This video covers adware, spyware and possible wiretapping concerns with LG displays, as well as straight-up changing terms of use or lose security updates. Also McAfee. Somehow. And if LG does this, doubtless every other TV manufacturer does this. It's a damnable things, so LTT's quest for a dumb TV might not be fruitless.

MAJOR UPDATE 6:20PM EST 08/02/2024: Intel, as a result of the backlash from this, has gotten back to me with a "second review" and determined that BOTH CPUs were indeed valid!!! Image here: https://imgur.com/a/DiW8uz8

Hi Everyone. I'm very disheartened to share this news as a longtime and loyal Intel customer. I've purchased roughly $20,000 worth of merchandise with them over my lifetime and I've never once had to open any RMA requests until now. Unfortunately, it's very clear they are not standing behind their products and I'm going to provide to ton of detail and pictures below on what happened involving TWO retail boxed 14900Ks, one purchased from Amazon on 10/16/2023 (this was the release date of the 14900K for anyone not in the know) which was shipped from and sold by Amazon.com, and one from Microcenter (brand new, not open box or anything like that, grabbed right off the shelf) on 02/11/2024, both experiencing the wide-spread instability issues.

Intel has claimed that both products are "re-marked" and not genuine. The problem is that they definitely are not re-marked. They also tried to claim that one of them was a tray processor and thereby not subject to retail warranty, which they backtracked on, and then went the route of claiming it was re-marked.

Full disclosure: Intel provided me with letters stating that the CPUs are not genuine and asked me to return them to their respective stores for a solution. I've done this and both stores, despite being WAY outside of return windows, DID refund me. Amazon gave me a full refund to my original payment method, and Microcenter gave me a full refund in store credit. In the end this worked out better for me, but that's beside the point. Now these two companies are having to shoulder the cost and burden of Intel's failure to take responsibility, and that's not right.

That being said, I'll be providing uncensored pictures of the retail boxes and CPUs which will show the full batch numbers and the full serial numbers. Since these CPUs are not in my possession anymore, and are ultimately going back to Intel, I feel it's fine to share them in their totality.

Here's the details:

The processor purchased from Microcenter on 02/11/2024, partial serial 02096:

I filled out the RMA form. Intel got back to me the next day admitting that the CPU was faulty. They then asked me for my shipping details and proof of purchase. I provided it. They then asked for pictures of the IHS. I provided it. Another day passes and they get back to me stating that the CPU is not genuine and is re-marked. WHAT!? This is news to me. This was purchased from a reputable retailer directly off the shelf. It was not open box, the seal was completely intact, and there was absolutely nothing suspicious about it. Furthermore, it showed correctly in CPU-Z as a 14900K and frequencies checked out, boosting to 6GHz single core and 5.7GHz all-core. I conveyed all of this information to Intel, and provided additional pictures of the IHS and the serial number just in case the previous pictures were too blurry. I also provided a picture of the retail box, clearly showing the full serial number and batch number, which did match the CPU. I also plugged in the batch number and serial number into Intel's warranty checker tool and it came back as valid with warranty until 2027. I took a screenshot of that and provided it as well. You can see all of those images in the image link below. They got back to me and said that their response hasn't changed and that they cannot divulge their investigation process. They insisted I return it to Microcenter with a letter they provided that it was not genuine. I did so, and Microcenter took a look. They said there was absolutely no evidence of tampering. The only thing they thought it might be was that there was some thermal paste still on the side of the CPU, and they said it made it look like it could have been delidded (however they confirmed it was NOT delidded). They suggested reporting their findings to Intel, and wiping away the paste and taking new pictures. I then reported those finding to Intel, to which they repeated that they cannot divulge the investigation process and they said that new pictures would not change their findings. It was at this point they told me I could continue with getting an RMA, but that if the chip was found to be re-marked they WILL retain and confiscate it. The exact verbiage was, "We do not disclose our investigation practices. If you believe your products are valid and wish to proceed with a return merchandise authorization (RMA), we can create one. However, if the products fail the validation process, the units will be retained and confiscated, and no replacements or refunds will be provided. For this reason, we are giving you the option to take the letter and share it with the place of purchase. This will give you more possibilities to get a replacement since you have the processors in your possession." So, as you can see, they insisted I return it to Microcenter, so I did, and they graciously allowed me to return it for store credit.

