NZXT PODCAST - #108 - Blow The Whistle

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

This week on the show we're talking about the latest gaming news and answering your questions from Instagram! Tune in live every Thursday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/NZXT and send your questions to: podcast[@]nzxt.com

You're muted. I don't hear you, Dennis. It wouldn't, it wouldn't be a podcast without technical difficulties. No, it wouldn't, but it's summer 1985 when you're driving at night. Okay, we've only done this 108 times now. Technically, 107, because we haven't done the 108 yet. So you're wrong, and I'm right. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 108 of the NZXD podcast, the official podcast of the NZXD community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The official NXD Twitch is available to stream on a man on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So I don't have a fun CTA here. So just listen to the show, hang out with us. It's going to be a cool one. It'll be a neat one. That was a really hard cut on that one. My name is Dennis. And with me as always is Ivan. How do you do, Mr. Bacadano?

Yeah. Good. Chilling. I got my cute little Discord background now. Thank you to Discord for adding fun new features to the platform always. Yeah, you said that was the Discord beta. Well, it's not the beta. It's a beta feature.

So you've got to update your Discord. And then it works perfectly fine. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah, we got the Halloween stuff on here. Yeah. I haven't been to the office in about a week. week because I was sick. Yeah, I know you told me. And I was pleasantly surprised. It's

decorated, very spooky. Like all the hallways have cobwebs, more than usual at least. There's like, you know, skeletons and monsters all over the place. Pretty cool. That's really cool, actually. That's dope. You'll see it next week when you visit me. Yeah, we're to stop by to, uh, we're going to head into record more TikToks. So, let's actually talk about that first. So first off, there's no guest today.

It's just, I mean, Ivan. I don't think we've been with that a guest for what, like, almost like a month,

month plus long. Longer. I think it's been... Since when? Honestly, I feel like it was, honestly, it's probably since May,

to be honest, because, no. Yeah, like in May, we had like the mental health awareness guest, like,

And then in June we had Pride guests for Pride Month every week. And then actually, you know what? It was probably like around July or August. Let me see. I can go back. I had the receipts. So we had Danny, Brick and Nick, Christina, Alex and Patrick versus Evil, X Mira, trackballs and Biggie Smalls.

I think that was, yeah, that was that one, that was a month ago. So I was right. It was literally about a month ago. Before that, it was Pete Hines, desk bottom. So whenever there's like no guest name on the show is just like a random thing that I decided that we like talked about. It's just, it's just us. It's a voice, glitching for anyone else. I don't know.

Is it glitching for anyone else? There we go. Someone said no. If one person says no, then I know everything else is fine. Yeah. So what we're going to do today is, you know, we're going to chat it up. We're going to hang out with the amazing community here. and you're going to get through some news because,

hilariously enough, one of the things I mean I were talking about is like how there really isn't anything to talk about. And then literally with the last like week and a half, everything happened, everything blew up or didn't blew up or whatever. But first I want to say our TikTok is kicking, but I was going to say something else, but I didn't want to be rude. Our TikTok is slapping, dude. Our TikTok is 100% slap,

happen right now. Oh, nice. We just hit 80,000 followers on TikTok, so congratulations to us. Let me see where that last video went. I think our last big slapper was the finisher PC. So we posted two things that did really well. One was a video where we showed people how we silk screen the thermopaste onto the crack in coolers, the actual copper cooling block. And the other one was just like a fun little, fun little meme. As we call it, a, a, a, a, a on-trend post. I'm actually going to, I don't know, do you want to show that video on stream, maybe, Dennis, because it's really interesting.

Which one? How we apply the thermal paste to the crackens. Yeah, give me a second to pull it up. Just, fill the air for a second. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, we were filming TikTok videos a couple months ago, I guess, at this point. and you know, Steven, our lead RMA tech, he's walking by and he's like, hey, what are you guys doing?

And I told him, oh, we're filming TikTok videos and he said, oh, I have the perfect video idea for you. I'm going to show you how to apply thermal paste. And I told him like, dude, that's kind of, like, the only way that would be interesting is if we made it like super dumb. And we just like, you know, put an entire tube of thermal paste on a CPU. Like, no, no, no, no, let me be interested in that. And he's like, no, no, let me show you. And then he whips out like this little device where he puts the crack and pump on there and then he puts a thermal paste then he has like this little scraper tool and then if anyone's ever if anyone listening here has ever installed the crackin you know you'll see that the crackin does come pre-installed or comes with pre-applied thermal paste on it so you

don't need to install your own and it's like a perfect circle about the size of a quarter and I always assumed it was just like some machine like a conveyor belt that was like you know stamping it but no little did i know it's actually like someone's job like get the pump and like put this thing on there and like scrape it i think i think factory-wise it is but i think like for us to do it well for r m a mean oh yeah for yeah for yeah yeah we have for army for sure yeah because our our arma's uh in-house but here it is right here uh i don't know about the audio tic talk audio on desktop is always annoyingly loud so just uh Prepare your ear drums, everybody.

Here we go. I'll throw this up on here a quick. I can't really make any bigger. I don't mess with it. Yeah, but basically, it's like this little silk screen thing, right? And then he just puts the thermal paste on there. This is Stephen for Armay, by the way.

We've had him on the podcast like twice. And then he gets a little scraper tool with a bunch of duct tape. And you know it's a real tool because there's a bunch of duct tape on it. And then that's it. It ended up being our most popular TikTok video of all time. Yeah, it's 400, 400,000 of views on it.

The other one was Mike. This one is a, I also should listen to this. This one's got, it's getting close too. It's like 300,000 now. It's pretty crazy. So if you guys are on TikTok, this is like dope content. This is like supreme, you know, fresh and easy, super nice stuff. It's, TikTok's been interesting, dude.

It's been really crazy. I know that when we were talking about that, so like that last video, right, I posted it and within like an hour I'm like you know it's only got like a thousand views which I know seems like a lot right but for you know for for like an NZXT type entity we expect a little bit more especially if you have like 8 to 1,000 followers

not that followers you know it means really much on TikTok but we can you know we can talk about the platform all day every day but we're like yeah you know like it's not really moving that that that that fast I guess people don't like it and then what with like in that same conversation within like 20 minutes it bumps from a thousand to like like what like 30,000, 20,000 or something like that?

It just explodes. Yeah. And I was in a meeting with you and I was, I was watching it. I looked at it and like yeah, it said 1,000 or something and then like after I was chatting for like half an hour. It was like 30,000. It's like something happened. Yeah. No, it's it's it's that crazy TikTok algorithm.

Right. It's one of those things that is just so good at detecting what's going to be popular or. maybe not even that, just like telling you what's going to be popular. And then you just have to interact with it because you can't not. So, yeah, TikTok's been interesting. It's been a, I don't want to say it's been fun because nothing is ever fun in my mind. Nothing's fun. It's just varying degrees of not terrible stuff.

I don't know if that makes any sense. Question, how do you know if you want to give away or what? You'll get an email or we might announce it live in the air if we can remember to do it on time. Sometimes we just like to get out of here before, before the content. contest ends. Yeah, through the mail. Just check your email. When you enter the giveaways that you guys are entering, you guys have to provide an email address and we do email all the winners after the podcast. And on the same link for the giveaway, we also publish the giveaway winner names there. You guys interested. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. And if you don't win,

it's because it's rigged. Exactly. I only pick my friends to get this stuff. Same here. Same here. Bride me if you want to win. Hit him up in the DMs, but not privately. The public DMs.

I don't know what that means. So yeah, so we got a lot of news topics to get to today. We do? We do. It's a crazy amount of stuff. We're not going to go through like the entire articles because we got quite a few of them, but we are going to discuss them a little bit. And the first time we got on deck is I'm just going to go ahead and pull it up here is that's the wrong one.

Facebook Wilson Blower says Zuckerberg knows site harms children. The buck stops with Mark. So TLDR, if you guys didn't realize, first of all, Facebook went down on Monday, which is great for me because I hate using Facebook and Instagram. Not just Facebook, but Instagram and WhatsApp. Yeah. And anything else is like tied into the Facebook ecosystem, which is super huge. That all went down. And then.

Hold on real quick. Before you continue. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know what it is about like, you know, Mexican moms. But like literally all they use their phones, at least my mom and my wife's mom. Like the only thing they do on their phone is WhatsApp and Facebook. That's all they use their phone for to be honest. Like I only communicate with my mom on those two things and same thing with my wife on those two things.

Yeah. But it was funny because that day when Facebook, And WhatsApp went down. You know, my, my wife called her mom to tell her like, hey, by the way, you know, if you're trying to get in touch with me, you know, like WhatsApp and Facebook are down so, like, can't reach you. And she's like, no, no. She's like, I think the Internet's down because because your aunt, like her WhatsApp's not working either.

She can't lock into Facebook. The internet. The whole internet is down. I just thought that was funny because that's literally like the only way I communicate with my mom. That's the only way my mom or my mother-in-law communicates with my wife. Well, it's funny because for a lot of people, like Facebook and like WhatsApp is the internet, right? Like there's, you have everything you want on there. You have like you have your shopping, you have your live streams, you got your memes, you got your news, and that stuff.

But so what this article is dealing with is basically this is a woman and I wish I knew her name off top because I'm just blanking really hard. I'm here we go. Francis Howgan. I'm pretty sure I'm saying that completely wrong. But TLDR, she basically blew the way. whistle on all of Facebook. Her job there was supposed to be like tackling misinformation and stuff like that. And she basically just proved with like receipts and everything that Facebook literally is choosing profits over misinformation. They're like, she's the she's the too short of Facebook,

Dennis. Oh yeah? Why is that? The whistle. I wish. That's you short. I wish or that you 40. No, no, no, no. It is. It is. I wish you told me that earlier because I could have had it pulled up and like ready to go. There you go. I don't know if you guys know this song. You guys might be too young for this song. But this is the, this is a hit classic out of Oakland.

I'm going to stop it right there. Yeah, thank you. How about blow the whistle instrumental and that way we're good, right? That way we don't get DMCA'd. Just call the podcast episode whistleblowers. I'm going to tag too short in it. So I can get the search engine

optimization off of a SoundCloud. It works. Yeah, but basically, you know, she went through and basically just reported a whistle blue, blew the whistle. That Facebook is literally as terrible as we all think it is. And,

you know, that they literally are not like stamping out misinformation and in fact, they're actually actively, you know, allowing it to happen. And you can even say, you know, helping it get more trying to

word this carefully Facebook sucking TLDR, right? They're sucking. They're not tackling misinformation. They're actively making decisions to allow this to happen because

according to her, you know, Mark Zuckerberg who is, you know, has all the controlling shares of the company, right? He owns everything essentially, right? He has the final say decides, I don't care about that.

I don't care about misinformation. I want money. And if we allow this to happen, it means more money for us, more people are clicking. Because there's something that, like, you and I have spoken about before about social media is that people will interact with things that they don't like, right? And for a while, right? And, you know, I'm going to be honest, for a while, our strategy in social was, hey, let's make people mad, right?

