 If you're listening to this on YouTube, this episode is one week delayed. Up to date, Tech Show But Friendly episodes are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. Welcome to Tech Show But Friendly, the podcast from Hardware Sugar. And so far, the past two weeks, I've been on a roll of being wrong. The initial reports about the 4060 seems to say that they had good performance, which is not to say it didn't, but ultimately, a lot of people felt that it was overpriced for what you're getting. So that was my strike one. Last week, I mentioned that the Twitter clone of Facebook threads was doing well. And again, that was true at the time. But one week later, apparently, user engagement and user time on the platform have plummeted. So it's really difficult in the tech space to come up with opinions very early on. So you have these benchmarks for a product that haven't been released yet, only to be disappointed when the actual product comes out. Or there's a lot of hype for the product, so people jump on it. And then a week later, a month later, suddenly it's crickets na once there anymore. So success doesn't necessarily follow the hype. Still on NVIDIA GPUs, the 4060 Ti 16GB version has just been released. So from 8GB, we now have a 16GB version, which is supposed to be better for upcoming AAA games or in modern games now. Supposedly require more VRAM with at least 12, 8 is just too little. More than 12 is better. Although the additional 8GB does come at the additional cost of around 100 dollars. Setting aside the whole VRAM question, I find it really annoying when NVIDIA does this, that they use the same model designation. So it's still the 4060 Ti, but there's a difference in the VRAM, which can make a big difference in the performance of certain games. So to users who aren't too familiar, they just think that oh, it's a 4060 Ti, I'm going to go for the cheaper version, which is the 8GB one. But then they're surprised later on that they're not getting the performance that they're expecting. And NVIDIA has been doing this for a long time, releasing GPUs and then later on down the line, using the same designation. But adding VRAM. I think they even did it with the 2060, when they re-released the 2060 a couple of years back. And there is no indicator. I mean, yes, the numbers are there, but for somebody who's not technically inclined and who hasn't been following the market, those numbers don't mean anything. It's just additional background chatter that they tune out. So I think a more effective way of designating that the product has more VRAM would be better. 4060 Ti plus. I mean, plus is something that, okay, there's the base version and then there's the plus version. But again, it's not in NVIDIA's best interest sometimes to make it clear for the user and it's really buyer-beware, which is why I guess a lot of tech columnists, tech journalists, tech advice people have sprung up online with YouTube and with other platforms. Because there is a need to better communicate to people who don't follow the tech space religiously, like, why this product is better even though it's more expensive or why is it more expensive in the first place? Which is something we try to do here at Hardware Sugar where we break down or simplify specs and components and really try to communicate in a non-jargoni way what's great and what's not so great about a particular product. Moving on to CPUs or rather pre-builds, Intel has decided to exit the nook market. So the nook is a very small form factor computer that Intel pioneered. Its goal was to put desktop-like computers but much smaller in various places throughout the home and your business. Less obtrusive, you know, they just kind of blend into the background. But Intel has been undergoing a lot of shuffling recently. I guess they decided the nook wasn't worth it. So they have licensed it to ASOS. ASOS would be continuing the nook line as well as providing support for older nook models. Now this is a non-exclusive license so it's possible that other vendors or brands will get into the nook market. But this is the passing of the baton as it were. ASOS will have the ball from now on for nooks. And I've never really used the nook. I don't mind my PC being a little bulky. I'm still using an ATX case. And going smaller, yes, it's nicer. You can fit it into different configurations like put it under your desk, under the console of your TV. So definitely there are benefits to going smaller but there are downsides as well. Heat dissipation is not great. The hardware needs to shrink down in order to fit into that small form factor. So really if you have space, you're really getting better value for money at least in terms of performance with standard sized components. But I guess ASOS sees a future in the market as they have taken it on from Intel. And will end with gaming news and another giant has caved to Steam. Activision Blizzard has announced that some of their games will begin to be available on Steam starting August 10 and that starts with Overwatch 2. So this is a pivot away from one of the original online gaming platforms, battle.net. You know, in an era where everything is so ubiquitously online now and every publisher has their own platform, online platform. It's easy to forget, especially if you weren't around back in the mid 90s, just how revolutionary battle.net was. And we're talking about like the days of getting Starcraft to run on Kali and then battle.net came around. So it's kind of sad that basically this is a sign of Blizzard waving the white flag and saying that battle.net really isn't a priority. Moreover, the Steam platform is just so popular. Overwatch 2 has been bleeding players actually and interest in the game has waned even though it's relatively new. So much so that Blizzard has presented a different compensation scheme to the teams of Overwatch League, basically cutting their potential profits. So they are looking for more players and they're trying to, they're hoping that they'll be able to find them on Steam. But having to list there is really an indication that player numbers are not great through battle.net. This has happened before. Back in 2018, Call of Duty Black Ops 3 was exclusive to battle.net on the PC and it didn't work. Like very few players relative to the number that you would expect ended up playing that game on battle.net. So you will need to have a battle.net account to play on Steam but then you get access to features on Steam which aren't available on battle.net. Such as achievements and linking up with your friends on Steam. So it's the first game announced or haven't been other games yet but it is a slippery slope and if Steam does bring players back to Overwatch 2 then it would be hard to see Blizzard holding back the tide as it were and keeping its other games away from Steam. Alright, that's about it. Again, the news dropped continues and I am happy about that meaning we have less stuff to report on talk about every week. It is the summer in the States so not a lot of hardware changing or very big news dropping. There have been reports on the latest 14th gen of Intel some tentative benchmarks and things like that but I'd rather not speculate as again my speculation skills have not been that great. Although special speculation if you are listening to this on Friday the day that it releases we will be having an episode of Crypto Watch later at 10pm streaming over our Facebook and YouTube where I talk about that I've jumped back into trading crypto. I'll talk a little bit about the news on that front. So there was a big win by Ripple Labs which is the maker of Ripple XRP one of the OG cryptocurrencies. They had a big legal win against the SEC or although it's a bit more nuanced than what has usually been reported in the popular press but the legal victory excited so many people that XRP climbed up to like plus 70% or it gained 70% of value in the span of like 12 hours or something like that. So there is a bunch of crypto news that we'll talk about on Crypto Watch and like I did in the other shows I'll present a summary of the trades that I've done so far this month. You know I'm just trading small amounts right now getting my feet wet again getting back into the game kind of getting familiar again with the patterns, the rhythms, the numbers of the market. My trades actually have been pretty good. I only have one that was a negative and it was you know I sold it at a loss but at a very small loss. Everything else has been up with my best performer garnering a 5.6% return in the span of five days so not too shabby. Although what I've been really dreadful at is shorts or you know when I've been shorting the market basically I'm betting that this particular crypto will go down in value and that is really you know I used to do that way. I had some success with that in the past but for the past month or so that I've been trading crypto again I have been trying to get the sweet spot for shorts and I just can't I just keep bleeding money on that front. But anyway we'll be talking about that as well tonight Friday July 21 on Crypto Watch 10 p.m. The episode will also be on demand on our YouTube if you do want to check it out and you didn't catch the live. So have a great weekend guys. Thanks for lending me your ear. We clean computers kasama na rin yung excellent cable management namin and CPU cooler repasting sa cleaning. We also clean and repaste GPUs. Nasa makati yung physical store namin and you can also buy from our site www.hwsugar.ph na 100% palaging up to date yung inventory dun. Kung instock yung item sa amin available yun sa site we also ship nationwide. Thanks for watching and maybe one of these days magkita tayo sa shop.