Shizzmoney

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
 
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
 
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
 
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
 
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
 
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 
 
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
 
Thanks for reading this.

I use NVCleanstall to remove most of NVIDIA's garbage before installation, including NVContainer, so I don't expect this to affect me.

With the EK one, one day both pumps just stopped working and temps would get up to 105C.  The lines were cold, but the block was hot af.  I sent video and screenshot proof to EK, but they didn't send me a new one until I had to send it back to somewhere in Europe where, after a week of their testing, they did confirm my pump went to crap.  I am using the replacement they sent me now after...
 
...when that one failed and I was waiting for a replacement AIO, I decided to just get another because I knew it was gonna prob take 3-4 mths and picked a GN suggestion and got the LianLi Galahad on sale at MC for $119.99 (thankfully got the 2 year replacement plan; got back store credit).  Was handling both my 3600 and 5800x3D great... until about a week ago when CPU temps would spike randomly when I opened programs as well as boot up times being slower than usual.  I just thought it was the hotter weather in the Northeast US.  Last night, I played Sniper Elite 5 and temps were consistently in the 85-91 range.  I turned the CPU off, went to bed, woke up this AM and turned it on and suddenly I was getting temps in the 91-95 range at boot no load, and also got a "CPU temp HIGH" message prompted from the BIOS, when I restarted another time.  Felt the pump lines and one was cold to the touch and yep, it's borked.  I did do a few BIOS updates to the MB recently but I don't think they had anything to do with the failure; in the EK situation the pump one day had a complete failure and in the LianLi one it was a slow failure until one day it just stopped working.   
 
I might got Noctua Air cooling when this one fails lol  Although i have a MATX case and might be hard to fit 
 
 

I feel like these QC issues are gonna happen more and more with demand so high, supply so low, and labor harder to come by
 
$600 MB lol

Hear me out on this. We've been talking about using computers as space heaters. I'm starting to think manufacturers were actually listening all along. 

I feel like these QC issues are gonna happen more and more with demand so high, supply so low, and labor harder to come by
 
$600 MB lol

If you're playing 4k, 3600 is going to be more than enough

Unless you are running heavy CPU loads, you won't see much of a difference between a 3600 and anything else, even when you get your new GPU at some point.
 
Save the money for an upgrade down the road. Or if you have the itch to do something with your PC, get a new case, new fans, upgrade/add SSDs, new CPU cooler, headphones/speakers, keyboard or mouse. Start playing with OCing, liquid metal applications etc etc. There's a lot of options, but IMO upgrading from a 3600 for gaming is a waste of money. Wait a few years for DDR5 to get main stream and upgrade your entire platform.

I just switched the aio fans to be intake and everything is way cooler now, with discord, brave, spotify and whatsapp web open i have 44C right now 😄
 

They look like just thumbscrews, I think SSDs use m3 size.
McMaster-Carr has a pretty great website that allows you to search for parts like that.
https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/

Yep, @Skiiwee29 is right. Your AIO pump is most likely dead.
How old is it, and is it still under warranty?

It's blue light. - What does it do? It turns blue.

Cable Management needs a little more work (thank you, maze of RGB light header cords) but the thing's posted, and works and no issues!  
 
Also got some sweet mini deals on New Egg (CPU, Case) and Amazon (the rest, minus 3070 which I got at MicroCenter in store).  Also get 5% cashback on this build from Discover, so that's an added bonus (which will probably be immediately spent on games lol).  
 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($179.99) 
CPU Cooler: EK EK-AIO 240 D-RGB 66.04 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($119.99) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($145.99) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($134.99) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($159.99) 
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB Founders Edition Video Card  ($499.99) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L ARGB MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($44.99) 
Power Supply: Silverstone Essential 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($74.98) 
Case Fan: EK Vardar EVO 120ER 77 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($26.99) 
Total: $1387.90
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/shizzmoney/saved/DH4Ncf
 

 
 

Cable Management needs a little more work (thank you, maze of RGB light header cords) but the thing's posted, and works and no issues!  
 
Also got some sweet mini deals on New Egg (CPU, Case) and Amazon (the rest, minus 3070 which I got at MicroCenter in store).  Also get 5% cashback on this build from Discover, so that's an added bonus (which will probably be immediately spent on games lol).  
 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($179.99) 
CPU Cooler: EK EK-AIO 240 D-RGB 66.04 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($119.99) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($145.99) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($134.99) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($159.99) 
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB Founders Edition Video Card  ($499.99) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L ARGB MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($44.99) 
Power Supply: Silverstone Essential 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($74.98) 
Case Fan: EK Vardar EVO 120ER 77 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($26.99) 
Total: $1387.90
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/shizzmoney/saved/DH4Ncf
 

 
 

Nice looking build, great work!

I would def try to organize the cables. Other than that everything seems okay

Exactly my experience this AM and I had multiple devices trying to get in.  I then said f*ck it, took a Lyft to MC to see what they had, and walked out with an FE in 10 minutes.
 
Screw BotBuy

Exactly my experience this AM and I had multiple devices trying to get in.  I then said f*ck it, took a Lyft to MC to see what they had, and walked out with an FE in 10 minutes.
 
Screw BotBuy

I want to say human malware... but more and more, its obvious they under scaled demand planning and the Samsung yields thing is really showing nvidia's behind right now.  

This isn't an issue.
 
It's an outright fraudulent launch.  You cannot consider 106 of 4000 units (2.65%) fulfillment rate an "issue".  They outright lied about this and catfished the hype.
 
Do me a favor, get married and fulfil 2.65% of your wife's needs.
 
Let me know how that goes.
 
 

In Belgium there are laws against this. If you are advertising a product for launch you need to have enough of them in stock otherwise you are creating a artificial market rift and can be held accountable for false advertising.
 
The funny thing is this all came about in the very early 2000's with Aldi selling Medion computers. Those things were insanely good value for the money and people lined up a couple hours before the stores went open to get them. The only problem is that Aldi only buys little amounts of any promotional product to make sure it all sells and there were usually only 2-3 systems available for 20+ people wanting one. This led to so many angry reports this law was passed.
 
Which leads to nvidia. No site that is selling them is promoting them at all. They are on the site but not promoted to avoid triggering the law. So it is pretty obvious that there is a shortage from launch.

Maybe we're not surprised maybe we're just wondering how this is even legal 

This video from an ordinary joe from minnesotta.  He claims that his local Best Buy had no cards in stock... as in they never got any cards in store at all.   The manager didn't even know what they were waiting for. 
 
MicroCenter had 12 cards.  If all of a major city only has a few dozen or even a few hundred cards that is absurd.  NVIDIA shouldn't even bother with releasing these cards until they have enough between FE and AIB to satisfy a significant fraction of the demand.  12- 24 cards in all of the twin cities with 3.28 million people.  if 1% of them are PC gamers 32,800.  If 10% of them would want a new GPU 3280.    

They should have at least 10% of that number physically on store shelves 328 in a city that size. 

Less than that number is really for all practical purposes a totally fake release.  AT best it is a massive Beta test that people are paying to take part in. 

i hate bestbuy now fucking jebaited me so many times. never using them again for these launches

Ampere POSCAP/MLCC Count Breakdown:
 
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/izmi1k/ampere_poscapmlcc_counts/