Not like actually, like, you know, like upset people, but, like, say things that'll kind of like, you know, poke a little bit. You know, so, like, I don't know, you know, like, it's like how everyone was doing, like, the PC versus console jokes, right? like way back in the day, you know, that kind of thing. You know, if you, if you kind of like get people something to, to, like, rally against, they're more likely to interact than they are to, you know, be nice. It's, it's a lot easier for people to get angry than it is for them to be happy and, like,

be positive, which is something I think that we all know, right? So, yeah, you know, it's a, it's a, it's, it's, it wasn't surprising to me when she came out to sell of stuff. But at the same time, it was also nice to know that it was like, officially a thing that they're actively not stopping, right? This misinformation. Yeah, I was not surprised either because, you know, having worked in social media, I guess, it's like for a decade now.

I've been working in, you know, not just at NST, but my previous jobs as well. Like, I guess more or less, you know, doing something with Facebook. And like over the years, I've kind of learned. more about how they operate and there's no doubt in my mind that Facebook purposely shows you information or post content, what do you want to call it, that they want to show you, and then purposely hides information that they don't want to show you. And, you know, for us, like, as a, as a company that uses Facebook to advertise and to, like, you know, promote and drive traffic and things like that. Like if if we were to go on Facebook and post something like you

know click here to buy our new computer right and if we don't put advertising dollars behind that post Facebook will literally not show it to any of our followers. So they kind of like force you to spend money in in some ways and on one side it's definitely I think very not evil, but kind of, you know. It's kind of evil, a little bit. Manipulative, I guess you can say, because they kind of like, you know, they're forcing you to do so.

But on the other hand, Facebook is also the world's largest social media platform. And they have tons of information on people. So, like, whenever you sign up for your Facebook account, the reason why they ask you a million questions about, like, what's your favorite TV show? you know, where'd you go to high school and things like that? It's not because they want to, like, get to know you or connect you with other people with similar interest. It's literally so that when a company, like NZXT or whoever,

you know, doesn't matter what company wants to, like, promote a post, you know, when we put money on that post, it asks us, like, okay, who do you want to see this content? And then that's when I type, well, I want gamers that are age 13 to 35 who live in the United States that, you know, like the Dodgers and wear Dragon Ball Z t-shirts. And, you know, their favorite ice cream is vanilla or whatever. Like, it's that level of detail with Facebook that, you know, they kind of can do that because no other social media platform allows you to do that.

So I kind of understand why. Like, I mean, that's their business. Their whole business is selling data. It's not really, like, connecting people and, you know, things like that. So I'm definitely not surprised that this is happening, you know, like, you know, that they're purposely manipulating people's feeds and show people whatever it is they want to show. But what did surprise me is that, yeah, Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp went down and not just go down, but like literally like disappeared from the internet for a little while. And for a minute, I was like,

what if it never comes back? I was going to hoping that would be the case to be honest. Well, I wasn't because then we'd probably be out of a job. No, we just go super hard in the pain on like TikTok. All right, folks, GeoCities is coming back. Let's go, baby. Club pain just got resurrected as a premier social media platform. So, yeah, I don't know if like that conspiracy theory is true, you know, that like the reason why it went down is because they were scrubbing all the evidence that, you know,

for whatever it is they were doing. I don't know if that's true. if it is true you know it's really messed up that's some super conspiracy stuff there I like that it's really messed up

and I'm going to choose to believe it based off literally nothing they would do that stuff and my advice to not just you Dennis but everyone listening to here because we all use social media right like everyone

social media in my opinion is not it's no longer social media it's just media it's literally like the way we consume everything in our lives how we communicate communicate with everyone, how we keep up with the news, how we, you know, how we, you know, it's literally without the internet and social media in particular, it's like you are kind of disconnected

from everything and you're, you have to use it. So my advice to everyone is to kind of control as much as you can like what you are using it for and how you're using it and like what you're what you're kind of consuming on there because, you know, it is dangerous, you know, and like if what this whistleblower here is saying is true, you know, literally costs people's lives. You know, people died over this. And it can happen again and, you know,

just be safe up there. Yeah, someone asked, so are you guys going to remove Facebook Connect from Gleam or Steam giveaway? Heck no, bro. And I'll say no, because, I mean, it's still a valuable platform for us, right? Like, it still allows us to connect to people who might want to buy, like, a computer. It's not all bad.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's, you know, I can't share numbers, one, because I don't have them and two, because I don't care. But I will say that Facebook is very valuable for us in terms of getting people to even, like, know who NZXT is and, like, to possibly purchase a computer from us, right? Because if anything, you can think that we're doing the role of service, right, by advertising on Facebook, you know, like, well, don't buy from other people, buy from us. because we're amazing and we have a really cool podcast yeah you know I mean we're not going to stop using social media I mean if you want us to stop

using Facebook then we should stop using Twitter so we should stop using TikTok you stop using every platform social media is not evil it can be used for evil so that same thing like you know like a gun you know like a gun on its own it's not gonna like commit a crime or murder somewhat but someone has to pick up that gun and do something bad with it, you know. Same thing with like a, you know, like a pencil. Like I can use a pencil to write, to write like an essay or I can use it to, you know, stab Dennis in the leg, you know.

I think a pencil is a better way. I would say away from the physical violence. Well, you know what I mean though, right? It's just like it's, it's, it's, you're like almost there. You're like almost there, John Wick. It's not evil. It's not bad. It can be used for wrong.

That's what I mean. Well, yeah. I'm not. condone violence. No, no, no, no, for sure. But what I'm saying is that you, you were, you're, you were pretty much there, and you actually didn't even even need to go that far, because, like, you and I both know that, like, words can hurt, right? I mean, we've seen it time and time again, you know, like, bullying and stuff like that, right? Like, you know, it's an actual thing, and there's, like, a, there's a, there's, like, psychological, like, proof that, like, you can't,

that it's very hard for you to look away from something that, like, upsets you, right? Like, and people say, oh, just turn off the computer. Yeah, you can do that, but it's honestly very, very hard for people, you know, because there's just, like, part of, like, your, like, reptile brain that want you to keep looking at, like, negative stuff, especially if it's, like, about you. And to kind of take Ivan's analogy a little bit, you know, it's, it is like having a pencil, right? You can, you can take that pencil and you can write, hey, I think you look really cool today, or you can write, you look ugly, go away, don't ever talk to me again, on that same piece of paper, right? And it's up to the person who's

holding that pencil. Right now, Facebook is kind of holding the pencil, essentially. Or They're more like the people who are taking all the notes and disseminating the people in the signing. Okay, well, you're going to get this one. You're going to get that one. You're going to get that one. Right. So there's really interesting, this really interesting video on TikTok from somebody who does, like, research on, like, social media. And what she did was she kind of performed a study that was, like, double blind and had, like, a bunch of people, like, reviewing it and stuff.

what it basically did is that she started following transphobic content to see how long it would take her to reach to like other like hateful content on TikTok. And she said that it took about, it was like 500, 500 videos or something, which would only be about, you know, like two hours worth of view time. So she's saying that from, like if you wake up in the morning and you send up for TikTok, right, because the algorithm is so strong. and you have like a transphobic like skewed perspective right within by the end of the day you will land yourself on like other hateful content on TikTok it's really interesting because the algorithm is super super strong there's a whole side of all these social media platforms whether it's Facebook Twitter YouTube whatever that like people don't see unless you're like kind of like

already inclined to get there or like are like led to that stuff that that that is really really scary, you know, and, you know, I think these, these social media platforms should be held responsible for this stuff. I don't know how, you know, you can call me like a dirty Libby if you want, but like, you know, I think that, you know, there's a reason why you have to tell people to wear a seatbelt, you know, there's a reason why there's a law for that or like a law to get insurance because people just won't do it otherwise, you know, there's no incentive or nothing to not make them do it, then they won't do it. And then the other thing, you know, a lot of people don't really realize, I guess, unless you

work in social media is what drives what drives content is engagement, right? Yeah. So engagement is what gets clicks, what gets views, what gets comments, what gets retweets, all that stuff, right? Yeah.

And the most engaging stuff on social media is the controversial stuff, the stuff that makes people argue, the stuff that makes people fight, the stuff that makes people disagree, the stuff that makes people go back and forth with each other, you know, like fighting basically. And it's not like, you know, like if we were to post a picture of a computer, you know, like people are not going to comment like, this is the best computer I've ever seen. Thank you for posting in ZXT. You know, we're not going to get a million comments like that.

But if we were to post a picture of a computer that said with a caption that says something like, this will never be yours, this will never be free, this is better than your PC, your computer sucks if it's not like this, and just basically triggering people, then all of a sudden you start seeing a bunch of comments on there,

and then you start seeing people arguing. And before you know it, you're not even aware of this thread, and then you open up Twitter, and it just shows up on your front page, whatever social media platform you're on because all of a sudden it has a million likes and a million comments on there.

So that's how social media works. It's sad, but at the same time, it's like if you realize that, then, you know, use it to your advantage. Like understand that, you know, it's up to you to control the content you consume and don't take the bait, don't go back and forth to people and all that stuff.

I have a perfect example of this, Ivan, and I think you know what I'm going to show everybody. It's a tweet that we made. and it was a dumb tweet, right? And I'm going to explain what it went through this, right? So this is probably one of our most liked and quoted retweeted tweets we've ever done, right? This is the infamous subtitle tweet, right? And it says, we're turning on our Twitter profanity filter to remove some obscene terms from our feed.

Please your feigned from using any this ispicable language or you'll be blocked. 30FPS, controller, ASMR, subtitles, free, light, and blah, blah, blah, right? So what we thought we were doing is we thought we were making a tweet that was like, you know, oh, subtitles and anime, right? ASMR is cringy, even though I love it. You know, controllers are not for real gamers because keyboards and mice are 30 FPS, light mode, blah, blah, right? So we thought it was a joke, right?

Everyone else was like, yo, this tweet's actually really stupid because you're kind of poking fun of people who are differently able. And I'm like, oh, shit. And we thought it was okay for a bit. The next morning, it absolutely blew up. There were people, there was, how many comments around this thing is, I don't know if I can find here, but there's a ridiculous amount of comments. There's people who never hop in our comments ever who are like,

these verified users, blah, blah, blah, who are all over this stuff, right? If we had made the same tweet and it was more like positive or something, you know, like, oh yeah, hey, you should use the controller. You should, you know, use subtitles. You should use light mode, right? I can guarantee you nobody would care. It's just the way social media works, right?

It's much easier to be angry at stuff, right? And like, don't get me wrong. It was a dumb tweet, right? Because without having all that context, no one would know what the heck we're talking about, which is why people got it so upset about it. Right? But if this tweet was worded differently and more with a positive,

spin, I guarantee you would not have the same amount of engagement at all, right? Because people, you know, okay, cool, that's nice. But if it's something for you to get angry at, it's much easier to engage with it. So yeah, you know, that's just, that's just, that's how the internet works. Whatever someone big says something, then it go wild. The follow. Did you just leak our Trello screen on there, Dennis? Yeah, I did. There's our Trello. Oh, no.

Um, so we got a couple of comments here, questions from people in the chat real quick. Let me just... I'm saving the. for the end, Dennis. Okay, okay. There's some... Just stick to the script, Dennis. Stick to that trailer card.

