PCPer Podcast 872: Steam Machine Benchmark Leak, Zen 6 Desktop CPUs May Drop iGPU, Memory Lane, etc.

[00:00:01][music] >> Hello and welcome to the PC Perspective podcast. We are at episode 872. This is being recorded on June 17th, 2026.

[00:00:14]I am Sebastian Peak.

[00:00:16]>> [snorts] >> I remain Jeremy Hellstrom.

[00:00:19]>> I'm Josh Walrath.

[00:00:22]>> [snorts] >> To the end, I'll be Brett Vance Borne.

[00:00:27]>> And then what?

[00:00:29]>> After the end, I'll be something else.

[00:00:31]>> Okay.

[00:00:31]>> Brett Vandenberg.

[00:00:33]>> That that is one of the choices, yes.

[00:00:35]>> Some someone who may or may not have ever existed, but Brett is a regular now. It's it's it's kind of weird. It's like [clears throat] you turn on YouTube and there he is for the second week in a row.

[00:00:47]>> Mhm. Tie breaker corner.

[00:00:49]Know what I'm saying?

[00:00:51]>> Mhm.

[00:00:52]>> No.

[00:00:52]>> Oh, there's one.

[00:00:55]>> [laughter] >> What number we got again? I forgot.

[00:01:00]>> 872.

[00:01:01]So, we're going to get to some housekeeping here at the top of the show. Patreon is a platform that allows people to give their hard-earned money to creators who otherwise would have none. And you can go to patreon.com/pcper and try to bring balance to the force.

[00:01:21]You know, you have money, we want that money, there's a transaction that can happen to you know, kind of even those two things out.

[00:01:29]>> Sebastian.

[00:01:31]>> There are so few YouTubers out there doing tech anymore.

[00:01:35]Am I right?

[00:01:36]>> I don't know.

[00:01:37]>> All right.

[00:01:38]>> At least not maybe a small amount of sarcasm. Small sarcasm.

[00:01:43]>> Uh Brett, do you want to do a camera camera two on Brett? Uh Patreon update.

[00:01:47]>> So, we're vying for an ever smaller piece of your attention and the piece of the just a small piece of the uh, whatever you can spare financially to keep uh the ship afloat, virtual ship afloat uh, of the great PC Perspective Podcast that's been going, well, for a long, long time.

[00:02:07]>> 2006 >> would greatly appreciate your support, continued support. Now, we have a few names. We have a few cuz we name names here. We do. We name names. Um, the first name I'm going to name is is I think it's called Trucknar. Now, there's no K in Trucknar, although it sounds like there's a K in Trucknar, but I do kind of like the name.

[00:02:27]>> Is he from the hill people?

[00:02:30]>> Well, I was thinking I was thinking something maybe out of a disaster movie or so, you know, some sort of apocalypse movie. That's one of the one of the villains, one of the villains' henchmen. I can imagine their name is Trucknar and, you know, maybe they run over people with a truck or something or they, you know, do something like that. That's kind of my imagination there.

[00:02:47]>> That's more Transformers, really.

[00:02:49]>> Yeah.

[00:02:50]And then there's then there's Bruno who is, you know, who is an entertainer. So, Bruno is now sponsoring us. So, thank you, Bruno.

[00:02:58]Much appreciated. And finally, spinning spinning his claws tonight is DJ Lobster. Um I hope that we get some very hot hot tracks from DJ Lobster. I'll send those to Sebastian. I'm sure he'll use them to back the podcast intro or at least the outro. Uh, we do have a standard intro that we use, but maybe on the outro if DJ Lobster throws that in. I know Josh, there's a special shout out coming from you. Uh >> Mhm.

[00:03:26]Yeah, [snorts] Trent McDonald's, otherwise known as Trent McD, no relation to Sonny D. And he certainly doesn't have nearly as much vitamin C. You know what I'm saying?

[00:03:36]Anyway, he gave us some extra money for a shout out. Oddly enough, I I know Trent.

[00:03:43]He's a statistician. I used to work with him. And you know, he listens to our podcast while while driving his uh vehicle around on long distance trips.

[00:03:53]And uh sadly uh his wife uh also listens to them. So, uh shout out to Mary uh because she has to deal with a couple hours of us talking about tech against her will.

[00:04:08]But, thanks, Trent.

[00:04:11]>> Well, she's she's into our personalities, maybe.

[00:04:14]>> Well, yes. She thinks she were very funny.

[00:04:17]>> Mhm. Or we're the funniest >> She tells my wife that Oh, yeah. They're funny.

[00:04:24]>> [laughter] >> But, this is a totally different podcast. It's called Tech Against Her Will.

[00:04:29]>> They're so interesting.

[00:04:31]>> [snorts] [laughter] >> I mean, hopefully we're nice to her before and we just give her a good nap very quickly.

[00:04:37]>> Yeah. It is something to fall asleep to.

[00:04:39]>> So, then we have to have NPR NPR vocal tones from And now on our next story, Nvidia announced a record quarter this semester and they have made a tremendous amount of money, which they are spending uh on themselves.

[00:04:56]>> Oh, no. But, you've got to like interrupt that with like several billion dollars. And they are making great vocal tones.

[00:05:03]>> tones.

[00:05:05]It's it's been a while. It's been a while since I've listened to NPR, you know. But, at least hey, they're they're kind of self-funded now. Strong work.

[00:05:12]>> Excuse me, Josh. Uh do you have uh some [clears throat] food you can talk about this week?

[00:05:18]>> I don't have any food to talk about.

[00:05:21]There there is You know, I didn't make any sweaty balls >> week in a row, Josh.

[00:05:25]>> You know what? There's no specials. You know, when there's no specials, it's just that I I I had the I had the >> at home and take a picture of it.

[00:05:33]>> Oh, that's a good idea.

[00:05:35]>> Yeah.

[00:05:35]>> You know, the other night I did have a pulled pork sandwich from place called The Goat.

[00:05:41]But, I did But, it was Monday. I didn't think about it.

[00:05:43]>> Take a If only we had cameras in our pockets >> If only.

[00:05:49]>> that >> take pictures that could be shared online almost instantly.

[00:05:53]>> I do. I just feel weird >> Take a picture of the Monday or the Tuesday food item and just keep that in your back pocket. I don't mean the food item, I mean the picture.

[00:06:00]>> I just need to carry a backpack with one of those, you know, expandable ones with the slide out and they have the T-bar with the with the with the >> Give like a rack. You start doing like motion photography around [snorts] your >> Not weird at all.

[00:06:15]>> Yeah.

[00:06:16]>> That actually would be less weird than that.

[00:06:18]>> me. I need to a proper focus on them.

[00:06:21]>> like, "Ooh, this is a good looking sandwich right here.

[00:06:25]>> Oh, don't talk to it.

[00:06:28]>> Moving on to news and we have to talk about the Steam Machine. Hopefully we get to talk about the Steam Machine a lot very soon as I attempt to load this page here. There we go. From PC Guide, Steam Machine one step closer to launch as benchmarks surface online.

[00:06:47]Now, before we get into the benchmark performance using everyone's favorite CPU performance benchmark, I think that it's pretty safe to say and I'm not under embargo, we don't have one of these things.

[00:06:56]Seems pretty safe to assume that these are being reviewed right now as benchmarks start leaking to the internet because of course people do not bother doing stuff offline when they have embargoed products on hand.

[00:07:08]Geekbench numbers here. Single core 2334 and test two was 2282.

[00:07:15]That is a significantly lower than Apple silicon, I'm sure, Brett. Multi-core only only 7316 on the first run, 7392 on run number two.

[00:07:26]Steam Deck, by comparison, slower, oddly enough.

[00:07:31]So, 1353 single, 4573 multi. So, it is not quite double the speed, but quite a bit faster than a Steam Deck. That's probably a good sign.

[00:07:42]>> for reference, I just pulled up a MacBook Air 13-in M3 from 2024. Single core score of just over 3,000 and a multi-core score of almost 12,000.

[00:07:53]>> So, yeah, expect uh Steam Machine more leak benchmarks to come soon. Hopefully 3DMark so we can see what the gaming performance is like.

[00:08:02]>> That'll be fun.

[00:08:03]>> Yes.

[00:08:04]Let's move on to the next news story.

[00:08:06]This might make some people a little frustrated. Zen 6, the new desktop architecture that's coming next year.

[00:08:13]The rumor is they [snorts] are going to add an integrated NPU because the desktop Zen 5 does not have that right now. It's just some of the mobile products that do.

[00:08:23]And they are going to have to make room for that. So, what is a big waste of silicon in the current one?

[00:08:29]>> What?

[00:08:29]>> Uh it's uh GPUs. It Nobody needs an integrated GPU.

[00:08:32]>> Yes. Let's drop the GPU because investors want NPU, right? I'm sure >> Right.

[00:08:39]>> real-world users would rather have an iGPU for convenience and to save money when graphics cards have never been more expensive than they are now, but anyway, NPU tops. That's what sells.

[00:08:52]>> will solve that for you. Just have it run on an AI system.

[00:08:56]>> You just need a speaker and it can tell you what's on the screen.

[00:09:00]>> Yes.

[00:09:01]Perfect. It can describe it in great detail.

[00:09:04]>> Mhm. You are looking at 144 hertz of gaming perfection.

[00:09:09]>> Thank you.

[00:09:11]>> You know what? There was something to be said about this story. It's well created.

