracing, we wouldn't
35:49be sitting here and looking at noise in
35:51games 8 years on from ray tracing and
35:54still thinking that this is a problem
35:55because it shouldn't be a problem these
35:57days.
35:58>> To be fair though, it does seem like
36:00it's mostly Unreal Engine titles that
36:02have this problem. We've seen ray
36:04tracing implemented in other games that
36:05are not as noisy, even without using ray
36:08reconstruction. So,
36:11I don't know what's going on there. Why
36:12specifically Unreal Engine titles are
36:14just very noisy. And it's not just Gears
36:17of War. Like, I remember back when
36:18Stalker 2 was released and that used
36:21softwarebased ray tracing in the game
36:22that was like disgustingly noisy in a
36:24lot of places.
36:26I don't know what's going on with gaming
36:28these days with these problems.
36:31Hopefully, one day we'll just have the
36:32performance to fix it, but we don't
36:34right now. So, it's unfortunate. And
36:37that is going to do it for part one of
36:39the October Q&A. Few more parts to come
36:41over the next few days. So, make sure
36:43you're subscribed and have the alerts
36:45and all that enabled so you don't miss
36:46those great Q&As's because they'll
36:48they'll be easily as good as this one.
36:50>> That's right. Yeah. For all of the
36:51content on our channel that you need the
36:53alerts for, it's this stuff. Not the
36:55benchmarks, not any of the NBA content
36:57we do.
36:58>> It's answering the people's questions.
37:00>> Yeah, that's right. How'd your voice
37:01hold up throughout recording?
37:03>> Well, we haven't done part two and part
37:05three yet. Um, it's okay. So, we'll see
37:08how we go by then. Part three could be
37:10brutal.
37:11>> Yeah.
37:11>> So, maybe you want to be subscribed to
37:13see how that's played out.
37:14>> Yeah. Are you going to be spitting bite
37:16or whatever? That it's not what happens
37:17when you talk too much and you have the
37:19flu. Who knows?
37:20>> We'll find out.
37:20>> Yeah.
37:21>> Anyway, uh, that is going to do it for
37:23part one. So, again, thanks for
37:24watching. If you would like to become a
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37:39content and Am I missing anything?
37:42>> Um, oh, probably. But people can find
37:45out the other stuff is a mystery, isn't
37:46it?
37:46>> Yep. Well, I'm your host, Steve.
37:48>> I'm your host, Tim.
37:49>> We'll see you next time.

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