There isn't a script. This is a stream. What are you talking about? I'm adding the questions there to the checklist. I got you. I'm just looking through here quick. Yeah. Okay.

Next story. I'm sure you guys are all aware of this one. Twitch, source code, and creator payouts part of massive leak. So I don't even know if there's like an update to this yet, but basically Twitch. Imagine if... We would have been like on that list, number one. You're only 16 number one. Let's go.

So there is a huge leak titled number one, by the way. So supposedly whoever hacked Twitch has more information, right? And a bunch of information was leaked. Basically like the payouts for creators, top creators, stuff like that. Sorry, it's my doctor in the background. All kinds of stuff. It's a pretty big deal. If you haven't already, please change your power.

passwords, please change all your information. I love that Haslam tweet, by the way, email by the way, in the chat. I mean, I can just go through this. See, the leak includes three years worth of details regarding creator payouts on Twitch, the entire day Twitch TV with commit history going back to its early beginning, source code for everything, for mobile desktop.

So it's not just information. This is like the source code, how this website was developed, was leaked as well. proprietary uh uh SDKs and and service code uh unreleased steam competitor the best part about all of this though was that this was the day after the whole facebook thing right yeah yeah and the day the facebook thing went down twitch made a tweet you know making fun of

facebook oh did they yeah for uh for like the what happened and then like the very next day it's like Twitch you know it's kind of like ironic I guess yeah it's it's crazy I I don't know like I I don't know who hacked Twitch but man like they they literally got everything yeah and I and like I'm curious now like if if I'm a if I was a big streamer on Twitch like I wouldn't want people to know how much money I'm making you know like I'd be really mad at Twitch like I don't know what I would do I don't know if I would If I would just say, you know what, like, I'm going to go to YouTube now because I don't trust you guys or, you know, like, how dare you leak my info? Like, I'm going to sue you now for whatever.

Like, I don't know what's going to happen from this because it's very personal information that they got into and shared. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's really interesting how how creators have been, like, reacting to this. I really haven't seen like a lot of, I mean, I'm sure like behind the scenes are like, they're like super pissed at it, right? But one, I'm not surprised that like people get paid this much. And two, I'm also not surprised that people are surprised that they're, that people are getting paid this much. It's like, I can't believe I've been donating $5 a month to this person who makes $2 million, like a year.

It's like, well, I mean, duh. And here's the thing too. This is only just Twitch payouts. This doesn't include sponsorships. Doesn't include donations. Doesn't include, you know, any, any outside ventures. Their actual like, you know, yearly income could be a heck of a lot more. more. And hopefully they're paying taxes on this stuff.

They better be paying taxes on the stuff. If not, I'm going to come by and get what's money. I don't want to say it's not a lot of money because it is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. If you're a millionaire, yeah, you're rich. You have a lot of money. But in the grand scheme of things, when you look at the big picture, it's not a lot of money because if you think about it, like, you know, these are entertainers, right? These are people that are putting on programming for you to enjoy and whatnot. And, you know, like, they're not, like, working for a television studio or a movie studio that's paying them, you know, $20 million of film and things like that. You know, and I remember, like, in the 90s, like, the big deal was that I think the last season of Friends, like, each of them, each person on Friends was making, like, $500,000 an episode.

Yeah. Which is way more than any streamers making nowadays. And that was, you know, 25 years ago. Yeah. And that's obviously, you know, television network deals and all that. But nowadays, you know, 20, 21, almost 2022, you know, like there is no real like, you know, I guess comparison because this internet thing is so new and different that, you know, it's kind of expected that these people should be getting paid because, you know, they're dedicating. their lives to creating content and people enjoy it. You know, like, you know, people love tuning to these people.

They appreciate what they're putting out there and they're willing to pay for it. So they should get paid for it. It just sucks that, like, all that info is out there now because, you know, maybe not everyone wanted everyone to know how much money they're making. Yeah, I think the Pokemon made a tweet that was like, help me find it real quick. I'm just going to find it. So I don't like this quarter.

Now people won't complain that I make million dollars. a month from simps or something like that um yeah uh at least people can over exaggerate me quote unquote making millions a month off my viewers anymore uh which is true right i mean like sorry i said simps yeah yeah but but like that's a funny thing too is like it's actually been surprisingly who's been the top of this list and also hasn't been surprising who's been top of this list and it's funny because like i've been watching some of these streamers and they'll literally be like come on guys top five let's do it right like the league using this to like two almost be like competitive What you think is like, you know, it's pretty funny, you know.

I think anybody who complains about people who make this much doing streaming are honestly incredibly naive and don't understand how the internet or advertising or anything works or has worked, right? I mean, you know, think about, I don't know, like an artist like Prince, right, who gets paid, you who would get paid millions of dollars or whatever. It's like, what does he do? He makes music that millions of people enjoy, right? anyone else off top, you know, Doja Cat or something, right? Oh, why she getting paid so much? Because their music slaps and people I listen to it and they're streaming it relentlessly on Spotify. That's how that stuff works.

Well, the sleek make people's views go down. No, I don't think so. I think what it does expose, though, is just the huge disparity between the people at the top and the people not at the top. And it's pretty much, there's like no mid-tier. You're either small to mid or you're huge. That's just the way it works, right? Um, yeah. And it was funny seeing tweets from like other YouTube creators like, hey, you know, like YouTube's looking for people to stream.

You guys join, you know, join team YouTube or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, like it's, you know. It's a super poor taste, but it's also kind of funny. It's like another like, I guess, quote unquote evil corporation, Google, which, you know, has just as much data as a, as a Facebook or whatever. And, you know, it's like, I don't know. I guess it's, you're not really.

you're not really safe, I guess, wherever you go nowadays, anything can happen. Yeah, and like I feel like if you're, if you really care about safety internet, like just don't use the internet. Like, just don't, don't do anything outside. Use all paper money. Save it in a mattress, right? Get paid into the table. It's just the way it is, right? Like, nothing's private, you know, nothing, nothing is ever free, right? If something is free, then they're selling your, your data, so on and so forth. So yeah, you know, ripped a Twitch. Um, the scarier part though is that we don't know what else is leaked, right? Because they haven't confirmed or haven't confirmed what, what else has been a part of this.

I mean, if they have, if they have the, the amount of money that they paid people, they probably have the ads. They sent those checks. Yeah. The routing numbers, if it was like a direct deposit thing. Who knows what else, you know? So yeah, I guess if you have a Twitch account, change your password up to your two of a and then when Twitch fixes this thing,

change your password again and update your 2FA again. See here. So Twitch put on an update this morning actually, 1AMPT. So saying update your stream key. We learned that some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by malicious third party,

obviously. Our teams are working with urgent. to investigate the incident. I guess it's on the information that they've put out so far is just that to update your stream key, I guess. I'm not really sure. I'm really sure if that's really what I care about

because you could always change your subkey and it's always your stream key. It's always been a thing. Maybe it was YouTube who did it. Yeah, right? Imagine. It's scary, man. Because like, you know, there's people out there that they don't have

like good intentions and they're very smart and if they really wanted to they can hack into a bunch of different things and do a bunch of evil things with that information so hopefully that you know this is like a wake-up call for Twitch and they invest more resources into security because you know there's a lot of people on Twitch and I would hate to see

yeah you know Twitch you know suffer because because of something like this. So hopefully they can turn it around and fix it. You know what I think could fix this whole problem, Ivan? Yes. Our homie Francis from Facebook, she can help blow the whistle on this whole situation.

Let's go. Whistle blow it out. Whistle blow that thing. All right, next story. I was going somewhere with that, and then I forgot where it was going, I was like, let's just let it roll, because this song slaps anyway. All right, so this is pretty cool. Now, all of Battlefield 2042's next gen digital editions include cross-gen access.

So I was just talking to someone yesterday about game publishers and, like, game developers, because I also worked for game publisher. And someone was like, oh, yeah, EA sucks. And I was like, hold up, hold up. Like, EA may have really, really sucked in the past, right? They were like, you know, like, voted like the most, like terrible company in the United States or something like multiple years around or whatever, which I always thought was really hilarious because there's other companies who really like destroy the world, not a video game

company, right? But when it comes to like, I don't know, I said recent like four or five, six years, he has been kicking butt, you know, IMO. They've been doing some cool stuff, right? They've just been making really good games. And, you know, now they're providing us with some, you know, with some next-den digital edition cross-gen access for Battlefield 2042. I know literally just like butcher that entire thing.

Evan, what do you think about this? Well, as a gamer whose favorite video game, RISD link got bought by EA, I really hope you're right, you know, because, you know, I haven't liked everything EA's done. You know, like, I regret buying about 10 different Maddens over the years. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, like I love Battle, Battlefield is a fun game. Like, I'm not a huge.

huge, huge battlefield player, but I have played battlefield and I think it's awesome. And I love the fact that, you know, has this cross-gen access. I think that's a really cool idea. And yeah, like I know people

are always going to like throw shade at pretty much any game developer, any game publisher that has haters, right? But at the end of the day, you know, they're just people making video games and I'm sure they're trying not to make them suck. Believe it or not. Like, no one wants to make a sucky game. right so I haven't played this one yet I think Mike intern Mike here played it he was

really pumped up for it yeah I played the beta yesterday it was it was it was here's my full review on battlefield 2042 right it's battlefield it's battlefield you know I mean it's about like what else can you do right yeah it's like a battlefield yeah like a battlefield game as a battlefield game yeah exactly you know you you you're walking around you're trying to get into a fight next thing you know a jet on you and just blast you with a rocket and then you're angry for five seconds until you pick up a rocket launch you try to blow it up for the rest of the game. Let's do what I do.

I will literally just be like, this, this helicopter's annoying. My sole purpose now is to take this sucker down at least once. And I will switch my kid out to whatever it is, grab whatever thing I can, I can that has any, like, anti-air capability and I will hunt that sucker down until it goes away. That is literally what I do. How did you compare a battle film in Call of Duty? Not even the same game. Not even the same game.

Completely different genres. I don't say genres, but different styles of gameplay, but they might as well be genres in terms of like, you know, I guess he said, like the like Millsim, Super Light Arcady Milsim versus the I don't know, one man army simulator. I don't know you call it the Chuck Norris simulator. I don't know if that's still a relevant

a relevant reference to making 2021 year for Lord Jeff Bezos. But yeah. I think it's cool. So a little more detail. EA is making Betafil 2042 a little bit more accessible across generations. The company announced Tuesday that the digital standard edition

of Battlefield 2042 on PS5 and Xbox Series X slash S now includes cross-gen bundle which gives you access to both PS4 and the PS5 or Xbox 1 and Xbox Series X slash S. I hate the naming these things. The things are horrible,

but I love that they're doing this. I think it's really cool. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's, this is something to like, I forget which I forget who was it But someone got in trouble because they were basically saying that That like oh yeah

You can get you know like an upgrade to the next version of the game But you got to give us like 20 bucks or something And people are like well that's kind of dumb like don't do that I forget exactly who it was or what situation was But you know that's besides the point This is really cool I think it's awesome that you can just have access to both of them And they're also saying that if you log in with like an EA account Your your progress saves

so you know if you have some some homies who are like some broke boys and still playing on like a PS4 you know um or these literally can't get one because they're not available anywhere um and you want to hop down you know on your PS4 player and play with your homies uh at like you know one FPS and then go back you know to I'm throwing shade I can't help that guys it's the PS4 it's constantly like 50 years old thing sounds like a jet turbine have you ever heard of PS4 in action Ivan yeah they're loud dude They're super loud. Yeah. But it's awesome. We're also announcing that NZXT is going to be providing the cross-gen airflow bundle

where you can swap from case to game. Yeah, it was so cool if we did that, but also like logistically, I don't know how the heck that don't make any sense. You need the same parts of the different stuff. But I know, it's really cool, you know. It doesn't apply to the PC version, but there really is in. like a, you know, there's no such thing as like a, you know, lower gen PC, right? It's literally, you know, you just play on the PC and you record your parts. And it's, it's cool stuff, you know.