[00:09:15]>> You're looking at DLSS 5.

[00:09:18]>> Mhm.

[00:09:18]>> Oh, okay. I'd rather not have a monitor then.

[00:09:20]>> DLSS by Infocom.

[00:09:23]>> Okay, the source, as reported by videocards.com, said that Zen 6 gains the NPU, loses the iGPU. What else does it gain? Well, the new platform will have CU DEM support and uh oh, uh still no native USB 4.

[00:09:38]>> Yay!

[00:09:40]That's spectacular.

[00:09:42]>> But, we could have core counts up to 24 instead of 16 on desktop. So, that's that is exciting.

[00:09:48]>> mean, I guess there's space.

[00:09:50]>> Yeah. Well, they're counting on a die shrink, perhaps?

[00:09:53]>> A die shrink and the [snorts] new like smaller cores.

[00:09:57]>> Mhm.

[00:09:57]>> And >> Yeah, and the NPU, I think, takes up less space than the iGPU does.

[00:10:03]>> Yeah, cuz, you know, iGPU has all >> kinds of things, like, you know, display port and HDMI and all these other outlet things that >> USB 4.

[00:10:11]>> require and it's complex and it you know, nobody uses it. Nobody, except me, when I use the audio out on the integrated GPU, but that causes other problems, too. But, you know, there you go.

[00:10:26]>> Yeah.

[00:10:26]>> On-chip decoding.

[00:10:28]Video decoding, anyone? No.

[00:10:32]>> How many How many still uses Intel Quick Step? Is that what the Quick >> Quick Sync.

[00:10:37]>> Quick Sync. You still use that?

[00:10:38]>> Quick Sync.

[00:10:39]>> Is it Well, some applications, I think, made use of it. You You want some kind of GPU acceleration for stuff like video transformation.

[00:10:46]>> using Wide Eye, I really count on it.

[00:10:49]>> Mhm.

[00:10:50]>> fast >> Cuz yeah, that that's another one that lasted a long time.

[00:10:58]>> Mhm.

[00:10:59]Hey, where did uh the other story go?

[00:11:02]>> Mhm.

[00:11:02]>> Oh, I see. You want to talk about the small story. Okay.

[00:11:05]>> I did.

[00:11:06]>> Okay. So, what I wanted to continue complaining about AMD.

[00:11:10]>> Okay.

[00:11:11]>> Okay. Do it in whatever order you like.

[00:11:12]>> While we were talking about but >> will do that in a moment. We'll complain more about AMD in a moment. Let's talk about uh Intel and Nvidia.

[00:11:20]Because, if you recall, and I'm forgetting the name Skull something, Intel had a >> That's Skull Canyon.

[00:11:27]>> Skull Canyon.

[00:11:28]>> Skull Lake.

[00:11:28]>> Where it was Intel CPU cores and AMD Radeon graphics.

[00:11:32]>> Skull Trail?

[00:11:33]>> No, it's called it's called Canyon.

[00:11:35]Pretty sure.

[00:11:35]>> I know but it was called that one. I never ended up inheriting that test system but the >> Well, it wasn't supported for very long.

[00:11:43]>> No, it was not.

[00:11:44]>> That was a Raja thing. He worked on that when he was still with Radeon and then oddly enough right after that he went to work at Intel instead.

[00:11:52]>> Strange.

[00:11:53]>> So, yeah. Almost like he got poached or something while he was over at Intel.

[00:11:58]And it's uh coming. A new line of processors featuring integrated graphics solutions by Nvidia.

[00:12:05]And the company is going to possibly introduce these by CES 2028.

[00:12:12]I wonder if their >> iGPU take up takes up less space.

[00:12:16]Maybe.

[00:12:17]>> I'm a little curious about this because Nvidia seems to to be very forward-thinking with the CPU architecture. They're embracing arm.

[00:12:27]>> Yeah, maybe maybe they are expecting an AI bubble collapse and they're trying to get as many products out there as possible.

[00:12:37]>> And come on, we'll give you an iGPU but you think we're going to give you an NPU on a discount? No. AI [clears throat] is our bread and butter for as long as it lasts. You don't get anything for free to add on there.

[00:12:51]>> This might be a good time to talk about the past.

[00:12:55]>> Hmm.

[00:12:56]>> Cuz Brett was sharing some images in our Discord staff chat earlier today.

[00:13:02]>> True. Maybe yesterday.

[00:13:03]>> Yeah, and they were just talking about those images.

[00:13:07]>> Wait, what?

[00:13:08]>> And um Yeah, the it's the ice laser hair removal that really caught my eye.

[00:13:13]>> Okay, yes. So, picture number one here from Oh, that was a couple days ago. All right, so here's a picture that Brett shared with us. He had been looking through some old emails for some reason, and here was one from I think 2024.

[00:13:30]>> Yeah, this was from February 27th, uh 2024. This is a Newegg email, uh cuz I'm on their email list. Um and I think uh Sebastian, you can definitely point out what it the audience is probably more interested in is the uh RAM.

[00:13:45]>> Yeah, on this particular page, in addition to a home ice laser hair removal system for $68.59, you could buy 64 GB of DDR5 for $189, or if you're on a budget, 32 gigs of DDR4 for just $69.99.

[00:14:09]>> Nice. Drop of the mic.

[00:14:12]>> Yeah, so that But that was what we were used to. It was just commodity stuff.

[00:14:15]Like they couldn't really sell this older memory, and the the 1 TB SSDs were Nobody wanted those. They were super cheap. You could get at one point a Samsung 1 TB SSD as low as $60 on Amazon.

[00:14:28]>> Well, not only that, they they bundled SSD 1 TB SSDs with like everything.

[00:14:32]>> Yeah, sure. For free, yeah.

[00:14:34]>> Yeah, it literally came with everything.

[00:14:36]Mhm. Look at the You're buying a 1 TB SSD? Here, have one for free.

[00:14:40]>> So, this next image, Sebastian, as you just pulled it up, look at the one in the upper left-hand corner.

[00:14:45]4x4 4 TB $209.99.

[00:14:50]>> So, that's a 4 TB NVMe drive.

[00:14:55]>> And that is observing Ryan's Law quite well.

[00:14:59]>> That's almost half of Ryan's Law.

[00:15:01]>> Yeah, that's half. That's 5 cents a gig.

[00:15:04]>> And you see a couple of different like different spec 1 TB ones. You have the the high-end brand Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB, $102.99.

[00:15:16]>> Wow.

[00:15:17]>> Now, go to Amazon and find out how much you'd have to pay for it right now.

[00:15:20]>> Right.

[00:15:21]>> Yeah, really. That's that's that's a good product. That's still a good product.

[00:15:25]>> Red Plus for 4 TB for $99?

[00:15:28]>> I'm pretty sure that's about three times that much now.

[00:15:31]>> But I >> I bet you it's going to be more than three times.

[00:15:33]>> I bet I bet it's something like that.

[00:15:35]But the the bottom left the the like the saver package the with the KingSpec 1 TB under what was it? $89? 90 bucks?

[00:15:43]Anyway.

[00:15:44]It's uh people think we're making this stuff up sometimes. And you know, people are going to look back on this and go, "Oh, these guys were >> not right about this." There's There's other things we were right about, but this isn't This isn't one of them.

[00:15:55]>> And when when they return when the prices return to normal and they're two to three times these historic prices, then you'll know that you've been shafted.

[00:16:03]You have been duped into thinking, "Oh, $200 is a good price for a 1 TB SSD."

[00:16:11]No, look at this price history. The new normal. Jeremy shared uh a price history for this T-Force Vulcan Alpha DDR5 kit. It's 32 gig kit.

[00:16:20]S- you know, 6,000 CL 38. Nothing fancy.

[00:16:25]>> discount DDR5 6,000 kit.

[00:16:29]>> So, July >> horizon, but >> July of last year, $79.49.

[00:16:37]Then it jumped to $500 by May of this year. And it's remained stable at $499.49.

[00:16:44]You can throw out that average cuz it's, you know, looking at that lowest ever price.

[00:16:48]Just look at this. It's like, "Oh, let's keep raising it, raising it, raising it.

[00:16:51]How much will the market bear? Oh, $500."

[00:16:54]>> Oh, and a little bit of a kick there at the end just cuz we can.

[00:16:58]>> Yeah, just because. Yeah.

[00:17:02]What was the other one you looked at?

[00:17:03]Some storage?

[00:17:04]>> Uh I think it was the Samsung 990 Pro.

[00:17:07]>> Yeah, the 1 TB >> the one that was in the ad.

[00:17:09]>> Look at that. This [laughter] is July of last uh 2023, $60. Like, please take this thing.

[00:17:16]And then it went up to 320 by April of that down a little bit.

[00:17:21]>> Yeah, cuz people aren't buying it. Just like they weren't in the beginning.

[00:17:24]>> the This is the 1 TB PCIe 4.

[00:17:27]I mean, they probably could have pushed this a little bit more with back, you know, what was it a few months ago when PCIe 5, etc., etc. It's not the top It's top of the line anymore in 1 TB.

[00:17:39]>> No, cuz they have the 9100 now and >> Oh, that's true, too. It's been pushed down.

[00:17:44]>> Yeah.

[00:17:45]>> You know, I was really debating like last August, should I get, you know, I I I I I bought 64 gigs of memory for a test machine and that was $189. It's kind of expensive. You know, do I really Can I really afford another 220 for a next storage 4 TB NVMe 4.0 drive? No, that just No.

