Hardware News Recap: Nvidia, AMD, Tariffs, Google, and Asus
0:00 Nvidia Responds to PresentMon Criticisms: Nvidia acknowledges PresentMon as a great tool and is in discussions with Intel to contribute, following criticisms about using its closed-source FrameView for measuring frame generation performance.
0:03 The Importance of Open Source Measurement Tools: The video emphasizes the importance of open-source, collaborative tools like PresentMon for unbiased hardware reviews, as they allow for public validation and prevent vendor lock-in.
0:04 Animation Error: The group believes animation error is still the best way to measure the performance long term; however it is still developing.
0:07 AMD's Upcoming 9000 Series GPUs: AMD plans to reveal more about its Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs near the end of February, potentially stealing momentum from Nvidia's 5070 Ti launch. Expected to launch in March.
0:08 Speculated 9070 series specs: Publication Video Cards reports the 970 XT and 970 are suspected to have 16 GB of gdr6 memory with a 256 bit memory bus and 20 GB per second memory speed. The 9070 XT would have 4096 cores versus the 970s 3584. The boost clocks will be different as well with 2.97GHz versus 2.52GHz respectively.
0:09 AMD Beats Intel in Data Center: For the first time, AMD's data center chips have outsold Intel, generating a record $3.86 billion in revenue (nearly 70% year-over-year gain).
0:09 AMD gaming revenue declines: Gaming Graphics Revenue declined year-over-year as they accelerated channel sellout in preparation for the next gen launch.
0:10 Nvidia Stability Concerns: Stability issues are being reported online for Nvidia's 50 series GPUs, with possible causes including PCIE 5.0 compatibility, a design flaw in Founders Edition cards (causing PCIE signal degradation), or driver issues.
0:11 Driver Rollbacks: With limited drivers, the group mentions testing a partner model that experienced some issues during reboot but were able to be resolved.
0:15 US Tariffs on Imported Chinese Goods: The current administration has issued an executive order putting a 10% tariff on imported Chinese goods (in addition to prior tariffs) which is expected to raise prices of electronics. Specifically tariffs have been planned for computer chips which would affect Taiwan and South Korea.
0:17 Factory Moves: At least one computer hardware factory is investigating opening facilities in Vietnam or Thailand to avoid the tariffs.
0:18 Chinese Tariffs in Response: China is responding with tariffs of its own (particularly fuel, agricultural, and rare earth minerals)
0:19 Google updates AI policies: Google has removed its promise to not use AI for weapons and surveillance.
0:20 Asus's Q-Release Slim Issue: There are reports of a design flaw with Asus's Q-Release Slim motherboard that is resulting in cosmetic damage to the gpus pcie connector and causing cosmetic scratching on the gold pins after multiple removals.
0:24 Asus responds: Asus posted a press release that includes how to use the Q relase Li mechanism along with an illustration about a 2 degree tilt to help with possible issues. Cosmetic damage to the GPU PCIE will not impact performance or functionality.
0:24 Warranty Claims: The presenter brings up concerns asus's warranty history in the even the users install different brands of GPU on the MOBO and then it is not asus's product so less room for warranty claims.
0:28 Asus Price Increases: Asus has increased prices on its 590 and 580 cards.
0:30 MSPR is dead: The original MSRP for the 590s was $2,300 to $3,100 which has since increased to 2530 to $3,410. Original 80s retail price was $1,150 to $1,500 and has increased to12 $164 to $1,650. The lowest tier is $11,000. This may be due to the recent tariffs or related to their foil hat theory of launching devices early even without supply.
0:31:22 Summary: The key release Slim is possibly cosmetic and not a huge concern but that just comes back to the warranty problem.