I think it's great. I think it's a really good positive change. I'm glad to see the EA is going to, you know, being one of the better companies when it comes to, or one of the better games publishers slash developers who are really kind of pushing, like, where people can get their games and how they're accessing them. I think that Microsoft's doing the same thing, too, right, with like, with Xbox games, like a first part of Xbox games, where you only have to own it on like one of the platforms you can play them on anywhere, which I think is, I think is cool. So props to them.

It's always a good thing when more people can play video games. Yes, and not having to pay for the same game like twice. Yes, especially that. Because I think about like people who bought like GTA five, like five different times, right? Because in that game launch on like, they launched into 360? Did it? Did it?

Did it? Probably. I think it did. Let me see. It was PC last, right? Yeah, I was on PC last. Was it on 360? It was.

Oh my God, dude. Okay, so this game launched in 2013. Was that 2012? 2013. 2013. Almost 10. Really real. Yeah, it is.

You can play on an Xbox 360, a Series X, Series S, PlayStation 3. So it's literally been released for, it's going to be three console generations now. This game's still kicking. Yeah. Yeah, people still playing that game. Yeah. So, like, imagine, you know, if you know. It's a good game.

Yeah, no, it's great. Imagine if you just log in, you know, with like your, your Rockstar account and you have cross-progression through every version of the game. That'd be kind of cool, right? Yeah. See, for me, I only bought it once because I got on on PC. So there we go. By six times, you have GTA6. Yeah, exactly.

If you buy, just one more time, they'll, uh, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, allow it. Yeah. All right. Next one, Ivan, you got this one? Windows 11 will hobble gaming performance by default on some pre-built PCs. Yay. This is like the hot topic right now because, as you know, NZXT sells pre-built PCs. But I read this article and I was like, great, you know, like one more thing. Our customer service team is going to have to deal with now is like the fact that this new operating system is just going to be like, like making people's computers not perform right when they're gaming. And it's a big deal for us because we saw computers specifically for gaming. So I was really bummed out to hear this because, you know, like I, I like Windows 10. I think Windows 10, in my opinion, it's the best Windows OS, like, ever. And I've been using Windows since it was like Windows 95, was it through Windows 95, I guess, was the first Windows. Oh my God, dude.

I used. And it's come a long way, you know. I did upgrade to Windows 11 on my laptop. And now my laptop feels like a Chromebook. I don't really particularly enjoy the design or the new style, whatever you want to call it. It does look a little more cartoonish, in my opinion. It works fine on my laptop, but I also don't play video games on my laptop. The only thing I do on my laptop is, you know, check email, check Trello.

Slack and stream baseball games to my TV sometimes. I just hope that, you know, Microsoft realizes that people are using Windows 11 to play video games. Yeah. If it's actually hobbling gaming performance by up to 25%, that's a huge problem. Yeah, no, it's, so the article goes on to say that, so, Microsoft is enabling security features in PCs, and one in particular can tank gaming performance. And our testing, this is from PC gaming, by the way.

And our testing, that can add up to as much as a 28% dropping average frame rates. And if you thought the TPM 2.0 restrictions were a pain. Yeah, so basically the issue is virtualization-based security, a setting introduced into Windows 10, which uses hardware and software visualization to enhance security your system. It basically creates an isolated subsystem, Jesus, is that prevents that helps prevent malware from screwing your PC.

Yeah, so there's like an issue with people's computers. I forget what it's called, it's like Bit Locker, right? That's like the BitHack or something that basically takes your data hostage, right? And whoever is controlling you under the end is like, hey, you can't use a computer unless you give us like, you know, $5,000 or something and then we'll unlock a computer. And even then you might not even get it, right? Yeah.

Yeah, and gaming performance aside, you know, I just feel like Microsoft really dropped the ball with just rolling out Windows 11 because I have three computers, right? I have my computer at home, my desktop computer, which I do use for gaming, but it's really old. You know, it's like a I-5-4-4-60 GTX-970. right but it works it's kind of what my dad has now it works perfectly fine for the games that i play right so i don't trip like it's fine but i really need going in like there's no way this thing is going to be able to upgrade to windows 11 once i saw the requirements and like you know and that and expected to because it's old right like the hardware in that computer is literally like five six years old and like i'm cool with it whatever and then i have my laptop which is new um so

is it a hp envy i think it is um and windows is 11 surprisingly, you know, I didn't expect it to work on my laptop, to be honest, but it did. And I was like, oh, cool. I can check out Windows 11. So I downloaded it and it works fine. And then at work, you know, I have this freaking crazy, like... Is it Jared's old PC? Yeah, or a podcast PC. You know, it's like the... I don't even know what the heck is in this thing. It's like the beefiest computer I've ever used in my life. As an I-9, I-9, here, let me pull up the specs here.

I have an I-9-9900X RTX 2080 Strix X-299 E-Gaming motherboard It's basically, you know, it's not the newest hardware But it's like top of the line Hardware, I mean, it's like it This computer does anything

And in this morning when I got here I wanted to see if it was compatible with Windows 11 And it's not So I'm like, how can this like like little cheap laptop run Windows 11 that's like a thousand dollar laptop and I have this $4,000 computer here that can't makes no sense to me. Yeah. And it's kind of messed up.

I think that Microsoft is kind of limiting the amount of people that can upgrade to the new OS because I do think people should always have the newest OS just for security reasons, right? Like if you're going to run an operating system, you always want to have the latest and the greatest, the newest updates, all that stuff, just to make sure that, you know, your computer's running how it should be, and it's everything safe and whatnot. And they're not letting people do that right now. It's kind of annoying. The heck. Sorry, Andy's yelling at us. He has his cap blocks locked in Slack. So luckily for you, Ivan, it seems that this feature is really mostly, is mostly, so it says you're right, it's a feature mainly intended for enterprise computers to be

able to lock down the corporate PCs they drop into the offices and make sure they don't get compromised. If you're upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, then you don't have to worry about VBS being enabled unless you're already running an enterprise version of an older OS. The issue comes if you're receiving a machine which has had an OEM build of Windows installed on it. But luckily, right, this still can be turned off, right? It's not like, you know, it's not like you have to have it all the time. It's one of those things where like, you know, make sure that, you know, your pre-built computer company of choice is ensuring that this stuff has turned off so you get full use of the hardware that you're paying for.

I know, like, as soon as this stuff came out, we had talks all over, like, every single Slack channel. People are like, oh, snap, what's going on here with Windows, Windows, Windows, right? So, yeah, you know, personally, it's the way I think, right? I'm a totalitarian, not nice person. And I think everyone should have all the stuff enabled by default. I think you should always update EOS. I think you should always have this stuff because it's better to have it than than not, right?

That being said, though, right? people should not have people should not have their performance compromised as little as possible right because no matter what anything you run is gonna compromise performance even a little bit right if you're streaming your compromising performance on your CPU or your GPU right if you're listening

music or watching movies or whatever you know all that stuff yes Ivan nobody should have to go into bios to update their freaking windows dude it's just like I see some comments in the chat here is like Ivan just go into the BIOS and turn on your ETPM module or whatever. I'm like, dude, like, I'm the type of person where it's like, if it requires me to just do like one extra thing, I'm not going to do it.

Even if I can, I'm just not, like, I don't want to deal with it. I'm just not that I'm, I guess it is maybe part laziness, but it's also just part convenience, right? Like I would rather just have it work the easy way where like every other windows updated my life is just like click here to update. Like, okay, boom, you're done. I don't want to tinker with anything. I do think it's really annoying, and it's really messed up to expect people to do that. Not everyone knows how to go into BIOS. I'm sure, yeah, like I work at a computer company.

Even if I am too lazy to do it, I can go ask a builder here. Hey, man, can you help me up here? Hey, man, can you help me up here? I've done that before, yeah. But not everyone has that luxury, right? And I don't think it's fair that Microsoft is making people do this, because it shouldn't be that way. It should be simple.

It should be easy. It should just be like, you know, you buy a pre-built computer. You should just work. And if you want to update Windows 11, like you should just be able to kick a button and update it. You shouldn't have to do a million things to make it work, right? It's really frustrating. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the problem when you start, you know,

having marry software and hardware together, right? And you've got to be more sophisticated. Sometimes the solution isn't as easy. Yeah. Yeah, the Vikings said welcome the PC gaming, which is sure right. Like that's probably the biggest barrier to PC gaming and why something like the Steam Deck might be very, very popular is because it just makes PC gaming easy because you don't have to worry about this stuff, right? It's a custom OS design for gaming and stuff. And, you know, you leave all the other stuff behind.

And that's kind of the thing is that, you know, Windows, Microsoft has to, has to service and cater to literally everyone who's using these computers, right? Whether it's, you know, if you're a content creator, if you're a gamer, if you're working on spreadsheets, you know, if you're, you know, coding for Twitch, right? Like, you know, they have to make sure that everyone's- Hacking Facebook. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. You know, if you're, if you're hacking Facebook, if you're whistleblowing on Facebook, I mean, you know,

literally anything and everything is done on pretty much Windows, right? So it's, it's sucky. And sometimes if sometimes it kind of feels like that, like, gaming, and like the PC gamer community is kind of like forgotten sometimes. Like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Bro, I'm doing Linux. Sit that guy out of here.

Don't you ever talk to me about Linux, ever again, ever again. Unless you're talking about Chromebooks. Yeah, exactly. I would love to use Linux, but I also like being able to play video games. And do you have to do work. And if I had to do work, and I want to do it. Yeah. It goes to the whole convenience thing, right?

Yeah, Linux works fine. And if you're the type that likes to tinker with the, things. You can figure out how to do, you know, how to do whatever it is you want to do on it. But it's definitely not easier than Windows, definitely not easier than a Mac, definitely not easier than, you know, whatever. Yes, exactly. I have an iPhone for a reason because I don't have to think with this thing.

I just do what I wanted to do and it does it. Or someone say here in the chat, Twitch attack Facebook. They clapped back and release all of our info. Conspiracy confirmed. Exactly, exactly. And it's all done on Windows computers, everyone. Congratulations. Clap, clap, clap on the chat.