[00:18:07]>> Wait for the price to go down.

[00:18:09]>> Yeah, I'll just It's It's eventually going to go on sale again.

[00:18:13]>> [laughter] >> Optimism on this show?

[00:18:17]>> 199 now.

[00:18:18]>> Yeah.

[00:18:20]So happy.

[00:18:24]Thank you for that uh diversion, Sebastian. I found that >> A little little jaunt down memory lane.

[00:18:29]You know, in fact, the glasses that we looked at that with are not rose-tinted.

[00:18:33]No, they are crystal clear on how good we had it.

[00:18:38]>> Next, back on the topic of AMD processors, they seem to have silently removed memory encryption from their consumer CPUs. We don't know if it was supposed to be there all along.

[00:18:51]It's a very interesting saga. I was reading about this the other night.

[00:18:54]AGESA 1.2.7.0 seems to have changed a flag for consumer parts.

[00:19:01]>> [snorts] >> Yeah.

[00:19:02]And And it's literally a flag and AMD the the the person who figured this out cuz they were doing an a security audit on a Linux box, of course. Was like all of a sudden, wait.

[00:19:13]I don't have uh transparent secure memory encryption on anymore.

[00:19:17]Why don't I? And as you do, you post to GitHub.

[00:19:21]And some engineers from AMD came back and said, oh, it's we're probably going to be the motherboard.

[00:19:28]Unfortunately, this person could reach out to MSI and ASUS and talk to them and say, yeah, no, we did the testing and if we don't update our AGESA, it works. And we upgraded our AGESA, it stops. [snorts] And that's not us.

[00:19:44]I mean, it's part of our BIOS, but that wasn't our coding. We didn't put the flag on.

[00:19:50]And so, he posted back to say to the GitHub repository, hey, you know, we've done some testing, literally talked to two of the motherboard manufacturers out there and they're saying, yeah, it wasn't us.

[00:20:01]To which the engineers were obviously forced to reply, sorry, we can't comment on this any further.

[00:20:08]So, yeah, it's it's AMD's wonderful advertising agency at it again.

[00:20:17]Because I mean, as of 2019, you started to see it come in to the consumer level stuff.

[00:20:23]It it'd been on Epic, it'd been on Ryzen Pro because that's not a feature that's a necessity.

[00:20:30]But it started to come out on the consumer level stuff, probably because well, why wouldn't you add this?

[00:20:37]We we've got, you know, not just Rowhammer and a couple of the other ones, but just the ability of if you can shut a machine off, get a hold of it, grab the memory and read it off of a cold boot, that's not wonderful, but if it's encrypted, then hey, you know, you're offering protection to your customers.

[00:20:55]Choose AMD, we're more secure.

[00:20:59]To suddenly flip the switch and just disable it.

[00:21:03]And for the engineers to not even know it happened because they went from trying to be relatively helpful because I mean, hey, anyone the first thing you do is try and blame someone else.

[00:21:15]But when you come back and prove that it's not someone else, you don't immediately move to no comment.

[00:21:21]So then of course there's been no comment from AMD as of this point.

[00:21:26]So it's it's not a bug, it's something that they did.

[00:21:31]And if you haven't updated your BIOS lately, I mean, you might want to for other reasons, but AGESA 1.2.7.0 apparently will flip that switch and you don't got it anymore unless you're on a Ryzen Pro or an Epic.

[00:21:48]It's just why?

[00:21:51]>> You know, they should they should release a card at Best Buy where you can scratch off the back, put a code in your BIOS, and you can re-enable that functionality.

[00:22:01]>> Brilliance.

[00:22:03]Brilliant.

[00:22:05]No one's ever thought of this before, Josh. You need to get on this right away.

[00:22:09]>> Next million dollar idea for a 8 billion dollar company.

[00:22:14]>> [laughter] [clears throat] >> Success is going to their head, obviously.

[00:22:18]>> It has.

[00:22:20]In our next news story from TechPowerUp, who by the way has the in-depth day one review of the new cooler, Noctua has officially officially introduced their NH-L9i series of AIO liquid CPU coolers. Yes, they have those iconic fans. No, I don't know why anybody would complain about the color if you're buying a Noctua product, but that was actually one of the negatives at the end of this review was the color.

[00:22:48]>> I do find that strange.

[00:22:50]>> I do.

[00:22:50]>> You know what? It could It could be worse. It could be meconium green. Look it up. Okay?

[00:22:57]>> All right. I don't want to look it up.

[00:22:58]So >> You don't.

[00:22:59]>> I'm I'm not going to get into all the individual tests, but basically it was an extremely quiet cooler. About as quiet as I've ever tested for a liquid cooler. They've done a lot of noise damping for the pump, which is important.

[00:23:17]I mean, we know the fans are quiet, but the pump they uh they really have that under control. This Asetek design that they've been working with.

[00:23:25]And the relative performance with their Intel plus AMD max RPM noise normalized results were the best of of everything that they've tested.

[00:23:39]Performance per dollar is the worst of anything they've tested. So, the conclusion is that it's very expensive.

[00:23:49]They said the color scheme will not appeal to everyone, and it lacks display and ARGB lighting for those interested.

[00:23:55]Also, the fan wiring setup not ideal.

[00:23:58]>> Everything else Noctua is not the place to go for that kind of thing.

[00:24:02]>> No, that's not their thing. That's not their thing. That makes sense.

[00:24:04]>> It's not their thing.

[00:24:06]>> I have to take issue with you. Feel free to rebut this, but the fact that it has no ARGB is probably a plus for a lot of people, especially if they're buying a Noctua system.

[00:24:17]>> Yeah, exactly. We're on the same page with this. We really are.

[00:24:19]>> And here's the funny part. The under under the pros they put lack of inbuilt display or ARGB lighting keeps things focused on performance. Under the negatives, lacks display and ARGB lighting. What?

[00:24:32]Okay.

[00:24:32]Anyway, other than the confused conclusion here, it's $250. So, you can definitely you can definitely get that kind of performance Well, >> Honestly, those three fans are essentially free at that price.

[00:24:46]>> Their their build sample was in one of the I got to say attractively wood trimmed cases. There is definitely something to be had with the Noctua brown inside of a, you know, one of those very living room stained wood.

[00:25:03]>> Yes, you know.

[00:25:04]>> Yeah, you put the and they have a green plant on the side.

[00:25:07]>> It's like being outside. It's like you've got it is browns and greens and >> You know, it it it adds warmth to the room, not just from the wood, but also the exhaust.

[00:25:19]>> Also the exhaust.

[00:25:20]>> Cuz I mean the green's coming from the the light, but no, the the Lian Li Cool 217 with the walnut and a bunch of Noctua fans.

[00:25:30]I just didn't splurge on the bloody wooden motherboard.

[00:25:35]>> But did did you at least get the fake copper? Though.

[00:25:39]>> Ooh.

[00:25:40]I mean, who's going to afford real copper in this this current economy?

[00:25:45]>> That ASUS ROG.

[00:25:46]>> That's that's an that's an Adam Carolla joke. You know, what does a poor guy and a rich guy have in common?

[00:25:53]They both know the current price of copper.

[00:25:57]>> [laughter] [snorts] >> All right.

[00:26:01]>> All right. Here you >> We're we're just ringing in the ancient hits tonight, aren't we?

[00:26:06]>> Okay, let's talk about Intel Arc. It's mandatory Arc coverage here at PC per and Arc A3 extreme. MSI the claw claw 8 EX AI plus.

[00:26:25]It's coming. It's powered by the Arc A3 extreme and extreme is right because this thing has a list price of $1,800 for an Intel Arc powered gaming handheld.

[00:26:39]But it's got co-pilot, so.

[00:26:41]>> Wow.

[00:26:42]>> Oh.

[00:26:43]>> Who is this for?

[00:26:44]>> run co-pilot or is it still, you know, off the web?

[00:26:49]>> The cloud. [snorts] >> Oh, gamers. Gamers with a lot of disposable income, I guess.

[00:26:55]>> It has IPS-level performance from its full HD panel.

[00:27:01]A 1 TB DRAM-less SSD.

[00:27:07]>> So, that's what, 200 bucks right there? 180 maybe?

[00:27:11]>> Exactly. Is that low-power DDR5 I see?

[00:27:15]>> 8533.

[00:27:17]We've got to have that for the Arc G3 extreme performance.

[00:27:21]>> Mhm.

[00:27:22]>> Uh yeah, this is expensive, but >> not, you know, need to wear oven mitts while you're playing it.

[00:27:27]>> Well, you're buying a gaming PC that you can fit in the palm of your hand. Palm.

[00:27:34]>> Mhm.

[00:27:34]>> Runs Palm OS at 140 pixels square.

[00:27:38]>> Mhm.

[00:27:39]>> In an emulator.

[00:27:40]Probably.

[00:27:42]>> Well, yeah, but with upscaling now, DLSS is just going to make that or sorry, what is Arc's?

[00:27:48]>> Uh XeSS.

[00:27:50]>> XeSS. Oh, right. Yes. XeSS.

[00:27:54]>> [snorts] >> So, uh Sebastian, do you ever You You probably owned a Palm, didn't you?

[00:27:59]>> Oh, yeah. I was a Palm guy before the iPhone came out.