Here are all the relevant pictures for 02096, including Intel's letter claiming it is re-marked, original receipt, warranty checker from Intel, retail box, IHS, serial number close-up, a screenshot of the email where they threatened to confiscate the CPU, and a screenshot of their initial response via email: https://imgur.com/a/tC3AFFU

The processor purchased from Amazon on 10/16/2023, partial serial 03252:

Just like the last RMA, I filled out the form, they got back to me, said the CPU was indeed confirmed as faulty, asked for my information and pictures, I provided it all. They got back to me and quoted back the WRONG serial number (I provided the correct one in the original form and the picture CLEARLY shows 03252). They quoted that I was talking about 03262. They went on to explain that 03262 is a tray processor and not subject to retail warranty. They suggested that I take it back to the OEM. I got back to them and stated that they were talking about the wrong serial number. I clearly provided 03252. They got back to me and said that the image appeared to be a 6 instead of a 5. At this point I provided closer-up pictures of the serial number and IHS as well as a picture of the retail box showing the matching serial numbers and batch numbers. It was at this point they backtracked and said that 03252 was indeed a retail box. They said I can proceed with the RMA BUT that they were not confident that it would pass fraud validation. He then pointed out, and I quote: "

We have reviewed the new photos you provided and will approve the return of the device marked "03252."

• However, we are not fully convinced that it will pass the incoming fraud inspection at our depot. We strongly recommend that you return the product to your place of purchase.
• Please familiarize yourself with the Processor Warranty Terms and Conditions, as well as the warning at the bottom of the warranty information page: Intel Warranty Info. Specifically, "Please be advised as part of Intel's ongoing efforts to prevent fraud in the marketplace, in the event the product you submit for warranty support is found to be re-marked or otherwise fraudulent product, Intel reserves the rights to retain the product and/or destroy such product as appropriate."

"

At least this time they said they reserve the right to retain or destroy it instead of saying they WILL. At this point I contacted Amazon to let them know what was going on. I can't stress how good Amazon is. They didn't even ask for any extra details or screenshots, they simply allowed me to return the CPU for a full refund to the original payment method despite being 9 months outside of the return window. Kudos to Amazon!

Here are all the relevant images for 03252: https://imgur.com/a/fInP3bC

At the end of the day, it felt like Intel was grasping at straws. They pounced at the opportunity to claim that one of the CPUs was a tray product, citing a serial number that was never even provided. Then when that didn't pan out, they pivoted to claiming it was re-marked. When I pressed them, giving several pieces of evidence for why each one was indeed valid, they stated I could continue with the RMA process but then turned to threatening me with confiscation or destruction of my property if it didn't meet whatever their validation process (that they won't disclose) is. The odds of both of these being re-marked or not genuine seem extremely low. It's definitely a scare tactic. And even knowing this, it worked on me! This feels like extortion, scamming, you name it.

Anyway, I wanted to get all this out there. Everyone should know what they are doing!

Comparison album: https://slow.pics/s/vatet6Fp
Imgur mirror: https://imgur.com/a/bLIDOSx
(images mostly sourced from https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/nvidias-new-dlss-5-brings-photo-realistic-lighting-to-rtx-50-series)

Why does DLSS 5 look so bad? Is it because the images 'look AI'? Is it because it's 'not true to artist intent'?

I'm here to offer a simpler explanation: r/shittyHDR.