All right. Next story here. I always scroll down. Andy reports that Windows 11 may be causing performance dip on up to 15% of Ryzen CPUs. Keep getting worse. So I'm going to say as a, I'm taking out the N60 hat and I'm putting on just the observant gamer computer builder hat. I feel like Ryzen requires a lot of tinkering as well.

is it just me? I think it's just you. I think this is more like a Microsoft thing than an AMD thing. Kind of like, you know. Educate me, Evan. Tell me where I'm wrong. Well, because it's, there's, you don't really need to tinker with the rising CPU when you build a PC or to even use it.

Like, you put it in the socket and you close it and you put a cooler on it, then you forget about it, you know, and then you just turn your computer. There's not much tinkering going. on. It actually may not be entirely true, I think. I think for a for certain Risen CPUs and certain chipsets, you do need to update your BIOS to get it to work. But I think it's also a thing to do with like newer, some newer Intel chips too.

I forget they release like five, five generations of Intel and like the past like a year and a half, I think. Yeah. Well, what bugs me though about this in particular is that I'm I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means, but I love the fact that in recent years, AMD has turned it around. and is no longer a joke. Because for a long time, yeah, if you had an AMD CPU or GPU,

you know, it was a joke. I mean, there's like a whole subreddit dedicated to this, you know, AAMD, A-A-A-A-Y-M-D. And in recent years, I mean, yeah, like, AMD is like, man, they stepped it up, and they've been crushing it with their CPUs and GPUs. And like, I love seeing like a success.

story like that where, you know, someone, not just for like a company, but like people in general, like someone that's just like down and out struggling and then all of a sudden they picked themselves up and then like, you know what, we're going to turn this around. We're going to, we're actually going to make things awesome and we're going to change our lives. And like, AMD did that. And, you know, the fact that, okay, now, now you have an AMD PC and you want to agree to Windows 11, like now your CPU is going to be, see a performance dip by 50%. Come on, man. Why is that to be like that?

I don't blame AMD for this. I do blame Microsoft, to be honest, just because it's like, there's tons of problems. It's not just with AMD. So let's see here. The other problem lies that AMD's preferred core feature not working as advertised. Preferred core assigns apps to the fastest core on the chip.

This two may cause noticeable performance dips with chips that are 65 watts or higher, below is the full AMD advisory notice about these two no issues oh oh who wrote this george Jimenez come on buddy these two no issue oh yeah i know right um let's see uh md confirms that every rise in cp uxxxxxxed and bn't see umdddddddddddddddddddddd on both windows 10 and 11 showed no no appreciable difference in performance but that is the one chip out of more than 100 in the list right now nothing is being reported on

on how Windows 11 is affecting Intel chips though I'm sure if you're Intel you're not shedding any tiers with the competition. AMD says both a Windows and software update led this month to resolve issues. Windows 11 is currently out now as a free agent. So yeah, you know, that's just the like early adopter stuff, right? I feel like it happens every time.

There's like a new OS update for Windows, especially like a generational leap. There's always going to be some issues and some bugs and I think at the very least Windows and Microsoft have been pretty good about updating stuff pretty quickly. Like if there's ever like a security issue, like they're on it super, super quick. I think people forget about that. I think because it just runs in the background and just does its thing, people don't realize like how often Microsoft has to update this thing. Because if we think about it, right, if all these computers in the world are using Windows, you know,

there are probably a ton of people who are looking for ways to get into this thing and find ways to compromise it and compromise your computer and your, you know, your data and all that stuff. They're going to fix it, but it just sucks that they have to fix it. Yeah. It would be nice if they just came out with the operating system that didn't make my gaming PC, you know, suck. But it is what it is. And yeah, you're right.

It goes to like the early adopter thing, right? Like no one's forcing anyone to upgrade. Like you could just wait until Microsoft figures out how to fix this thing. And they will. Like, they have to. fix it like you said like there's too many computers out there for them to just ignore these issues and too many not just too many computers but too many too many computers being used for video games which seems like they didn't really think about or maybe they did think about it but didn't realize the

the issues that we're going to happen because of it yeah and like um i i i want to say that you know that they would be able to i know why this halo thing's ringing in the background he's like staring at it I was thinking it though. I was watching it. I was like, oh, I got to play that again. Let's have some Halo while we talk. I was going to say, it's like one of the things too where like, you know, you do want people to upgrade

to the new version of the operating system, right? There's no reason why they wouldn't want you to. So, you know, if you have all these people, particularly gamers who are very influential who are saying, hey, don't upgrade to Windows because my call due to war zone now runs even worse, right? Then, you know, then, you know, that's, that's bad news for them. And I think, I think current day Microsoft is pretty good.

I'm actually really, like, positive about what did they do, not even like on, on, on, on, like, the Xbox side, you know, but just on, on just the Microsoft side in general, can I turn them more into a services company. They're, they're super smart. I forget the name of the CEO, but this dude's kicking butt. Yeah, Microsoft is one of those companies like AMD where they kind of turn it around. You know, they had this negative perception about a lot of the things they were doing. Yeah. And I can think in recent years, they've totally turned it around. And I love Microsoft products.

I use Microsoft products every day. Hey, me too. And it's like, you know, they definitely mess this thing up. But I do think they're going to fix it. And like, Dusty is last year in the chat brings up a good point. You know, they said, I just wish I can build a computer for a reasonable price nowadays. And it's true. Like, if I was building a computer now, like, if I had to build a computer today, like,

And I didn't work at a computer company. Yeah. You know, I would, I mean, it would suck because, yeah, everything costs more. Everything's hard to find. It's going to take me a lot longer to build a PC. It's going to be a lot harder to build it. And the last thing I want to deal with now, after I go through all the hassle of finding a GPU, finding a CPU, building everything, putting it all together.

And like, okay, now I'm going to install Windows 11. Yeah. And like, oh, my game PC sucks. Like, damn it, like, I should have got this PC. Maybe I should have just saved this $2,000 and try to find a PS5 instead. Yeah, I agree with you, Dusty. Thanks, Dusty. How many GPU stocks does NZ60 have?

My answer was at least one. I think so. Or at least two. You and me, we're reading one right now. Yeah. And the last bit of news, this is from Ivan as well. Ais X Naktua. So Aces and Naktua teamed up

and they made a G-Force 3070 Naktua edition. I'm going to say what we're all thinking, as it's tradition with Naktua, and we all know that I personally live with Naktua. I think their fans are amazing. This is an ugly-ass video card, but it wouldn't be Nauta if it wasn't that Tannen Brown, and that's what they're known for.

And I actually love that that's what they're known for. Like, well, besides performance, performance obviously, right? Because, you know, you can argue that they're not like some of the best fans around, right? But they just look so like, just that that color does not fit with any scheme, right? We got, you know, we just really just like, okay, imagine imagine instead of like white components, we release a brown and tan components. And now it's like, all right, now you can match everything to your not to a fan. So I also I'm not a fan of the color brown Like I don't think it's an appealing color at all Yeah it's definitely not It's ugly but but but I love the fact that

Naktua uses that as like their calling card Yeah Because it's so weird and out there Because like yeah they could have picked any color in the world And they're like yeah we're going to choose brown And it's like Is that doo-Doo brown? Yeah exactly I associate brown with doo-doo you know

And it's funny thing too I have the Noctua, like, hoodie, the doo-doo brown Naktua hoodie with the logo on it. And I remember I worked at the office and, like, John was like, oh, that's a cool hoodie. I'm like, yeah, dude, it's, it's Nogtua. Like, you can't not love them because, like, they're 100% performance, right? They're super, super dope, right? And, you know, they keep this, this, this, this, like, color scheme. And I'm actually, I was actually personally upset when they released their, when they released their air coolers and they made them not, not the ugly brown.

Like, the, uh, the whole black thing. But they had like the, you can swap them, though. You can swap the colors. Yeah. Like, I feel like they should never do colors ever. They should just always do brown, brown tan forever on everything. And just never compromising that color. And then their thermal page should be brown too. Everything they do should just be this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

So that, you know, when people see it, they're like, yo, that is not good looking, but, and does that thing perform really well. And that's what I love about it. You know what, like, honestly, like, on its, on its own, like, if you look at just, like, just, like, like, just like a brown fan, like on its own. It's not, for me at least, I don't think it's like visually appealing. But I have seen some awesome looking builds. Yeah. Like, where I never in a million years would have thought like, oh, wow, like, brown fans

actually look good. And even here at the office, you know, Harry, our product manager for desktops here on build, he's the biggest Noctua fanboy I've ever met in my life. Oh, yeah? Yeah. And like, every once in a while, you know, he'll come in here with like one of his computer. and it blows my mind how awesome it looks. And I also love that Naktua is expanding product categories, man.

It's smart. It's really smart how they're doing it too. Yeah, partnering with a great company like Asus, you know, making a graphics card, which everyone in the world right now is trying to get their hands on a graphics card, so why not make one, you know? And, you know, hopefully that this opens the door for them to make more graphics cars or more product categories. I'm waiting for my Naktua Brown headphones. one day.

Actually, it'd be kind of cool, to be honest. Yeah. They actually wouldn't be a bad color. And, like, you know, I just want to make sure that everyone understands here. Obviously, I'm poking fun at them and I'm making fun of, you know, the color because that's what they're known for, right? You can't not. You know, but, I mean, it's, it's cool.

I think, you know, if I was in the market for 3070 and had a bunch of money to spare, which I don't right now, I would definitely consider this because you know this thing's going to be super cool. It's going to run super well, so. Yeah. And you know what I'm always a fan of weird, the weird of the better. So, I mean, I just love that Naktua, you know, is quote unquote weird for making brown their color. I love that.

So congratulations, Naktua. Keep it up. Yeah. I will say you guys need to step up your social media game. This was never tweet, dude. I'm just scrolling down. It goes from August, 7th, July. Well, I think it's different, too, because, like, they're, I think they're Australian, right?

Are they? I don't know. I have no idea where they're from. Craig, remember I'm wrong, guys. Isis or Naktuna, Austria. That's not Australia, Austria. It's got to be Austria. You know, social media works different in different parts of the world. So, you know, I don't know much about like. It's actually, it's, so there's the Austrian RASCOM computer distribution,

why know what this means, and a Taiwanese cooling specialist, so I guess it's like a, it's like a joint vent. or something. So just so you know, it's not all Austrian. I guess it's like best of both worlds, right? Yeah. And like, yeah, and I don't know much about like, you know, their company, how it's organized or anything like that. But I do know that social media is not treated the same in different parts of the world. And yeah, in some parts of the world, it's not a big deal to not have a Twitter account, you know. But maybe they have some social media account like Orcut, or cut. or we chat something to get in touch with people. But yeah, there's definitely not like a consistency, I guess, when it comes to brands being on different social media platforms.

You know, what I also will say too, when you are when you are a company like Naktua or Naktua, I actually don't know how to pronounce it properly. I've always just said Naktua. And this isn't a knock on us, right? But when your quality and you're like known for that like level of performance, you don't need to say anything. You ain't got to say shit, right? Like you just do your thing. You release your products and people know and they love you and you just do a good job.