[00:28:02]>> It was a swipe. It was a you know, fast swiping. You know, you could just swipe.

[00:28:05]>> learned the Palm shorthand.

[00:28:08]>> Ooh.

[00:28:11]So, your right hand is a lot softer than your left.

[00:28:14]>> Oh, not for that reason, but >> [laughter] >> moving to the next story.

[00:28:19]>> Where are the calluses you were saying?

[00:28:23]>> IQUNIX, if that's how this is pronounced, launches Ghost in the Shell collaboration keyboards.

[00:28:31]>> I like the look of these.

[00:28:33]>> It's cool-looking. Even if you're not a fan of Ghost in the Shell 1995 anime film.

[00:28:38]And I'm sure it's a whole It's a whole franchise now, but look at these keyboards. They're just They're really different-looking.

[00:28:47]Yeah. And this is all This is like CNC machined aluminum and PBT double shot keycaps except for these translucent ones, which I think are just ABS.

[00:28:57]But then the the whole construction of them, I would have to talk to Kent. He's not on the podcast this week, but uh it's got the super fast polling. They have to 8 kHz polling on these modern gaming keyboards now. These kids are crazy.

[00:29:11]>> if you were going to type this fast as they did in Ghost in the Shell, you would need that sort of polling, but it doesn't look like that one.

[00:29:18]>> Oh, and by the way, Hall [snorts] effect Key Tok Nova switches.

[00:29:23]>> Oh.

[00:29:23]>> One of the most talked about Hall effect magnetic switches in the enthusiast keyboard community, they say. But yeah, that's >> Unicomp send us one over for talking about it.

[00:29:34]>> sometimes that's what I'm hoping.

[00:29:36]>> going to ask.

[00:29:37]>> Oh, yeah. Okay.

[00:29:39]>> Sometimes I I fill a bathtub full of milk and drop myself in it with that music going on and then I shower and all the milk just flakes off. But too bad, unfortunately, uh you know, takes about 3 days for that milk to harden for it to flake off like that.

[00:29:58]>> Okay. And this is why >> Anyway, >> people listen to this podcast >> [snorts] >> for whatever that was.

[00:30:05]>> I I don't know if you've not seen the very beginning of the original Ghost in the Shell.

[00:30:10]>> Yes.

[00:30:12]Yes, and it was a good start, Josh, but it was a poor ending.

[00:30:15]>> Ah, well.

[00:30:17]>> Well, that's that's life. You started strong, but >> We all die at the end. Spoiler.

[00:30:24]>> Okay.

[00:30:25]In our next news story, Commodore, which was recently resurrected, of course, now is into this whole uh light phone, not dumb phone necessarily, but just light. You don't want to use your smartphone too much.

[00:30:40]You're starting to understand that it's an addiction like anything else.

[00:30:43]And it's it's not good for you. So, why not cut back using what looks like a brown and off-white flip phone. It'll be right at home in your Nokdu a build.

[00:30:57]Goodbye AI doom scrolling. Welcome back snapping the phone shut to hang up. Now, people who have the Razer smartphone like myself already do that, but if you don't Look at this. This is Linux based side loading.

[00:31:15]No, I don't >> I think it also comes in a gray.

[00:31:19]So, I was actually checking this out earlier and they brag about the fact that it runs pretty much everything Android, but they say like 95% of Android.

[00:31:28]>> it it runs Linux, but it's Sailfish OS, yeah.

[00:31:31]>> It is Yeah, it's not itself Android, which is interesting. So >> Hey, it's got that new 48 megapixel Sony sensor.

[00:31:39]A built-in FM radio for some reason and uh >> Cuz >> Bluetooth used to be >> Yeah, aptX apparently.

[00:31:46]>> That's nice.

[00:31:47]>> Yeah.

[00:31:48]>> Yeah.

[00:31:48]>> What chipset is in this thing?

[00:31:52]>> Uh did you mention the IPS display? You did. I think you did mention the IPS display.

[00:31:57]>> I did not, but it the inside of the phone Is there a picture of it? It actually does have a touchscreen. It's disabled by default, but you can use the inner screen like a regular smartphone if you really really want to.

[00:32:10]>> The birthplace of Nokia.

[00:32:12]>> They actually brag about the lack of usability in certain in certain cases like they're forcing you to use uh standard old-style key-based texting uh methods.

[00:32:25]>> a T9.

[00:32:26]>> Yeah, the T9 texting.

[00:32:29]Um just so that you don't you aren't tempted you know, to constantly be texting.

[00:32:37]>> GSMarena again. Uh it's a MediaTek Helio G81 and >> Okay.

[00:32:43]>> with 4 gigs of RAM.

[00:32:45]It's expandable storage because it comes with a microSD card that you can plug in and, you know, upgrade to a larger one.

[00:32:55]>> Is >> And a 1,050 550 milliamp removable battery.

[00:33:00]>> That's what I was going to ask. So, this really is a throwback. Memory card slot and a removable battery.

[00:33:06]This is great.

[00:33:06]>> They They may have a market for this.

[00:33:08]>> They I mean, there is a market for these light phones. I was looking into these just for myself and for my son, actually, and it's Hey, you know what? They're like $400 for some of them. You're not getting a whole lot.

[00:33:20]This thing is kind of expensive, but it's still pretty cool.

[00:33:22]>> Well, Davina Duckworth, this is sort of This is running the old Nokia operating system.

[00:33:28]So, this is sort of a continuation of Nokia. It's just you have to be addicted to Commodore.

[00:33:33]Because it ships with some Commodore games.

[00:33:37]And snake, I assume.

[00:33:39]I mean I just The one I don't understand.

[00:33:43]So, honestly, the prices aren't that.

[00:33:45]500 bucks to 640 or 650 for the flagship.

[00:33:51]But, the flagship has a 24K gold plated >> Yeah, that's just >> C3 gold button.

[00:33:57]>> No. I >> Why?

[00:33:59]>> Yeah, I know.

[00:34:01]And the price is high and then stuff like that is is a turn off, but it nice to see a flip phone smartphone. Like, my first smartphone was this Motorola MPx200.

[00:34:14]Which I One of the reasons I selected this back in the day was it had a full-size SD card slot.

[00:34:20]>> Yeah.

[00:34:21]>> Not just a not just a micro.

[00:34:23]So, and unfortunately, though, the the screen was not a touchscreen. So, there's a lot of uh manual scrolling involved to operate the Windows Mobile operating system there.

[00:34:36]But still, I like the idea of a a small flip phone solution, even if T9 is kind of >> And the call me branding is entertaining because I mean, it's come back from the dead more times than we have.

[00:34:52]>> [laughter] >> Yes.

[00:34:54]Speaking of folding things and Motorola, oh wait, no, that's not it's not a Moto phone. This is a Logitech folding mouse.

[00:35:02]>> Yeah, but it looks like a phone. You weren't wrong about that.

[00:35:07]>> It really does. I I think it was amusing. So glad [clears throat] to post it.

[00:35:13]>> [laughter] >> The Mobi >> Yes.

[00:35:15]>> The Mobi fold.

[00:35:17]>> Actually, Jeremy, your first sentence really spoke to me when you talked about like that tiny mouse you have squirreled away in your bag. I'm like, oh my god, I have that. I have one of those that I carry around me. I don't know if it works anymore.

[00:35:29]I don't even know >> Are you going to Are you going to use a touch pad? No, you're not going to use that damn touch pad. You're going to pull out your little mouse and see if it works or not.

[00:35:38]And I actually, as I was writing this, did and I'm glad to say that my ancient little Logitech one is still kicking. It still works good enough, but they do die because generally they're in an outside pocket, they get bashed around, they get smashed, the battery hasn't been charged and Oh right, I'm supposed to charge that battery every once in a while, aren't I?

[00:36:00]>> But yours doesn't have a double or a triple A battery that you pop into it.

[00:36:04]>> It it literally does have a a rechargeable triple A in it.

[00:36:08]>> [laughter] >> So, and I and when I was testing it, I'm like, okay, I get it works. I'll throw that in the charger and uh get it back up. So, the Mobi fold is 80 bucks, which is a little bit pricey for one that you just fold up and throw in your bag.

[00:36:26]But if you like the the old Microsoft Arc Mouse, it's kind of got that same feel to it.

[00:36:33]The buttons are touch pads.

[00:36:38]Obviously, it's too small to actually really click. So, it's haptic sensors.

[00:36:43]And the scroll wheel in the middle is touch sensitive. And for some reason, I don't understand why they didn't actually use a physical switch to turn the mouse off when you click it closed.

[00:37:01]It's it's actually using a bit of software. It's Cuz if you're going to want properly use it, you're going to want the Logitech current software on it. So, you snap it closed and sensors say, "Oh, it's closed. We're going to go into battery saving mode."

[00:37:17]So, seriously, it's just one more thing to fail on it. And I'm sure that it's AI-powered to tell it when to shut off.

[00:37:25]But, at 79 g with about a month's charge on it, and if you plug it in for like a couple of minutes, you'll get another 22 hours out of it. So, it's got a nice battery that's going to instantly charge to the point where you're not going to have to worry about it until the next day when you actually have to worry about it. So, at some point you need to charge it. But, I think it's an interesting idea. I I wish it was a little cheaper for a mouse that I would literally just get to throw in a bag and use when I need it.

[00:37:57]>> Mhm.

