Gadgetory

everyone welcome back to another hardware news recap for the week we just got back from LTX so a couple big items this week including msi accidentally suggesting that AMD could be moving to higher core accounts verizon beyond eight core these e3 70 BIOS updates that look to have support for eight core CPUs going forward from Intel and then PC sales growing for the first time in six years which is a bit different from the enthusiast market which has continued to grow over that period but the PC desktop market has definitely overall been in a slump but not for this quarter apparently so we'll be talking about that and more today before that this video is brought to you by EVGA is 19th anniversary giveaway EVGA is giving away over $80,000 of components and it's retro themed at nineteen year anniversary including two signed GN mod mats and also several full systems GPUs motherboards and more to participate click the link in the description below to start EVGA scavenger hunt screenshot competition or gaming events click the link below to learn more there's a couple GN items first the mod mats are finally shipping and we've had a good amount of pre-orders from you all for the last class or backorders at this point and start shipping those out so if you haven't gotten a shipping notification yet you'll get one soon they're on the way if you want to buy one you haven't yet it will ship when you order it at this point so they're in stock at least for a while hopefully we can hang on to a bit longer than last time but super popular item thank you for supporting the mod mats if you don't know what it is it's on stored on Cameron's Nexus Don that it's a four by two-foot modding and building service for PCs pretty high quality rubber and print on it as well so those are back in finally and then another quick to announcements we have new posters that's what this is right here and these are standard size posters there on stored I Karen exit on that as well it's a video card PCB with labeling on it for different vrm components stuff like that if you want some wall art and then also this shirt I'm wearing is a black version of the blue print shirt we have so I guess we'll just call it the chalkboard shirt or something like the Hat same design that just on black now because some folks wanted that if you do prefer a blue shirt we have it still alright first real news item all that's on stored at games nexus dotnet first real news item is fake phases on B 450 motherboards so this comes from build Zorich from actually hardcore overclocking builds or does some work for us on this channel as well mostly PCB analysis videos and build soit recently I don't know if he posted his video yet I think he did but he's got a video going up we're already up about gigabytes newbie 450 motherboard that we also just got in after LTX and built I discussed how marketing is beginning to further blur the lines between what a phase is so phases and a vrm you'll typically see motherboards talk actually this poster lays a couple out pretty cleanly but phases you might hear twelve plus something or something like that or eight plus 1/8 plus two and that eight the first part of that before the plus is either going to be a true phases or it might be four that are doubled and doubling schemes are pretty common at this point so it is a stretch of the definition of a phase but it's not as big of a stretch that's what gigabyte is doing on the B 450 board so what's going on here typically a phase would be defined as a driver a high side MOSFET a low side MOSFET and an inductor or a choke if you prefer and then it's got a its own PWM signal out of a out of phase with the signal from other phases so that is the sort of core definition of what a phase is beyond that we've seen boards in the past and recently that do doubling schemes so in these instances they add a component called doubler and the doubler is working instead of between one component beeps they're working with two high side feds to low side feds to chokes and then a single driver so this would be called two phases by most modern motherboard manufacturers video card manufacturers so you have two of everything except one driver and it just switches and so that gets you what they call two phase is a doubled phase though and actually we have that Illustrated here where these would be your doublers on this side and those control two of these fats each so you've got a doubling scheme laid out in that example what gigabyte is doing just to try to catch someone up to speed here so a gigabytes doing is gigabyte has axed one of its high side MOSFETs this is on the B 450 board resulting in one high side to low side two and doctors and one driver and that makes the motherboard look like an eight phase-- when you look at it it looks like an eight phase-- for all intents and purposes when you're trying to compare boards visually it'll look the same as any other eight phase-- but gigabyte is marketing it as an eight phase-- board and it's really not by the definition that everyone's used to so this is ultimately the problem high side MOSFETs are responsible for switching the 12 volt rail and so they reduce to one MOSFET with this gigabyte board which reduces the efficiency and it increases the heat and the power load per phase because you're working with one of those fats not where you used to have to for the high side and overall its operational efficiency is just down as a result but it's still called two phases even though it's not even by the sort of stretch double the definition of a phase so the board just still works we don't have a problem overall with a lower and board reducing the phase count it's just we'd like to see it done in a a fashion that is that conforms with these standard definitions of what a phase is so it is less deceptive whether intentional or unintentional that's how it comes across it's kind of deceptive and and that's the problem we have with it and I believe the primary problem build Zoid had with it although he's got something like a 50 minute video talking about all the other stuff about the board so the marketing is the problem here changing a well-known definition to further stretch it into something that isn't really the definition of a phase is the issue and it's something that we think definitely deserves the call-out and you can check out our colleague build Zoids channel for more information