You know, social media does help, right? With like for people who might not be in the market. But like if you ask any person, what are some of the best fans I can buy today right now for my computer? You're probably going to hear knock to in that conversation, maybe even like the first, right? So like what else do you need, right? they have like the ultimate word of mouth but you know they're there that's the thing is like they're they're way more expensive right they're this doo-do brown right it's like they kind of are almost in like this position to like be perfectly like just um like like you can't forget him right

you see that color you instantly know from far away right who they are and what that person has in your computer which i think is really really cool like there there's a there's a few products that we have right where like when i see it right looks like example, the cable bar, I can instantly tell, oh, that's an NZXT case, right? Or the, like, infinity mirror design on our crack and coolers. Oh, they have a crack and cooler, right? Not very many manufacturers, not very many products are recognizable from that distance, you know? Like, I've sent you photos myself of like, you know, I was like, hey, you know, is this a, is this an NXT case? I can't tell. I want to post on Twitter. You're like, yeah, it has a cable bar. You know, that's,

that sort of thing. I'm like, oh, okay. So yeah. NXT, not to a case. The whole case. is brown and tan. There we go. Actually, Harry has a, it's a brown mini ITX case. I forget the brand, but it's really cool, and it has a giant

noctua air cooler on there with brown fans on it. It's sick. Nice. She should show me a photo so I can put on the podcast. All right. So we got some questions

from the community, folks. So yesterday, well, for those that don't know, first of all, we do have intern Mike back on the social media team helping us, not full-time, but part-time. You know, he's helping us out. And every day we give him a little mission to help us out with on social. So yesterday, his mission was to go on Instagram stories and collect questions from people that we would answer here on the podcast. And he made a list here of a bunch of questions that we're going to answer on the air. And then after we answer these,

we're going to answer the questions everyone's answering on the Twitch chat. So if you guys have questions and you're listening live, do me a favor, ask him. And we will answer them if we have time, I guess, towards the end of the show. So let me open up this Google Doc here. The first question here is,

How many PCs does MDXT make per day or week? The simple answer is, I have no idea, the exact number. But it's a lot for sure. It's definitely a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. You know, we have, we currently have two locations where we build computers. The first one is where I'm at right now here in beautiful city of industry, California.

I don't know if you could put it as beautiful in front of the city of industry. And the other being in Germany, and there's people building their computers all the time. So I don't know the exact number, but it's enough to fund this podcast, right, Dennis? Yeah. Next question, what's the best part about building a computer? What do you think, Dennis? honestly I don't know it all kind of sucks because it's work right because like when I'm building computer the one thing I want is for that thing to be done so I can start playing on it right

but I would say probably is getting clean cable management it's probably the most like satisfying part I don't know if it's the best part but like when you when you finish building you start writing on your cables and like it's nice and neat and you just like look at that back you're like man all these cables are exactly where they got to go they're nice routed into these things. channels. I got my zip k, my zip ties all nice and neat. But for the way, I do use zip ties because grown men use zip ties or grown people. It's said that. Grown people use zip ties and they have a cable cutter with them. So it's easy to remove because before I was I was scared to use zip ties. I was like, oh no, like what if it gets stuck? I got to stick a knife in there. I can cut my cables.

Get a cable cutter. Like the little snippers makes it so much easier. I guess I'm not a real person because I use NZXT cases which have cable routing channels. And, you know, and, you know, Velcro strap so I don't need zip ties Dennis they do in that main channel but they don't around the side of the other back in the like the that wall the of the motherboard tray thingy so got for me the for me the best part about building a computer is putting it on the floor and then walking by it and just going like yeah I can afford to put a $3,000 PC on the floor right Dennis yep this is a little bit of mood music here some some music bed here no that's a joke i i hate computers on the floor but my my favorite part about

building a computer to be honest is that first boot it's like so exciting to me every time you know i've built a lot of computers well i don't know what what you guys consider a lot but i've considered i've built you know several computers in my life and every single time i've built one like whenever i hit that start button it's just like my heart stops for a second and then when it's boots up i'm like yeah i did it you know like for me that's always the best part is actually like seeing everything come together and work i i love that feeling it's really really fun next question is will there ever be interchangeable side panels for the h510 elite and flow the answer to that question is we don't know but we do know that a lot of people are asking for them

and rest assured the nzx t social media team does a fantastic job to pass along your feedback to the nzzyxd product team they're aware you guys are asking for this but you know it's not up to uh dennis and i to to make that call just know that you know we hear you guys and um you know we let the product team know and what they do with that info is up to them hopefully they they do it you know we do like to to give the community what they ask for very good um it might take us a while because we do like to make things uh the NZXT way. You know, good examples of that are just recently coming out with the H510 flow,

the white crackens, the white fans, all things that people have been asking for on social media since I've been, I've booked to, to be honest. And, you know, yeah, so I guess the answer is maybe one day. So also, to also, like, to also go on with that, like, there are third parties who make, like, front mesh panels for some of these cases. And, like, there's nothing wrong with going one of them, you know? From what I hear, they were perfectly fine. But what I do know, especially with like the H510, it's like if you look at the flow,

we don't have the side panel, the side venting, or we also don't have the bottom venting. It's all in the front, right? That's obviously for a reason. I don't know the reason, right, but it's obviously for like an engineering and like an airflow and like whatever reason to get this thing working fine, right? So I'm sure if we're looking into that, we're probably testing different configurations for the H510 elite to see how that looks, how that looks, how that's, performs. So yeah, you know, just there's there's a bunch of stuff that goes into that as well.

It's not just slap a thing in there, right? Because maybe we can do it better and make it perform better, right? But we want to do it in the right way. And if it means, if it means buying a whole new case, and it means buying a whole new case, if it means we just replaced the panel and we saw that separately, that's what that means, right? But we won't know until we know. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely always like an easy way to do things and make things faster. Yeah. No, but we don't like to do things the easy way. That's the very obvious, yeah.

Next question here is, how long did it take to start up the company? So our company was founded by Johnny, our founder and CEO in 2004, no, 2003 was the first NXT product. and he designed it when he was still in in college. I think it was his freshman year of college. I think he was like 17 or 18 years old. And yeah, like at the time he started the company, you know, pretty much every computer case was beige

and his whole big brain thinking was like, you know what to be cool? A case for gamers. What would that look like? And back then, you know, when he was 17 years old whatever like that meant it would look like a transformer you know and so that's what he did you know and that's 2003 and fast forward now almost 20 years later the company went from being just him to where we're at today so to from inception to now it's been about 20 years yeah in that case was called the n60 guardian

i have a photo of it right now that's that's that's that's what that's this is what performance looked like folks back in the day This is what a dope computer case look like. Exactly. And crafted gaming armor. It's still to date the only NZXT case that features Johnny's signature. If you look at, if you go back to that website, Dennis. You mean you egg?

Yeah. And it's right there in the front door, right? If you click on the image with the front panel open right there, you see that's Johnny's signature right there. I don't think it's a closer photo. But, yeah. Oh, you know what? I'll post a picture of that on Instagram later today. so you guys can check it out at nzxte you guys want to see it i'll put it on stories

yeah show you a close-up of the signature also fun fact that the first nzxt case was all purple inside oh fancy yeah they're i'm pretty sure i like walked by one of these cases at like a fries back in the day well know as a kid and always another fun another fun fact i think it's the most pirated nzxte case ever like um You know, like in Asia, there's a lot of these, like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like pirate swap meets, I don't know what they're called. Yeah.

But it's just like these tech swap meets, you know, you can get like counterfeit everything. You get counterfeit iPhones, counterfeit Astro headsets, counterfeit, counterfeit Logitech webc, like, anything you want, like, tech, like, it's counterfeited there and like you can buy it. And apparently, from my understanding, I've never been there, but from what I've been told is that the NC-XT Guardian is like the most copied case out there. which is interesting because it's so old, you know, and it looks so different. And I'll just answer this question quickly from death relations around the subject of cases here,

but he's asking why we stopped making the Phantom. So the Phantom was after the Guardian, the Phantom was probably the next big innovation in NST case history. Whereas the Guardian was the first, like, non-Bage case to hit the market with like a side panel where you can look inside. and integrated RGB lighting and all that. You know, that case kind of sparked a lot of other companies to do the same. And Johnny, you know, his big brain idea then was like, well, if everyone's copying what I'm doing, I'm going to change it again. And he said, no one's making a white case, so let me make that.

And the Phantom was the first white case ever. And the reason why we stopped making that one, it's not like anything crazy. it's literally because we wanted to make better quality cases. And not that the Phantom was a bad quality case, it's that the design of the Phantom meant that we had to use plastic for it, right? Because it was all these like curves and angles. Just the way the case was designed, all the layout and stuff, it had to have a lot of plastic on the outside.

And over time, that plastic discolors, breaks, whatever. So Johnny's big brain idea was like, well, let's simplify this, right? Let's get rid of this funky shape. Let's just make it square, but we're going to use higher quality parts. And that means all metal. So now ever since then, like all our cases are basically 99% steel. What was the first steel case that we made? First steel one?

Yeah. I know the first case that was 99% steel was the S340. And the only like one percent, I mean, we had steel in cases before that, but the S340 was like the first one where it was like literally like, which is this case right here, by the way, right behind. Yeah. And the only plastic on there is like the part that connects the panels together, based, the front panel together basically. Imagine going from like the family before this that did roommate out of steel. But they also had like a little bit more plastic. Like the H440, for example.

Yeah. Yeah, it had a plastic strip along the top for the intake along the sides and stuff. But the S340 was the first one that I think was all mostly steel. So here's some images of the H440. Yeah, so the front I think was, I believe was plastic, right? The top was plastic. The internal construction was steel, right? So like it was a very rigid case, but like this, this, this panel was a lot of plastic.

It was a lot of plastic. Yeah. The venture plastic. Yeah. Actually, it was mostly steel. It was probably like, I would say maybe like 85, 90% steel. Yeah. The side panels were steel like saying like the framing.

It was just the the top in the front, right? The stuff actually pull out. And so obviously it's like a little bit plastic here at the bottom as well. But I know it's the, yeah, this was my first NXT case and I loved it. I sold it for 20 bucks. because it was missing a lot of the back PCIE covers and I feel like that's like a common thing I think one of the Grommets were missing is back when Grommets were a thing for people wanted to water cooling and stuff mine was the orange and black one though I didn't get this white one I feel looks sick like sick nasty

we we have like 10 more questions from stories but they're literally all the same questions with the exception of one that people already been asking on Twitch chat so I will ask you Right now, Dennis, before I move on to the Twitch chat questions, what have you had so far that's pumpkin flavored? Nothing this month, actually. We've been living a very frugal life, aka just buying groceries and cooking stuff. I can now make a really good beef stew. Hold on, hold on, Dennis. I have to interrupt you.

Okay. I have to fact check Mr. F.R. Z Eagle here. He said the empty for me, front panel is plastic. I'm gonna prove to him. If it was plastic, why were this magnetic stick on it, my friend? Oh! Got her! Yeah.

The only plastic is the part that connect the steel panel to the case. So that's what I mean when I said it was 99% metal or steel. The 1% is literally the part that connects the front panel to the case. Okay? Metal. Magnets don't stick on plastic that's time I checked. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you, Dennis. I had a fact-check Mr. Ebel. No.