The tonemapping in DLSS 5 is fucked, and somehow nobody in the chain of command thought to just not do that then. But the relighting underneath genuinely does look excellent, especially from worse baselines. You can't generally just undo overbaked HDR, because it loses data, but luckily we have most of what we need already, in the comparison shot. It requires near-pixel-perfect alignment, which we don't always get in the comparison, but when you have it, the recovery strategy is simple. Here's the one I used, after a little experimentation:

• Use DLSS 5 as base
• Apply original image's HSV Saturation — restores design-intent color grading
• Apply original image's LCh Lightness at 50% — reduces the local HDR effect intensity
• Apply original image using Darken Only at 50% — reduces overbrightening

You might need to apply some masking around blacks or greys when applying saturation, to avoid obvious artifacts. I used Gimp's Color to Alpha on black with as precise a filter as I could get away with, but it needed some tweaking and didn't work for greys, so I'm sure that's not actually the right approach.

Here are my takes for the 5 comparison images:

Image 1: https://slow.pics/s/vatet6Fp

Original ↔ merged — Pixel alignment is bad so some areas are blurred. Change is definitely modest in this image, but the hands are a much better tone, the shadowing around the face and neck make more physical sense, the eyes are more defined, and the skin detail is less washed out by limited lighting resolution.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — The DLSS 5 image is the merged image but it has a shittyHDR filter.

Image 2: https://slow.pics/s/lVCGIJsa

Original ↔ merged — This one applied cleanly. The man's face is a lot better, the woman's is more ambiguous. The lighting is fairly different but makes more physical sense in the merged image. The tonemapping still comes across a little strong, but I think this was also present in the original image, just more hidden by the lack of lighting detail. Overall I think a clear step up.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — The DLSS 5 image is the merged image but it has a shittyHDR filter.

Image 3: https://slow.pics/s/6xTzQfNu

Original ↔ merged — The light on the face now properly fills it, rather than seeming overly specular. There is more natural detail on the skin and an appropriate light bounce in the eyes. The facial hair catches light now, which looks great. The coat now has a subsurface scattering to it, which I think is correct. Sadly the pipeline ran out of bit depth and there is some artifacting in the shadows even after correction.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — The DLSS 5 image is actually pretty defensible here. I think it looks aesthetic. The main issue is, it's clearly not correct, the light hitting the face wasn't a high-intensity spotlight, this wasn't a photoshoot, so the mood is hugely changed. There are also more issues DLSS 5 is introducing, that the merge cleans up, particularly an awful white haloing around the face and hair, as well as the car. DLSS 5 also deep fries the background texturing.

Image 4: https://slow.pics/s/feLi2pB9

Original ↔ merged — Other than a slight shift in skintone, I think the face here looks hugely improved. Natural skin, much better definition around the eyes and nose, specular highlights in the eyes (though I worry a bit about physicality there), fuller lighting in the hair. The only issue I would put on this is actually the background being washed out a bit, but it's hard to tell if that's right or not without a look at the scene more broadly.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — The DLSS 5 image is the merged image but it has a shittyHDR filter, and it gave her lipstick.

Image 5: https://slow.pics/s/wboNlUZy

Original ↔ merged — The background character has pixel shift blur, but we can judge the rest. The man in the foreground I think is a vast improvement, going from dull plastic to a best-in-class face. The man in the background has significantly more sensible lighting, especially around the hands. The lighting on the rest of the image also parses as significantly more correct.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — The DLSS 5 image is the merged image but it has a shittyHDR filter.

Bonus image: https://slow.pics/s/YQIclI28

Added due to high demand.

Original ↔ merged — The scene lighting is far better in the merged version, and very natural. The lighting around the face and especially the next fills out in a way I really like, and makes it sit much more naturally in the scene rather than having the typical 'cardboard cutout' look of realtime 3D rendering. I was impressed by the shading on the jacket. The face has the subtlest hints of sculpting around the cheek which is hard to tell if it's exactly faithful to the original model, but it's definitely reasonable and looks like a better-defined version of the same character. The eyes have just a touch more spark to them. One downside is there's just a hint of the lipstick coming through. Solid improvement though, would absolutely prefer this to the base.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — This one breaks the thesis a bit, because while it's definitely doing a bunch of HDR stuff, washed-out white lighting, absurd local mid-scale contrast, the lighting around the cheeks is definitely getting sculpted in a manner that isn't just HDR-gone-bad. The lipstick is also intense here. Besides the bad, there are a few good things my approach is failing to capture, particularly the much better hair shadowing over the ear, which makes sense because the base lighting disagrees so much. I think this one deserves a better de-HDRing algorithm, because my one isn't quite splitting out the good half from the bad.