[00:37:57]>> But, it's an interesting idea. And hey, if we were in a different economy, I wouldn't even blink at this.

[00:38:04]Uh I do like the idea.

[00:38:07]>> points out what isn't pricey nowadays.

[00:38:10]There's a >> You remember the Surface Pro laptop that had this hinge?

[00:38:14]>> Yeah.

[00:38:14]>> There was that gap between the keyboard and the screen when you fold it closed.

[00:38:20]>> Mhm. Interesting. I I know that you've also picked the beigiest color that they tried to make it look like.

[00:38:28]I kind of like calling it the color of that color.

[00:38:30]I actually was weirdly attracted to it as well.

[00:38:33]>> Something weird about it.

[00:38:34]>> in sand.

[00:38:35]>> It comes in sand.

[00:38:36]>> comes in all the names of the colors are great.

[00:38:40]>> It's everywhere.

[00:38:42]Moving to a story from videocards.com, Corsair GPU power bridge rated for up to 105° C melts on RTX 4090 Founders Edition. Now, if you follow some of the people on Twitter that I follow or X, whatever it is, you'll see almost daily updates about melted 12-V high-power connectors on things.

[00:39:06]And it's just it never ends. It's almost like the connector itself is the problem and not the cable and not the adapter >> or you installing it wrong.

[00:39:20]>> Right, the fact that you can install it wrong is uh >> And there's that, too. Your your case is holding it wrong.

[00:39:26]>> Right.

[00:39:28]I'm sorry, your case [laughter] wasn't made in the post-12-V high-power era.

[00:39:32]>> It's not made by Apple, Josh. Come on.

[00:39:35]>> No. [laughter] I think it was Fractal Design. I'm not 100% sure, but I do remember having an exchange with a PR person right after the launch of I think it was the 4090.

[00:39:49]And I was using the adapter that Nvidia supplied to review it because I didn't have an ATX 3.1 power supply.

[00:39:58]>> right. Yeah. Mhm.

[00:39:59]>> And they messaged me and said, "Oh, hey, by the way, we noticed that you had a review of the 4090. Can you Could you possibly measure how much space, how much clearance you need for that thing to arc gracefully?"

[00:40:14]Because they were trying to figure out if a case they already had designed was going to even be compatible with it. So, I went and measured it. I'm like, "Yeah, it looks like it takes at least like an inch and a half to >> And they didn't have one of those >> No, they said they had not been briefed on that. They didn't have a prototype or anything. So, it I feel like it's >> of thing would never be in the spec.

[00:40:36]That would never be >> said it wasn't.

[00:40:38]>> Yeah.

[00:40:39]>> So, the size of the connector, sure, but how much space you needed to arc it without stressing it, that was not specified.

[00:40:46]So, I was showing them what I had, and in the reviewers guide it did have an allusion to the amount of clearance you needed, but you needed a little bit more space I thought to keep it from stressing the connector. But, anyway, there are a lot of cases out there >> get the angle of the dangle right.

[00:41:01]>> Right. So, then of course >> It was some sort of proportion.

[00:41:04]>> adapters, and that started to become problematic.

[00:41:09]>> I thought their coarse adapter was was a fairly good idea. The way that's like, "Oh, we'll just rigidly, you know, move it over, and that way you don't have to have an arc." And they had plenty of space in there to have very large uh traces.

[00:41:22]But, apparently that doesn't work.

[00:41:25]Not in all cases.

[00:41:26]>> I'm amazed. Like, I understand going to something a little bit more compact, like we talked about recently with the standards changing with the latest revision to power supplies where they're going to get rid of the 24-pin. It's going to go down to something that looks like a Dell OEM connector.

[00:41:45]But, even that is bigger and more robust than 12-volt high-power.

[00:41:50]>> Yeah.

[00:41:51]>> For a lot less current.

[00:41:57]So, the saga continues.

[00:41:59]>> [snorts] >> And speaking of the saga continuing, Insecurity Corner.

[00:42:04]>> Welcome to Insecurity Corner, your weekly reason to drink. And our first story, Microsoft's worst nightmare unleashes BitLocker bypass zero-day.

[00:42:17]An accidental discovery.

[00:42:20]>> And this one isn't yellow key. This is the new one.

[00:42:23]>> This is the new one. This is this week.

[00:42:26]Yeah.

[00:42:27]>> Nightmare Eclipse is is really upset at Microsoft.

[00:42:33]He's a security researcher who found a whole bunch of bugs and wanted to claim a hell of a lot of money from Microsoft.

[00:42:42]Who was like, "Yeah, we'll give you a bulk discount."

[00:42:47]And now we live in a wonderful world where just about once a week we get a new horrific zero-day vulnerability. Not just a bad one, a horrific one.

[00:43:01]And so yeah, this is yet another one. This is a great XML.

[00:43:07]Uh and once again, it is Oh, apparently I've got neighbors talking outside. Do you want to take this one, Brett?

[00:43:16]>> Sure. So, BitLocker bypasses See, the BitLocker's is this is one of those ones that I find most interesting. When it's piece of security software or a security company or something that's security focused that itself becomes the attack surface, this becomes even more interesting to me. So, this is a what's called the unintended or accidental great XML uh BitLocker bypass. Um and requires copying uh what's called the unattend XML to the recovery directory in the root of the recovery partition and then rebooting into Windows recovery by shift-clicking and restarting. If you do this correctly, you get a shell with unrestricted access to the BitLocker volume without being able without having to decrypt it. Uh it is decrypted there for you. So, this is sort of a an unintended uh bypass. I don't know why this is obviously in there or if uh Microsoft just left this essentially as a backdoor in place. Um but >> So that it's true name that gives it away.

[00:44:17]unattend.xml >> Yeah.

[00:44:20]>> So this is intended for an unattended >> in the recovery space.

[00:44:25]>> Right? So you're unattended you don't want to sit there and watch it.

[00:44:29]>> Mhm.

[00:44:29]>> You're you're going to drop in a key that was given to you Well, sorry. You're going to copy a file that was given to you by Microsoft onto a key to say, "Hey, we need to unencrypt this or at least gain access to it and we don't have to sit there and watch it cuz we're busy. So we want to do it unattended. Unattended is a frequent phrase in a lot of Microsoft does for installs, for updates.

[00:44:55]So it's just one of those Wow, we never thought anyone would you know, share this with people.

[00:45:05]>> Right.

[00:45:05]>> Well, now that's the documentation. Now this was tested, independently tested, and there does appear to be an additional step that's necessary and that's a when Windows Defender does an offline scan. And and that essentially triggers the admin and an admin credential window and gives you that level of access.

[00:45:26]So there does appear to be an additional step to this, but it's still a viable It does appear to be a viable flaw.

[00:45:33]>> Or I mean just shift-click restart into Windows recovery win RE and you can do that as well.

[00:45:38]>> So you got >> two paths into this nightmare.

[00:45:44]>> Aptly named.

[00:45:45]>> And don't worry, it's totally patched.

[00:45:47]Oh, wait. No, sorry. I'm lying.

[00:45:49]>> It It really hasn't been patched yet.

[00:45:51]>> Yeah, it's still active.

[00:45:54]The last BitLocker one was if you got the recent patch and applied it and then restarted.

[00:46:02]Which I'm sure every single person that you work with has done.

[00:46:09]>> Uh speaking of Microsoft vulnerabilities, critical Copilot vulnerability allowed hackers to steal 2FA code from users, destroyed Ars Technica.

[00:46:19]So, you know that the vendors of LLMs are putting guardrails around them so that they aren't easily like, you know, >> I couldn't hear the air quotes on that.

[00:46:32]>> Uh yeah, I did have to go back and run over myself with air quotes. Uh exfiltrate confidential or or confidential and controlled data.

[00:46:42]So, the people who have been uh bad actors who have been trying to figure out like, well, how do we continue to trick the LLM into doing exactly what we want, which is uh sending us uh bad uh sending us confidential data as as payloads, they figured out how to do it by by wrapping uh certain uh elements in like HTML tags. So, the the result is is that if they wrap certain data that is confidential in HTML tags, they can trick the LLM, Copilot specifically here, into making a remote request and as part of the request that it's making, it sort of carries that data that's been wrapped by the HTML tags.

[00:47:27]Um and it ends up depositing it in that remote services um access logs.

[00:47:33]And that's how >> Now, you make this sound very difficult, but >> That's not really.

[00:47:38]>> I believe the parameter is a single character?

[00:47:42]>> Uh it it it probably can be reduced to a single character, but it's like form tags, image tags.

[00:47:47]>> an equals?

[00:47:49]And then everything else after the tag >> Yeah, that's that's that would be the queue.

[00:47:54]The query tag.

[00:47:55]>> It's it's And other than that, you were going to legitimate website. So it's adding it to whatever it is and if anyone's ever tried to copy something from Humble Humble Bundle from uh you know, any times you you're trying to share something on YouTube.

[00:48:11]>> Yeah, they're taking advantage of the search function.

[00:48:13]>> And then there's the giant string of garbage afterwards.

[00:48:17]It doesn't affect you. You're still going to get to where you wanted to go.

[00:48:20]And so that is what they're doing is the earl which is going to be your login you know, the HTML is off you skated with plain text. So you're just clicking on a link.

[00:48:30]And there's a whole bunch of garbage that no one's ever going to look for and in there is literally what they've had to come up with a new term for parameter to prompt.