Totally fine. What were you saying before I rudely interrupted you? You got him, dude. That's all I was going to say, got him. I'm just teasing you evil. Um, I don't remember. What we're talking about? Yeah, pumpkin flavor. I had anything pumpkin flavored yet this, this month. I said we've been shopping, shopping, uh,

very smartly and not eating out as much and uh you know i can make good stuff now i made park tacos last night i had a pumpkin flavored whiff of a rotten pumpkin yesterday they what so my daughter is obsessed with pumpkins okay like she's obsessed with like pumpkins like we have like 20 pumpkins at our house right now she's like her favorite thing in the whole world is pumpkins and last year was the first year she discovered pumpkins you know she's only three years old and um so last year we went to a bunch of pumpkin patches like i was literally going to a pumpkin patch every weekend for like two months it seemed and she had this giant white pumpkin that was her favorite right out of all her pumpkins she had like 20 pumpkins and his white one was her favorite and when it came time to get rid of all the

pumpkins you know after thanksgiving and whatnot she she wanted to save that pumpkin so i was like all right you know what i'm just going to say this pumpkin until it goes bad as long as i can and i left it in my my front um i had like this little garden well i should say it's my wife's garden because she's the one that maintains it the little garden in front of my house and we left the pumpkin there and it's literally been there for one year and it never went bad like it was i'm sure it was like rotted inside but on the outside like it just looked the same like it never changed and then And yesterday my wife goes, Ivan, I need your help. What, what's going on?

This pumpkin stinks. Help me get it out of you. And I go in the front. And, yeah, sure enough, like, I don't know if something happened where the pumpkin like collapse. And it was disgusting, man. It was like all rotted, stinky. Yeah. So that was my pumpkin flavored thing that I've had so far this month is a whiff of a rotten pumpkin yesterday.

Here's a good question. Are you going to go trick-or-treating this year? Probably not. I still think my daughter is too young for trick-or-treating. Probably not. You know, her break-time seven. So it's not like we're That's like prime trick-or-treating hours, I guess, but the last year we did like a drive-through trick-or-treat. Yeah. It was fine. So we'll probably just do that again this year. Drive through trick-or-trating, huh? So that sounds very 20-21.

I forget, I was at a wedding this weekend, and one of the, like, one of the little, like, favors at the table was a little bottle of hand sanitizer. They had, like, you know, the name of the barred and the groom and stuff. And, like, what a, what a interesting world we live in now, where that's one of the things you give to people at a wedding, you know? Like, they gave us, uh, actually, I ever here, this is a cute little bag, uh, you know, there has, like, little, what is it?

It's like, it's a got, uh, there's a little bit up right now. actually they can can I do not know how to open a bag hold that this is this is harder than I thought it was going to be here go it's it's like a little hot chocolate kit it's got like the chocolate and some marshmallows it's really cute so there was that there is a chocolate bars that they gave us you know like a little candy bars and about a hand sanitizer so that was cool but there was an open bar so it was you know it was it was it was lit it was fun uh that's that looks delicious by the guys manage the socials manage his

drummer we handle it we handle our scandals real quick before I get into the the podcast questions last the last question or the last follow-up here from for Mr. Eagle who's asking why the S340 case manual was removed from the website the main reason is because that case is discontinued we no longer make it so it's it has a two-year warranty all our cases have two-year warranties and that case is from 2014 so it is warranty. However, my friend, the NXT customer service team is very helpful. So if you do need the manual for whatever reason, just go to ncxte.com slash support or call or toll-free telephone number and our customer service team will hook you up with whatever information you need.

All righty. Uh, podcast questions here. Are you ready, Dennis? Yeah, sorry, the animal's just broken here and trying to get them out. Okay, go on. I'm ready. Let's do it. So the first question is from J.W. Lopez 69. Any plans to have a case similar to the H-210I, but instead of having PSU on the bottom in the rear, shorten the height of the case, and move the power supply to the front of the case to the right of the motherboard?

Yes, there is. We're coming out with that tomorrow. So that case we were wondering, so he wants this, or then, excuse me they they they want this oh I can swipe but they want to make this shorter so there's more room here and then move this stuff to the front I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that no our product team has no plans to do this simply because if you look at nz xxt cases right you go to our website nzxt.com there's not many options for you to choose from

we have tiny small medium and large so tiny being the H1 small small being the 210, medium being the 510, large being the 710. And with the exception of the H1, which is a small form factor PC, they're pretty much similar in style. They're not identical, but they're very, very, very similar. And that's on purpose. We have a very strict code of design language here that the designers try to stick to.

So changing the 210 to that was just basically deviating from that so I don't think that is definitely something that the product team is considering but we'll let them know you want that and we'll see what they say maybe they'll do it one day you never know yeah I'm just trying to go through website I thought there was a like an overall page for all of our cases I guess that's not a thing anymore or maybe we don't know how to find it I don't know they might have been removed with those cases yeah slash cases uh-oh poochie's upset anyway next question

from the Stoner Rockstar, when are you guys going to restock the 30 series? The answer to that is our inventory changes daily. And, you know, just the same way that you guys don't know when things go in stock or when things become available, we're kind of in the same boat, even though we get stuff from like vendors or whatever. It's not like it's, you know, graphics cars aren't readily available. to us where we can just say yeah we're gonna buy 5,000 graphics cards and put them on our website tomorrow like it doesn't work that way so the only thing i can really suggest is to to just keep

checking on our website daily and hopefully whatever it is you're looking for is in stock and if it's a 30 series card hopefully we have it which uh which card were they looking for specifically you said 30 series just 30 series we have 30 series cards there's not a lot of them but we got them um let me let me let me check our our website here uh uh there we go we got 3060 3070s gigabyte you got the 3080 t i that's cool then they're going to be like but i want this other 30 series card that's not listed there yeah that's the hard part is like we can't have all yeah it's getting specific ones kind of i want the knock 201 i want that doo-do brown in my computer that would be cool to have on

I'm built. So, okay. So if we, if we ever do get this card, I actually want to announce it on Twitter and be like, NCXT, BLD, now featuring Doodoo Brown, Not Tu-A cards and see what happens. See what people say. I'll literally ask Harry for one for myself. So was it? I don't condone that.

You know they think it's funny. It's funny. You all sell 30 series? No, not anymore. We just ran out. they just saw the after Dennis showed her on the podcast Yeah

Tech Not TechNet Teachman Teach Man 99 wants to know Are you having a black Friday sale this year? So

We actually don't know yet right? We've had a We've had a Black Friday cell every year that I worked at NZXT and If I were a betting man I'm not

I'm not a betting man But if I were a betting man, I would look at that trend and I would like, you know, take a wild guess that the odds are, yeah, NXT will probably be having a Black Friday. Because they've had one for the last five or six years or whatever. Yes. Retoro wants to know, do you guys often update the PC components on the pre-builds or are they set? in stone. Do you want to answer this one, Dennis? Yes.

So normally not in the before times, before COVID, they would just be that configuration and they would stay like that for a good while until we felt like there was a need to update. Right now, the components are changing a little by little, and I can even show you on the website where that's a thing. 60.com.

And the reason why is because you guessed it. It's the, it's the, pandemic so and I'm not trying to be like like a jerk or anything I'm just like goofy and like my I'm trying to get tired been that just for a little bit longer than normally do um so you'll notice that we know we say things like GTX 1660 super right and that's it or it'll say as rock B365 I don't know why that's weird to me motherboard right or 500 watt bronze power supply right because right now it's still hard to get a lot of parts right um things are more expensive now again because of freight costs and shipping costs and stuff and stuff like that to the point to

we're like you have companies like Walmart and Costco were literally buying their own shipping shipping like container boats literally to ship stuff to lower the price for them long term which is insane um so we we guarantee that the performance you're going to get will be will be the same Right. Whenever we swap out stuff, we don't just do it will and nilly. We double check and make sure that everything is performing the same. At max settings, by the way, this is performance at max settings, highest possible settings, right? So just keep that in mind. So yeah, they will change from time to time, especially things like the power supplies.

Like, I don't know if you guys remember, it was like impossible to get a power supply, like in the beginning of the pandemic. Literally, like, we had to have people like go to the store and physically buy. power supplies, I believe, right? Like, we're doing that still to go, like, put them in computers for you. I saw on Instagram. Speaking of Mac settings, Finley, one, two, three said, why are the benchmarks so low? Like, Minecraft has recommended of like 20 FPS, but could probably get over 500. Yeah, the reason, like Dennis just mentioned, the FPS numbers we show you guys are because

these are tested at max performance. So, yes, if you get this computer and you tweak your. settings, you will get more FPS. Is it just like, if you max everything out, this is what you would get. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Next question from, got it?

Yeah, I got it. Because I'm already looking at it. What's the best budget PC on NZXT? So that's actually a trick question. The best. What's your budget? Exactly, yeah. If your budget's $5,000, then that's it.

If you want to at least explain. expensive computer just I think it's the starter right the search is the yeah the starter I mean the basic starter is literally if you just want to get the cheapest nzacpc and you get the starter you'll be able to play any video game obviously that doesn't mean every video game is going to run the same as you would if you had like a nzxc streaming PC or nzc creator PC yeah things like that but uh yeah you want the cheapest the starter one would be the one uh uh O-Rey-O, I think as I say it, are you all hiring any social media positions?

Ivan, are we hiring any social positions? We will be after Dennis tweets that Naktua thing. Dessie's lost. Why are custom billed prices so high on the website? Wait, hold on. Oh, not done yet. So we are not currently hiring for social media positions here in the United States of America, but we as you know we are expanding globally you know we recently expanded into what Dennis calls a fake

a fake country Luxembourg dude I so yeah so so when I said that I was telling Ivan I was like bro I didn't know that Luxembourg was like a real place until someone told me like two days ago but anyway my point is we are hiring for different positions and you know who knows maybe we'll be hiring for social media positions somewhere soon we don't know yet but uh just keep checking ncxte.com slash careers and that's the best way to find out about that sir right dusty's last wants to know why are the custom build prices so high on the website because of the pandemic i'll take this one dennis yes the pandemic you're right dennis oh man for those that don't know why the pandemic is causing that to go up so it's very simple um this is uh this is like i'm gonna i'm gonna teach some economic

right now, Dennis. All right. I'm ready for it. So what happened was with the pandemic, all of a sudden, there was an increase in demand for computers, not just gaming PCs, but computers because all of a sudden, you know, people that didn't need a computer needed one, whether it was to work from home, go to school from home, or maybe they were, you know, thinking like, well, I'm going to be home,

so maybe I want to start a Twitch streaming or, you know, now that I'm working from home, maybe I want to start my own business and I need a computer and things like that. So the pandemic caused a lot of demand for computers and computer parts. And on the flip side, because of that, it also caused the supply to go down. So it's like at the same time, you had more people wanting stuff and the companies that were making the stuff, like weren't able to make it as fast as people needed it and it just became really hard to get parts and there was like chip shortages and it impacted not only the computer industry but like the automaker industries and fridge industry everything fridge all that stuff yeah so long story short

is just the reason why prices are high for everything right now everything's going up Yeah. It's hard. It's, when there's less of things, they become more expensive, basically. You know, like if there's only one computer in the world, how much you think that computer would cost? Yeah. Yeah.