on this the link for his video will be in the show notes if it's live where you actually hardcore overclocked in the youtube channel let's check it out so that's the recap of the builds ode and B 450 video if you hadn't seen it yet hopefully that kids have been up to speed and then check his out for more information next one there's an MSI ad circulating around I think it was actually removed by homicide because the ad suggested that an D could be increasing the core count Verizon so the removal of the video of course lends some credibility to the discussion online and this video or ad from Amazon could possibly allude to am the increasing the core account beyond eight for the next horizon CPUs and that is because MSI promotes its new be 450 motherboard design specifically having a new feature called core boost on that board which reads quote enhanced layout and digital power design for eight core and up CPUs and up being the key word their key phrase so take this with a grain of salt obviously make of it what you will but if we're going to see AMD bringing more than eight cores to mainstream and we would expect it at some point they do it with thread Ripper so if we see it on their mainstream rise in parts at some point it'll probably be rising to rather than the risin or the it'll probably n to excuse me as opposed to rise in two which is already out so there's rise in 2000 series on Zen plus and then there will be Zen to eventually with rise in something we don't know what the name will be yet so Zen 2 is probably what we'll see 8 plus cores going on to 16 maybe in the mainstream that will be launched in 2019 and that's potentially where we'll see MSI's ad come to life if if they were accidentally alluding to something that shouldn't have been said yet next up Google slapped with a 5 billion dollar fine by the EU and EU Commission so Google's been hit with a record-setting 5 billion dollar fine stemming from allegations by the European Commission that Google has abused their market dominance the European Commission claims the key areas of this suit are as follows illegally tying chrome and search into the operating system blocking phone makers from creating devices running Forex versions of Android quote made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators and quote to exclusively bundle the Google Search app on handsets and according to the verge the EU Commission has given Google 90 days to comply with their decision that Google must stop forcing manufacturers to pre-installed chrome and Google search in order to offer Google Play stop preventing phone makers from using forked versions of Android and cease illegal payments for app bundling for their part google intends to appeal the decision which means that this will likely result in a year's lawn back and forth between and the European Commission this isn't the first time that Google has been hit with fines by the EU they were previously buying 2.7 billion dollars in 2017 for allegedly manipulating search results the EU Commission is no stranger to saddling tech companies with massive fines either they previously did this for antitrust fines on Apple Microsoft Facebook and Intel as many of you are familiar with so Google's got a lot to pay up but they will be appealing so be well we'll be looking forward to hearing about this one over the next several years probably as it goes through the court system a couple more times and gets recycled as Google tries to bring down the fine there were new Z 370 BIOS updates recently that looked to be priming motherboards for the new series of Intel CPUs the ninth generation or realistically the eighth generation dubbed the 9000 series because it's still coffee League so it's not really a new generation but the z3 is how many boards from vendors including Asus asrock and msi have rolled out BIOS updates that seems to be priming for these 9000 series 8th gen chips and in the version notes msi for example listed support for new generation cpu in their BIOS update other vendors were a bit more braggadocious and listed support for quote latest Intel 8th gen CPU and the new BIOS updates also come with important micro code revisions that reinforce CPUs against newer Spectre variants there have been several new variants of the spectre exploit and attack factors if you've forgotten about those we haven't covered too many of them that we did hit a few of them and in the time that those have been discovered obviously several new updates have been made to micro code so if you stopped updating BIOS and you think that you might be exposed to Spectre or other vulnerabilities in a way that is compromising or important for example if you're a business it might be worth going through an updating BIOS another couple times as they continue to roll those out just because they are still including micro code updates and other updates against the attack vectors PC sales drawing for the first time in several years during second quarter of 2018 so during the second quarter of this year worldwide PC shipments totalled 62 point 1 million units marking a new six-year growth trend for the PC segment this is the most quarterly PC growth since 2012 and it appears to be driven by dropping GP prices and strong business demand in the present quarter another IDC report indicates increases over Gartner's report and according to IDC second quarter 2018 PC shipments totalled 62 point three million I do see it tributes this growth however - not just business demand but more traditional pcs like the high-end or premium notebooks and gaming PC's by all accounts a large contributor was the final Enterprise shift to Windows 10 which has taken a while of course and commercial refreshing of systems as Windows 10 has matured IDC still notes quote growing consumer demand for gaming systems as a positive catalyst for growth and then separately the enthusiast market that we occupy has continued to grow over the last several years so it didn't hit the same stagnation that traditional desktop PCs hit where a lot of average consumers not in our audience would eat by a desktop and use it for really just browsing or something like that they've now replaced those mostly with things like phones and laptops but that trend looks to have slightly reversed for this quarter in the very least moving on just a couple of interesting news items one of which is Intel and micron parting ways