[00:48:39]Uh too much is essentially the same as we've been dealing with for forever. It's just they wanted to give it a new name because if it's not got a new name, is it really AI?

[00:48:51]So it's just literally boom, that's it. You're still going to go to your your Microsoft account.

[00:48:57]You're still going to go to your Amazon account. You're still going to log into AWS just fine. It's just that it's now going to say search your email for a specific heading, open it, send a screenshot back to a website.

[00:49:12]>> So technically they're also using Bing as a reflector. So what they're doing is they'll throw an image tag at a co-pilot. Co-pilot will do a fetch, but as part of that image tag, there's a replacement going on as part of that the URL like um like file path to the image is including some exfiltrated data.

[00:49:36]So that is causing the image to render because you can write rules on the server side to sort of extract that bit of data that's coming through and then serve the image back like nothing bad is happening. Um but yeah, that is another way that they're exfilling the data and then the LLM copilot, like I said here, into sending that data to an attacker.

[00:49:59]But don't worry, copilot's included automatically, forcefully.

[00:50:05]>> It's good for the >> So even even if you're moving to Linux after listening to that story, Windows and Linux users have a deadline.

[00:50:17]Very very soon. You have to update your secure boot keys >> by June 24th.

[00:50:25]The clock is ticking. So three certificates that cryptographically verify that each piece of firmware and software that loads during boot that sort of essentially says, "Yeah, these things are good." Those are have a date within those certificates that will expire.

[00:50:40]You need to update those certificates.

[00:50:43]It's so it's UEFI. Needs to be updated.

[00:50:48]>> Yeah, it's it's incredibly convenient and uh even the people I work with totally grasp how this should be done.

[00:50:56]A Windows update should do it.

[00:51:00]You don't want Windows update playing with your BIOS.

[00:51:04]Unless you really do. Unless you really want Windows and Microsoft updating your UEFI live as you're working on the computer. Then hey, it's fine. Go for it. Why not?

[00:51:16]>> Jeremy, I download every motherboard manufacturer's convenience toolkit that allows me to tweak BIOS settings from Windows. I think it's great.

[00:51:26]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, those are >> But I'm still waiting for my DFI update.

[00:51:29]>> I mean >> I'm still pretty sure they're in business, right?

[00:51:34]>> Diamond Flower International? You better believe it.

[00:51:36]>> I Actually, I'm not sure that they are.

[00:51:40]So yeah, Chad, as much as we said, "Hey, it's going to break that secure thing from your on your AMD processor where your memory's encrypted, you you still might want to update your BIOS because secure boot will start failing and that will be very inconvenient when trying to play a game that requires secure boot to be enabled because remember that's the thing now just to try and get people to do it.

[00:52:01]>> Do you remember logo fail?

[00:52:04]>> Oh.

[00:52:05]>> That was the the injection point for >> A little bit of code. The tiny little logos that we had to show at boot.

[00:52:13]>> Yeah.

[00:52:14]>> Energy star. Really, do you need to show that picture? Do you need to show that picture?

[00:52:19]>> It's federally mandated.

[00:52:20]>> an image parsing bug in the UEFI's that allowed uh your uh that uh UEFI to be essentially rooted due to the logo.

[00:52:29]>> Permanently.

[00:52:30]Hm. That that was a desolder the chip and replace it with a brand new one type or buy a new motherboard one.

[00:52:37]>> Yeah.

[00:52:39]There is a uh device security check that you can uh pull up in Windows uh security settings, device security, secure boot, uh that will let you know the status of your certificates and whether or not your BIOS is up to date.

[00:52:51]>> Oh, and Intune will do that, too. Josh, I'm sure you're excited about this.

[00:52:56]>> Yeah. But you know, I'm excited about any new motherboard purchase because you get to add RGB to your current build.

[00:53:02]>> Yes.

[00:53:03]>> Yes. I cannot wait to show off my new build with so many RGBs. You guys are going to love it. You know, maybe memory storage have gone through the roof but RGB is as affordable as ever. So >> And uh Sebastian, I'm going to say that you get more RGB for your dollar nowadays.

[00:53:19]>> Yeah. It's become more affordable.

[00:53:21]>> I'm holding out until Noctua starts making motherboards.

[00:53:24]>> It adds five frames per seconds to uh your your game, so >> Yeah. It does.

[00:53:32]>> You get a 1,000 W power supply and you're like, "What am I doing with these extra watts?" I know.

[00:53:36]>> Lighting.

[00:53:42]>> Uh let's move on to a new segment.

[00:53:44]>> have any more.

[00:53:45]>> No, it was the end of Insecurity Corner.

[00:53:47]It's time for >> That's what I meant.

[00:53:49]>> Quick >> [snorts] >> hits.

[00:53:52]And you may know about this game called uh, what is it called? Uh, Skyrim?

[00:53:59]Oblivion?

[00:54:01]Oh, Skyblivion.

[00:54:02]So, uh, Bethesda Softworks released Oblivion remastered about a year ago.

[00:54:08]And uh, apparently immediately abandoned it.

[00:54:12]>> Yeah, they launched that one about a year ago, too.

[00:54:15]>> Don't worry, Skyblivion to the rescue.

[00:54:21]>> One has to wonder if, you know, these might be related that uh Bethesda just suddenly dumped out a remastered edition and then didn't care about it anymore as long as they ruined someone else's day, as is, you know, tradition.

[00:54:36]And the Skyblivion is delayed. It was supposed to be out this year. It's not quite done.

[00:54:42]And they're hoping for some people's help.

[00:54:46]Everything has been built. The assets are there. The world is there. You can wander around, but we need bug-filled quests.

[00:54:56]Is it really, you know, even a remastered or redone game in Elder Scrolls without a whole bunch of quests that don't necessarily go the way that you kind of hope they would.

[00:55:10]And this is their problem is that they still have a bunch of coding left to do on the various quests that fill the entire world.

[00:55:20]And they're asking, "Hey, if you're a script writer, if you can at least, you know, set up some of these encounters and the logic strings, we'd love your help. It'll help us get it out earlier. It's not that it's not going to come out if you don't volunteer, but it it would speed things up a bit.

[00:55:42]And if you are one of those people who knows how to script these quests and deal with the stuff in the Skyrim editor, I ask you, please use your powers for good and don't make really bizarre obscure bugs like Bethesda just does naturally.

[00:56:01]Don't go out of your way to make it suddenly, you know, turn every single horse into a dragon for no reason at all when you just solve this one quest in a particular way that maybe the programmers didn't originally thought.

[00:56:20]It wouldn't make the game better at all.

[00:56:27]Or put it.

[00:56:32]>> Shall we talk about console hardware for a minute?

[00:56:35]>> A little bit.

[00:56:36]>> I'm sorry, you can't. You just got fired.

[00:56:37]>> Okay. Cuz you know, there's been this whole reset happening at Xbox right now.

[00:56:44]>> [laughter] >> And >> That's a word.

[00:56:46]>> They've done a brutal self-assessment of their sagging brand, according to the story at Ars.

[00:56:53]Just 100 days ago, quoting from the article, when new Microsoft gaming CEO Asha Sharma replaced long-serving executive Phil Spencer, she said she'd work to, quote, understand what makes Xbox work and protect it, end quote. So, apparently what that means is, uh, fire a bunch of people, reset everything, cancel everything.

[00:57:17]>> I think what you're also you're leaving out overextension >> Well, they're underperforming and overextending, which is an odd combination.

[00:57:26]>> Yep.

[00:57:27]>> They're moving in both directions wrongly. Is that even a word?

[00:57:31]>> They didn't put any AI on it, so therefore it's horrible.

[00:57:35]>> Could it be that they wasted money trying to acquire game studios and kind of failed at their mission of just producing a good console?

[00:57:44]You know, I don't know.

[00:57:45]>> They did go through a pretty serious phase of acquisition including Activision for only $69 billion.

[00:57:51]>> Yeah, $69 billion.

[00:57:54]>> And they own Bethesda now, don't they?

[00:57:57]>> I don't know.

[00:57:58]I can't remember.

[00:57:59]>> everything that Disney doesn't.

[00:58:01]>> own They did buy quite a bit, Josh. You may be right. Um but the point is is that their normal 30% margin is down to a paltry 3%.

[00:58:11]>> Ooh.

[00:58:11]>> Uh yeah. Yeah, I know.

[00:58:13]>> Is the Xbox dead?

[00:58:16]Will we see I mean, it has We had an Xbox console 2022 is when the Series X came out, right?

[00:58:22]>> I was going to ask, when was the last time we saw the uh >> So, it's 4 years of the same platform.

[00:58:34]Which was, you know, right up there with the PS5 was slightly faster than the PS5. Now, we have the PS5 Pro.

[00:58:40]They haven't answered yet, and it doesn't seem to be uh we're not going to get new hardware anytime soon from either side.

[00:58:48]>> Mhm.

[00:58:49]>> And prices just keep going up. The Xbox went up $150 a console. That doesn't help anything.

[00:58:56]>> But they're also sort of pointing out that there's been a lot of scattered decision-making. There's been underinvestment.

[00:59:04]But they've also been underperforming and over-acquiring. So, there's a lot of bad decision-making all around.

[00:59:11]>> Mhm.

[00:59:11]>> The longevity of Xbox is in question.

[00:59:16]>> Well, I mean they've already put it out that it's not like they can cancel it at this point.

[00:59:25]They could cancel the new one, but I don't see that happening.