And not just that, but like, you're also competing on a global scale with literally everything else that needs to be shipped around the world with people getting sick and precautions being taken and, you know, now you can't pack as many people in the warehouse as you used to you, right? Like, for example, if you go to our warehouse, it looks way different than it did before. Like people, I'm not going to say that people are packing. in like sardines, but they're way close together. And now we're like way more spaced out to a lot of people, you know, room to like, you know,

not be like bumping elbows and with other people and like being sick, you know. So yeah, you know, it's, it's this is a global issue. It's not just an industry-wide issue. This affects literally every facet of our lives. Every industry is affected. Agriculture has affected everything. And that, you know, that all translates to higher prices for everything. All right.

Can I take this next one because it's a little personal to me? Sure. All right. So death rage is asking why the H-500 doesn't have a second top fan. The reason why this is kind of personal to me is because, yeah, like, we get this question a lot on social media. And last week, I had a, someone asked us on Instagram and I responded to them. Someone asked this very same question. And I said, because you'd complain about the price.

and that comment it went a little viral like you were posting it on Reddit and it got like a bunch of likes and whatnot but when I wrote that I didn't I honestly did not mean that like in a sarcastic snarky like tone

the reason why I worded it like that is because it's partly because this question gets asked all the time almost like how many retweets for a free PC but it's the actual truth and the reason why there's no second top fan on the H510 flow or the 500 or whatever is because the H I'm going to call it the H5 series just

for the sake of simplicity this includes the H 500 the H510 the H510 elite the H510 flow etc the H510 or the H55 is a compact ATX case right is designed to be the smallest possible ATX case you can possibly make you know there's not going to be you're not going to find a smaller ATX case than this unless you get like some you know like weird like mini ITX mod or whatever that you can fit an ATAX case so by adding another fan slot up top you're not going to be able to do that right the case can have to get bigger and we have a bigger case already it's the H710 or I'll just say the H7 series for the sake of simplicity because there's the H710, H7109, whatever. So that, it's two different cases, right? Like if you want like more, more fan support, more radiator support, we have a case for that. It's the H7.

You want the compact case, it's the H5. And adding, apart from having the two options already, if we were to add another fan slot on the existing H500, H510, H510, H510 Lee H510 flow, that's going to cost a lot of money. And people say, like, well, why would it cost more money if we're going to have less material on that case? Well, the simple reason is because punching holes in things is not free. You know, it's like, yes, it's in theory, there is less material on that case if we add another fan slot on top.

But adding that second fan slot is going to require us to retool the entire case, which is going and then have to translate into the consumer, you guys who are asking for this, to pay more, basically. And yeah, so that's the reason. And then when I said, you complain about the price, that's what I meant, is that. It's like, it's going to cost this more to make it. And then in turn, you know, you're not going to like the fact that you're going to have to pay $200 or whatever for this case that just for adding a fan slot, basically. And that's the reason why. It's not because, you know, we don't want to, is the fact that we have a case that already has that.

And if you want to do it to this case, then it defeats the purpose of this case. Because like I said, this case is designed to be a compact ATX case. And in order to do that, you know, we want to have one fan slot, basically. Does that make sense? Plus it would be bigger. I don't want a bigger case. I know you said that. It was like, yeah, no, I don't know.

It's really funny. It's like, I've never heard anyone. at all talk about a second top fan and all this stuff until we did the mesh and now they're asking about this why would you just meet you know you need something man yeah yeah for sure kind of ask for it 100% yeah you know like for a long time it was people asking for free computers and like i honestly we we know the reason so when the people were asking on free PCs like when that first became a meme and it became a meme because you know so many people were asking that eventually it came to the point where I said,

you know what, I'm just going to start telling people no. Like, no, we're not going to give free PC. But it became a meme because back then we couldn't get free PCs because we didn't make computers. We made computer parts. We were just PC components. This was like pre-build. People were asking for free PCs, right?

And then we started making free PC or we start making computers. And now literally we give away free computers all the time. Like every week there's a free PC giveaway. Like I can't think of like a, a time where we're not giving away free computers. You follow us on social media. We give away free computers all the time now. And that's because, yeah, now we actually can

because we make free computers. People are asking for white crackings, white fans, mesh, whatever. Now we make that. So now it's like, what's the next thing they can ask for? Well, you know, maybe they're going to ask for more fan slots, I guess. That's the new thing.

How many retweets for an extra fan slot, Dennis? I don't know, five. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. You're right. All right, next question. For Finley, one, two, three. How many times on average do you think you get asked for free PCs? I always tell people I stop counting at one.

It's, I don't know. It's a lot, man. It's like a meme now, you know? It's just a meme at this point, you know? Like, it's... We have... Globally, we're like... almost three four million followers every like four million I would say

combined with all our social accounts all over the world and every single one of those accounts on the daily gets asked multiple times you know can I get a free PC and not just on social but even emails people even write letters like I have a a desk here a little folder of letters people have sent me like you know can I get a free PC and it's not that you know like we're being arrogant when you say no or cocky or anything like that's like I said we do give away Pcc's all the time like there's always more than we used to too actually I was actually I was actually complaining by the day because I was talking to Ivan in a meeting I might do like what's up with

these giveaways I've didn't wait too many giveaways like can't I just want to go back to the memes it's too much yeah it's I like giving away free PCs I wish we can give give give everyone a free PC but the fact is we can't and uh I guess a variety to count on average how many times you get asked in a day I would I mean it has to be thousands of times yeah like like not even exaggerating um yeah next question Dennis what is the H510 flow releasing from no one it just this is the question when when does the username sorry my bad no worries they know who they know themselves that they ask this question According to the website, the best way to find out about that is to click that notify me button to get notified of it when it becomes available.

It's coming soon. There's no confirmed actual date, but it is soon. And if you do want that case, my suggestion is to go to ncc.com and click on that notify me button on the H510 Flow product page. because you will be the first to know when it becomes available and you know based on the excitement I'm seeing from people I'm assuming they will be selling relatively quickly so I do suggest and recommend you do that if you really want that case All right Last question here from the podcast questions I saw the nc 60 Instagram I saw on n60 Instagram asking if you want more flow cases is it a precursor that

H7 H2 series getting flow version soon. So my answer to that is that we ask questions all the time about all kinds of stuff. Mostly to mess with you guys. Like, then 90% of the time is just to mess with you guys. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe someone asked, right?

You want more flow? You all want more airflow? But, I mean, we don't know until we know, right? And obviously, we can't tell you now until it's ready to announce if there is a thing coming. just like how the flow came like a million years after people wanted actual airflow, who knows how long it'll be until these things come out. Like we say every single episode, right? We're always working on something,

whether it'll actually come out as a matter entirely up to the product teams, industrial design teams, marketing teams. And then at the very end of the day, they're like, hey, do you think we should do this? And we're like, yeah, I guess. One more thing for people to give us feedback about that we can take back to the team. Yes, yes. Yes. Well, that was our last question, Dennis, and it is, it is noon.

Yeah, no, we went hard. We went hard on the paint for you guys. So hopefully we answered most of your questions. I know there's still more we didn't get to, but there will be more podcasts. So keep tuning in. Yeah, let us know how you guys liked everything. Maybe we'll do it again. Another podcast that is.

If that we'll just stop me. Okay. So some last minute cleanup. Let me get my, where's my song here? I'm going to do this one. I like this one a lot. You want me to do the announcements or you got them? I got it.

I got it. Okay. All right, folks, a couple of announcements. Going to church right now. So listen up. We're speaking. Check out our Latin X history staff stories on Instagram. com slash NZXT.

We're highlighting all the amazing Hispanic, Latino people's on our social media who work here. I was on there. Everyone's on there. We had a few more popping up soon. Some people that you may or may not have heard of the podcast. Show him some love, you know. Get a good, good a good a good a good a good a good a good for the culture. Exactly. Exactly with a little little squiggle right. Yes, sir. Is I was going to know? It's called a I think it's in a gregia. I can't I can't do that word. We're also giving away a computer. C.com slash batter C. This is at CO.com. Huh?

At C.O. Not dot com. My bad. Yeah. Dot. It's right there. It's, it's in the chat. Yeah, we're getting away computer to help benefit rescuing puppies and kitties. Give them a good home. Also, our TikTok do be slapping. We do be, we do be busting cheeks on TikTok. I mean, I was on there literally, yesterday doing a little dance, you know? It's the first time I danced.

We got 24,000 views on that one, which is ridiculous. Mike's is at 352. It's just funny what makes it, what's popular on the platform. We are doing some giveaways on there as well, so y'all better check it out. Talk is the future, guys. TikTok is the future, all right? Twitch is getting hacked. Facebook getting shut down.

Oops. YouTube is doing whatever YouTube does. You know what hasn't shut down yet? TikTok, just saying. Just saying. And also, we've released a bunch of things. bunch of new stuff, like a ridiculous amount of stuff. Check them out at n60.com.

Buy or don't buy it. I don't care. But we are contractually obligated to tell you to check it out, whether you can purchase it from us or not. And with that, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you guys are asking about the giveaway for listening live to the podcast, we will be contenting you guys by contacting you guys by email, you folks by email. Or if you click the same giveaway link, the winners will also be published on that page there too.

Yeah, just refresh until we decided to click that button. Any last minute things, Poppy? Um, mask up, get Vax, and stay safe. Yeah. Follow Ivan at NZXT, what, uh, Ivan ZXT on Twitter, right? Do you get all those hot fresh tweets? A what? Block me instead of following.

Yeah, block me. Yeah, he blocked me too on Twitter. By the way, I'm going to turn off my Twitter DMs. I decided today. Oh, yeah? Did you be about you DM? Every time I open them, it's just like, just the same questions. Having likes for your free PC?

Hey, so my least favorite one is that someone DMs me like on Discord for like customer service stuff. I'm like, bro, I'm not customer service. Like it's like, it's like 8 p.m. on a freaking Saturday. I'm out here like going a hard on New World, grinding the same class over and over. I got time for that I've got customer service I can't do anything anyway What am I going to do?

I don't have access to any of the tools I can't ship you out stuff I can send you a poochie if you want But I'm going to literally put you on the blacklist for Pucci For DMMia on a Saturday That's a rule now I'm doing that now All right

Let's uh let's kick this off again There we go So With that, thank you for joining us everybody, and thank you to everybody who tuned in. I'm just reading off the script here, right? So let's not get too crazy about it. Remember to tune in next week at 10-N-Bissabuant Time of the official N-Z-D-T-T-T-T-T-T-Witch and follow at N-X-T-T-T-T-Wat. And if you want to ask a question off the air, send an email to podcast at n-66.com.

That is, again, podcast at nZXT.com. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Also, hit those likes, hit those subscribes, hit all that stuff everywhere. Get us that engagement. Interact with the tweets when we tweet about the podcast. It will probably be going up Friday, October 8th. Trying to get those out a little bit earlier. Sometimes we don't, just depending on, you know, how busy we are.

Anyway, with that, thank you very much, folks. We'll see you next time. Have a great rest of your day. Have a great rest of your life. Bye. Amen.