but the one will hit first is Corsair and respect o 6 RGB case quarters are offering an RGB variant of their spec oh six case unambiguously dubs wait for it the spec o 6rg be the case carries a ten dollar premium over its predecessor and as our gb lighting behind the front panel with a built-in controller for varying speeds colors and effects so the RGB aside the chassis remains basically the same to the rest of the spec series the spec series by and large has been somewhat plagued with thermal issues and poor ventilation overall it's not our favorite series of cases from Corsair generally speaking the spec originally when it first launched was meant for the Asia market and did well there is brought over to the US and Western market later where it now is continuing to get refreshes and updates if you're in the market for a case that's about this price at 90 bucks the spec o6 is beaten by most other things on the market so there are a lot of really good options at $90 including coarse hair like the 400 see and although a bit more expensive the 600 see which we would far superior to the speck Oh 6 so even within coarser zone lineup we'd recommend there are other cases or the spectro 6 but if you like the look of this one and you can deal with it I guess it's out now so next one Intel and micron parting ways on 3d crosspoint after 2019 this is a pretty big news item so in a press release from Intel the company announced that after 2019 the joint memory venture between Intel and micron will cease to exist in town micron announced their joint partnership to develop non-volatile memory technology in 2015 or the first generation rolling out in 2017 you may remember obtained that leverages 3d crosspoint technology the partnership will see both companies code about the second generation of 3d crosspoint but beyond that each company will be on their own for their third generation iteration of the technology assumingly allowing Intel and micron to focus on their own business needs for product roadmaps going forward just to note though both companies have had their share of struggles lately Intel's now famously troubled ten nanometer shrink and abrupt resignation of their CEO and micron simultaneously being investigated by the Chinese government while being engrossed in legal battles additionally microns version of 3d crosspoint quanta X has also been somewhat underwhelming and what effect any of this has on the dissolving of the Intel micron partnership if any is unknown quick one here mzx T's got power supplies coming out these are see sonic made power supplies as specified by NZXT the PSC's we actually saw them at Computex but they weren't ready yet so they're finally coming to market now and the power supplies are known see sonic platforms they are 80 plus gold rated they use the C Sonic focus plus gold platform and the prices are 125 for the EE 500 140 for the e 650 and then 150 for the e 850 once we have power supply testing up and running we'll take a look at them but that's still a little ways out at least maybe another month or so the key feature here is monitoring software via NZXT it integrates with the cam software and other cam compatible products within that eCos so if you really like cam and the NZXT kraken series product stuff like that and this might be interesting to you to integrate with those other ng XE cam enabled devices but otherwise we will be looking at them eventually it just might be a little while Western Digital is shutting down one of its larger hard drive plants in 2019 so WD has announced the intent to shutter the doors and one of their factories in Malaysia and it's a facility that the company has maintained since 1973 WD intends to decommission the plant by end of calendar year 2019 goes without saying that this comes amidst a decline and demand for client hard drives and mechanical storage following the boom of SSD is especially again in mobile and notebook units WD still has two plants remaining that spread out their hard drive production and also the company has plans to continue to bolster SSD production capabilities expand SMT lines and so forth primarily in other facilities hardware sales for the week as always we like to include these there'll be links in the description below if you're interested in these products but the main on we saw for probably a couple months now we've been waiting for an andy card to be close enough to MSRP because that's a sale now to be included in this segment finally the msi RX 580 is 230 bucks after rebate if you count rebates that gets it to 230 or so bringing it a bit under original MSRP we'll have a link for that below threader for prices this week TR prices hit new lows on amazon with the 1950 ex going for about 700 bucks in the 1920 x for about six hundred and twenty dollars and the 1904 300 this precipitates the threader for to launch if you can wait it might be worth it just to see what happens and how good that platform is if you're actually a serious user of something like thread ripper but if you're more of an enthusiast and you don't mind going with something that will soon be older technology and jokingly obsolete then they're good prices it's just might be worth waiting around to see what happens at this point we don't actually know i'm not being coy it just it might be worth waiting because the next refresh of Rison for thread over should be somewhat significant so those are the sales that are of note we've mentioned nvidia cards for a couple weeks now so I figured we'd show with the the ones coming down in price on the Gian side we've restocked basically everything we restocked the 3d crystal tear down logos that I have right here restocks the blue print shirts have the new black version of the blue print shirt that we're calling chalkboard have the new posters have the mod mats in stock keychains basically everything is back so if you've been waiting to buy stuff because everything was out of stock last few weeks it's back pick it up before it's out of stock again but we're gonna try and keep it in a bit longer this time that said the stuff is really popular so grab it early if you want it that's it for this one subscribe for more go to patreon.com/scishow gamers Nexus I directly go to store Thai cameras access net to pick up any of the many things I just listed as being restocked subscribe for more as I settle thanks for watching I'll see you all next time