[00:59:29]>> Sebastian, you're pointing out the next correlation on this story is that uh they're definitely not immune to the price increases of hardware such as RAM and storage.

[00:59:41]And basically all the other components, right?

[00:59:46]>> Yeah, there's no surprise of why everybody raised their prices. I mean, the Xbox Series X, I think has 10 GB of memory, 10 or 12. And the PlayStation 5 Pro, I mean, they have 16.

[01:00:02]That thing went up to $900.

[01:00:05]Series X is $650.

[01:00:09]Even the Switch, too, went up 50 bucks.

[01:00:11]Now it's $500.

[01:00:14]So, it's the whole console market has become pretty expensive. [snorts] >> They were losing money before. But they weren't losing a tremendous amount of money.

[01:00:27]>> When when the PlayStation 3 came out, that was the one that everybody pointed to as that was the one that was just too It was a bridge too far. It was too expensive. It was $600 or 500 for the one that nobody wanted.

[01:00:39]And it PlayStation was trying to say, "But this is basically a supercomputer for your home." This is 2006. We're talking 20 years ago.

[01:00:46]And at the time, and they mean adjusted for inflation, that's $1,000.

[01:00:51]Now we're selling consoles for close to that.

[01:00:55]And >> And it's a glorified Blu-ray player.

[01:01:01]>> UHD Blu-ray player.

[01:01:03]>> Now, this is the the Razer Blade and the Razer issue here. You know, it's the they tip made that typical play. We're going to sell these at a slight loss, but we're going to get you on the subscription.

[01:01:13]>> But then that's the thing. The Game Pass, $15 a month. I know there's the $23 tier, but $15 a month is not going to make up for losing $300 a console.

[01:01:24]>> I I'm pretty sure they've noticed this at this point because before prices skyrocketed, they were losing a little bit of money. Now they're literally losing hundreds of dollars a console now, and it's obviously an unsustainable business.

[01:01:40]>> Yeah.

[01:01:41]When did >> Well, if they want to keep obtaining new companies for no reason at all and just spending money.

[01:01:47]>> Well, there is that.

[01:01:51]That's right. So, Game Pass started at $10 a month.

[01:01:55]Then it went up to 15.

[01:01:58]Well, did it go to 15? It's currently 15 for Game Pass Ultimate. So, it must have gone back down cuz they had raised the price at one point.

[01:02:08]Yeah, Ultimate went all the way up to 30 a month, and they lost a bunch of subscribers, and then it went down.

[01:02:15]So, it's been to me, the reason you'd buy an Xbox over a PlayStation is Game Pass. Because if you compare them side by side, this is I don't unless you're just a an a Xbox fan since the Halo days, they're this Sony's a significantly more polished system. They have a better controller, but the haptic feedback system and stuff, it's just a better experience.

[01:02:45]But, $15 a month, you get 200 plus games with Xbox, so.

[01:02:51]>> Mhm.

[01:02:53]But, they're losing more and more exclusives because they they need to be able to sell those sell those games on all multiple platforms cuz they need the audience.

[01:03:02]>> In a world where they don't have exclusives, their console makes no sense.

[01:03:07]>> Mhm.

[01:03:07]>> That's my point.

[01:03:09]>> You bought it for the exclusives and stuff.

[01:03:12]>> Cuz if you're going to just sell a subscription, you just go to GeForce Now, that model. I mean, they have the infrastructure. They could do some kind of streaming service.

[01:03:21]Kids can play Fortnite on anything. They don't They'll do it on their Switch.

[01:03:24]They'll do it on an iPad again, now that it's back in iOS. They don't need an Xbox Series X.

[01:03:33]I don't know.

[01:03:37]All right. [snorts] Do we have any other gaming stories? I don't think so.

[01:03:41]>> One that I know you love.

[01:03:42]>> Oh, the Steam hardware survey.

[01:03:44]>> There is one.

[01:03:45]>> Let's talk about Steam hardware survey.

[01:03:47]Didn't we have a new member of the GPU chart?

[01:03:52]>> You, Sebastian. Thank you for asking.

[01:03:55]>> Scroll way down. There it is.

[01:03:58]The 9600 XT. It went from 0% market share to 1.33.

[01:04:06]>> Nothing to sneeze at.

[01:04:07]>> Which is a a rise of how much?

[01:04:09]>> That's millions of percent.

[01:04:12]>> That's It's pretty phenomenal, actually.

[01:04:15]>> [laughter] >> I mean, honestly, no. One Not quite 1 and 1/2, but over 1%.

[01:04:24]Just suddenly, boom.

[01:04:27]That That's a lot of people buying it.

[01:04:30]>> Yeah. Just over the GTX 1050 Ti at 1.26%.

[01:04:38]>> But in the zone with the 3080, you know?

[01:04:42]>> Yeah.

[01:04:43]>> And the 50 5080 not that far further ahead. What I want you to to uh gaze upward at is the staying power of the GTX 1650 in slot number six.

[01:04:54]>> Or the 3060, the number one gaming graphics card in the world.

[01:05:00]>> Well, there you go.

[01:05:01]That is being re-released.

[01:05:03]>> Yes.

[01:05:04]Yeah.

[01:05:05]>> Well, at least See, that one's at least an RTX. I'm still, you know, enamored with the GT series, of course.

[01:05:11]>> We need to revisit the 3060 this year, Josh. Let's do a re- review.

[01:05:17]>> Re- >> 30- >> Re- >> 3060 3060 >> 2026 drivers.

[01:05:23]>> 2026 drivers, 2026 games.

[01:05:26]Just see how does it stack up? I mean, obviously 4.02% of you are using it on Steam.

[01:05:33]If you respond to the survey.

[01:05:36]>> The number is diminishing a little bit over the last 2 months.

[01:05:42]>> Still going strong.

[01:05:43]>> Yes.

[01:05:45]>> Yes.

[01:05:49]And so endeth the visiting of the Valve Steam hardware survey.

[01:05:55]>> Yes.

[01:05:56]And we'll transition smoothly.

[01:05:59]Smoothly, we trust. Smoothly into picks of the week. Josh, please get us started.

[01:06:04]>> Me? You know what? I I love monitors. I wish I could buy more, but I don't have a need to buy more. Otherwise, I'd look at this LG 32GS60QC-B.

[01:06:16]Rolls right off the tongue.

[01:06:18]>> curved gaming monitor, QHD, 180 Hz. Mhm.

[01:06:23]Hey, it's it's got a pretty pretty hefty radius, 1000R. That's that's pretty extreme.

[01:06:29]Uh HDR 10, FreeSync, HDMI by 2, DisplayPort, borderless design, black stabilizer, all those things. All of the things. It's a VA panel, sure.

[01:06:42]But, you know, you got to have VA to have the contrast. It's 180 Hz, which is pretty nice. And for $237 for a 32-in 2560 by 1440 with all the features, I think that's pretty good deal. Plus, it's from LG. It's a brand you can trust.

[01:07:02]This is the same They didn't even pay me. They didn't even pay me to say that.

[01:07:08]>> Josh, >> would you say that the one weakness of VA is off-axis viewing? Cuz head head on, >> know what?

[01:07:15]>> it's great.

[01:07:16]>> The 1000, the 1000R, >> There is no off-axis viewing.

[01:07:20]>> Yeah.

[01:07:21]>> It's wrapped around your face.

[01:07:24]>> That is >> Who is viewing the monitor?

[01:07:25]>> What the hell do I care about the person behind me trying to see it?

[01:07:28]>> I care about the person sitting next to you.

[01:07:30]>> No.

[01:07:31]>> This is privacy view before there was privacy view.

[01:07:35]>> Exactly.

[01:07:36]And it's cheaper than that damn screen they charge you now for.

[01:07:39]>> Yeah.

[01:07:42]>> Their up is a 200 bucks now.

[01:07:45]The polarized overlay you put on the monitor.

[01:07:48]>> Is your face light failing there, Josh?

[01:07:51]>> I don't know. There's a [ __ ] red light on Josh.

[01:07:54]Where?

[01:07:54]>> Really?

[01:07:55]>> Hang on.

[01:07:57]>> Oh, I I I don't know. People are getting excited. Maybe I was I was I was on Amazon.

[01:08:04]And That's interesting. That is That is just You're on Amazon.

[01:08:13]No, I I'm I'm not.

[01:08:15]That is bizarre. So, when I when I turn it to this, it does it it doesn't do it.

[01:08:20]But I go to the Amazon page of the monitor.

[01:08:23]>> Oh, my.

[01:08:24]>> it.

[01:08:24]>> It It's monitoring you.

[01:08:26]>> If you're sensitive to flashing lights, should probably tune out.

[01:08:32]>> It It's just the subliminal messaging.

[01:08:34]Don't worry about it.

[01:08:36]>> Yeah.

[01:08:36]>> Oh, yeah.

[01:08:37]>> Buy the LG monitor.

[01:08:39]>> [laughter] >> Normally, we can't see that, but >> Now we can.

[01:08:43]>> We're all being hypnotized.

[01:08:45]>> Jeremy, your pick this week.

[01:08:49]>> Humble Bundle has something that is near and dear to my heart that is just absolutely hilarious.

[01:08:56]It is dozens of RPG rule books ranging from you know stuff they have no like Warhammer to hey do you want to do Star Trek?

[01:09:12]Would you be interested in My Little Pony role-playing?

[01:09:18]A bunch of Steve Jackson classics ones that are just role-playing a dog.

[01:09:25]There is a Doctor Who one. Did you know that the GI Joe role-playing game was written by Gary Gygax's son.

[01:09:36]Because I know this now.

[01:09:39]I I've always got a fascination even if I never play them it just the rules and how that the game is sort of built up is interesting.

[01:09:49]For not [clears throat] very much money you can get a role-playing game rules. Some of which you might play some of which you just might look at and go wow that that's that's pretty weird but hey it's also Wait is is it's drinking game if I was a lich man that you're supposed to 3D print a cradle for?

[01:10:15]>> That's That's Octoon Octoon Lich.

[01:10:19]>> Yeah might actually pull that out at some point.

[01:10:23]>> [snorts and gasps] >> Transformers because why not? Power Rangers It just a ridiculous amount of the good the bad and the Really? They They made that one?

[01:10:36]>> [snorts] >> Not very much cost and it's just you will have them forever as long as you don't know them in time.

[01:10:43]And the one I haven't looked at yet is there's apparently a Blade Runner core rule book game. So that's a thing.

[01:10:51]Kind of curious about that one. Business Wizards I think will be amusing because I mean hey you're You're you're a guy who's got an office job and now you're role-playing as a wizard who's got an office job and then just just layers of irony in that that I think could be funny.

[01:11:09]So, hey, if if you're doing anything and the callback to uh who was the uh eat me plate from the the restaurant of the end of the universe, the official BBC Doctor Who role-playing game is included in this.

[01:11:24]>> That was a cow.

[01:11:26]>> And let me tell you uh the rules are interesting, but my god, they dump a lot of high-res pictures from the show in there.

[01:11:37]>> Hm. [snorts] >> Check it out. It could be amusing.

[01:11:42]>> Thank you, Jeremy. Uh Brett, your pick this week.

[01:11:45]>> Uh I went with something sort of amusing, semi-serious, maybe just a little bit fun, maybe a little bit funny, maybe a little kidding. Maybe I'm not kidding. Um I went with uh because we're in the biz, you know, I happen to catch this on uh Woot the other day.

[01:11:59]>> The biz of being on >> Uh the biz No no, the biz of uh podcasting, Sebastian.

[01:12:05]>> Oh, I thought this was like you're switching over to FM morning drive, but okay.

[01:12:10]>> Not at all. Uh but uh I can continue to go in that uh zone if you'd like. Uh this is the sound effects mixer uh with Bluetooth and voice effects. If you zoom in on a couple of the pictures, you can see a few of the effects such as uh uh slide and clap and laugh track and I think there it is. Yeah, grab that picture right there and zoom in. So, you see the >> But I don't want to get the clap.

[01:12:32]>> The gunshot and the picking and the clap >> to it cuz I'm saying the same thing.

[01:12:37]And I don't want to be on crack, either.

[01:12:39]>> Uh yeah, you could do all of that. So, uh I was going to uh just as sort of a joke, it's >> There's one button to become addicted to crack?

[01:12:49]>> Exactly. Or or to eliminate a podcast uh Look, it's a Do you see that? See the elimination button? How often would you push that, Sebastian?

[01:12:58]Eliminate podcaster. Boom. Podcaster gone.

[01:13:02]>> Is it per channel?

[01:13:03]>> of fun.

[01:13:03]>> Oh, they're going to kiss us.

[01:13:05]>> It's sort of fun, but is it uh it's funny, it's semi-serious >> Please integrate this into your podcast feed next week.

[01:13:13]>> I was going to say, Sebastian, I if if you said, I will try this, I'll spend the 21 bucks and send it to you >> But you'll spend $20.99 for me?

[01:13:25]For me?

[01:13:27]>> Must be pretty good for that.

[01:13:29]>> Oh, you'll never regret it.

[01:13:31]Do it here. But you're doing all the mixing, so I figured maybe you'd want to be able to control like the laugh track and the podcast eliminator and that stuff.

[01:13:40]>> I would I would annoy everyone with this thing.

[01:13:43]>> Yeah.

[01:13:44]>> I realize that. That's why for $20, this sounds like cheap entertainment to me.

[01:13:48]>> I'd buy it as long as it's the laugh As long as it's the laugh track from Mash, the guy who had the low at the end.

[01:13:58]>> [laughter] >> One would hope.

[01:14:00]>> If not >> watched too many episodes when you start recognizing >> the laugh individual laughs in the laugh track.

[01:14:06]>> The laugh track is like, oh, I've heard this.

[01:14:10]>> All right. [snorts] Well, thank you, Brian.

[01:14:11]>> should take a quick vote and see who would want this sort of thing. Should we have sound effects, live sound effects?

[01:14:17]>> [sighs] >> I don't know. Let us know in the comments. Do you want live sound effects during the podcast, which will absolutely not be overused?

[01:14:25]>> How How How is Jim Cramer's >> $21 show >> gone with, you know, investment strategies with uh sound effects.

[01:14:35]>> I don't know.

[01:14:36]Not very good.

[01:14:39]All right. Uh again, no Kent, so he will not have a pick this week, but I will.

[01:14:44]Here's an item that I picked up for multiple rooms in my house.

[01:14:49]I've noticed a distinct lack of two things around here. One, surge protectors.

[01:14:55]Two, USB ports.

[01:14:58]How about adding both to every outlet in your home? Up to 4.5 amps of USB charging, 1680 joules of protection, six outlets, it's got USB-C, it's got USB type A. It just slap it onto an outlet.

[01:15:16]Just slap it.

[01:15:17]Fast charge compatible charging.

[01:15:23]>> Everywhere. I feel like this is the Portlandia equivalent of put a bird on it. Just slap it on there.

[01:15:29]>> The only thing I don't like is that it's $23, but you know, it's it's a good brand.

[01:15:35]>> Can you squeeze it?

[01:15:36]>> You can bop it. You can squeeze it.

[01:15:38]>> Yeah. [laughter] >> Someone put $20 in the YouTube chat.

[01:15:42]>> gave us a super chat.

[01:15:44]>> Sorry.

[01:15:44]>> You [laughter] had to give us $1.99 to buy that thing, so still >> Yeah, you got to pay the tax. Sorry.

[01:15:51]>> All right, I'm going to go buy one and review it now.

[01:15:53]>> [laughter] >> I'm going to go buy one now.

[01:15:56]>> Brett, you can buy that for a dollar.

[01:15:59]>> I I could buy that for a dollar.

[01:16:02]>> If they could find it on >> For the love of God, please get it.

[01:16:06]>> for less.

[01:16:07]>> [laughter] >> I had to I had to do the thumbs up on that one.

[01:16:13]>> [snorts] >> That is Yeah.

[01:16:16]>> All right. Well, you know what?

[01:16:18]>> the the lo-fi qual uh lo-fi cheapness of it would be amusing as well, I think.

[01:16:23]>> I hope it's like one of those Radio Shack uh like executive desk sound machines from back in the day. Mhm. I want those really bad.

[01:16:32]samples >> Yeah. It's so bad, it's good.

[01:16:35]>> Yes.

[01:16:36]>> Well, now I'm wondering if this is like someone from like the dead south or someone that actually plays cello and rocks with it.

[01:16:42]>> Oh, Mr. Cello Rocker?

[01:16:45]Without a doubt.

[01:16:45]>> I mean, it does sort of seem to be in the name, but then again, it's the internet, so you never know.

[01:16:50]>> Yes. And you know what else? You never know when the show is going to end until you hear that uh royalty-free YouTube jazz music as you're hearing right now in the finished version of this show.

[01:17:04]Uh live viewers, you'll just have to imagine it.

[01:17:06]But it's We're wrapping it up. This is the end of another exciting, informative episode of the PC Perspective podcast.

[01:17:12]Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. If uh you were hanging out with us tonight, thank you for hanging out with us tonight >> [music] >> on YouTube and chatting with us.

[01:17:22]>> Yeah.

[01:17:23]>> And throwing money at the sound machines.

[01:17:27]>> Wrap it up before DJ Lobster [music] throws you something.

[01:17:31]Or Josh.

[01:17:32]No glove, no love.

[01:17:35]>> [clears throat] >> Hey.

[01:17:35]>> Reverso medium gets some love.

[01:17:37]>> Yeah.

[01:17:38]>> $5 worth.

[01:17:43]>> Why are you looking at me?

[01:17:44]>> I don't know. I just had I thought you were going to give us a an outro like you did last >> looking at me?

[01:17:50]$5, man. You looking at me?

[01:17:52]>> [music] >> You know, I'm not nearly I'm not nearly as psychotic as Bob De Niro. Man, neither am I as politically active as the said uh not very uh large stature Bob De Niro. But you know what I do have? I have no hair.

[01:18:10]I have no talent.

[01:18:11]I have no real intestinal fortitude to do the terrible things in life to get to positions of power and stature.

[01:18:21]No, it's just me.

[01:18:22]The blob.

[01:18:24]I climbed up the ugly tree at 22 and I fell and hit every branch on the way down. I'll tell you, it's freeing.

[01:18:31]Freeing in a way I didn't know how.

[01:18:33]Freeing of money, of of of success.

[01:18:37]All these things.

[01:18:39]So, yeah. Don't climb that ugly tree.

[01:18:42]Listen to Perceptive Perspective Podcast. And we'll see you later.