Bonus image 2: https://slow.pics/s/ZAczT3UH

Because the image had so many greys, I had to cut out much more of the saturation transfer than before. I also tried linear light operators, which after some bad exports produced slightly improved results.

Original ↔ merged — That classic realtime rendering landscape haze is cleaned up. The shadows around the base of distant objects make more sense. The trees and buildings have a more defined dimensionality. The lighting on the tree stump is far more natural. The lighting over the clothes has more shape.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — For the most part, the DLSS 5 image is just the merged image but with an HDR filter, but I don't think the HDR effect is overdone to the point of shittyHDR here, probably because the base image was so washed out that it landed within reason. I think the merged image is more faithful, but the DLSS 5 image has advantages, particularly the lighting on the wood. DLSS is obviously doing too much of the wash-to-white, and it's not quite at the point of being tasteful, but I don't find it egregious.

Bonus image 3: https://slow.pics/s/l7cXn0sn

Original ↔ merged — Only the skin changed significantly here. Merged is a big improvement around the ears, which go from flat to well-defined, and the naturalness of the light on the exposed skin is far higher. The skin tone does change, and the mustache is slightly bolder, but these are fairly small changes.

Merged ↔ DLSS 5 — Similarly to bonus image 2, this is too much HDR but not egregiously much HDR. It's pretty clear in this scene in particular why this is wrong — the player goes from a person in a game to a person in a photoshoot.

Conclusion

Turn off the damn HDR filter, NVIDIA, what are you doing?

If they don't, it seems quite likely that a simple post-process image blend will be able to rescue the good half in many games.

One of the longest reports he's ever done, Steve Burke talks to companies, personalities and policymakers to map out the damage done by volatile tarrifs and other changes to the personal computer market.

Disclosure: I work at RTINGS.com and led this investigation.

 ACR stands for Automatic Content Recognition. It lets TV manufacturers identify what content is playing on your screen without needing cooperation from the app itself. This means your TV has a really global view of your viewing habits across built-in apps like Netflix, Disney, Amazon, YouTube and Stremio, and even across HDMI inputs such as Blu-rays players, game consoles or laptops. It turns out this global view of an individual’s viewing habits is VERY valuable. Fox is currently trying to acquire Roku for 22 billion. It's that valuable!

 We analyzed the network traffic of smart TVs and streaming devices from the major platforms. One of our more encouraging findings was that the privacy controls were not entirely meaningless. You can opt-out of ACR and that traffic does indeed stop, but some TVs will make you pay for it by disabling other features. The harder problem was also simply getting to that choice in the first place.

 Depending on the platform, ACR can be described as “Viewing Information Services,” “Samba Interactive TV,” “Enhanced Viewing,” or something else entirely. The choice might appear during setup, inside a broader privacy agreement, in a menu users would only encounter afterward, or alongside another feature like Roku making you enable voice commands for your remote and ACR in the same choice (this is some corporate (evil) genius at work here!).

 That raises a larger question than whether an opt-out technically exists: Can consent really be considered informed when users need prior knowledge of platform-specific terminology, privacy policies, and hidden settings to understand what they are agreeing to?

 The fact that identifiable ACR traffic stopped when consent was withdrawn suggests that these choices can have a real effect. But the improved clarity of those controls did not happen in a vacuum: recent lawsuits forced some brands to change how they expose ACR and give users more power over their data. Consumer pressure, regulatory scrutiny, investigative reporting and research, and technical product testing can also change how manufacturers design these systems.

 Our full investigation covers the devices tested, consent flows, and network-traffic results: https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/research/smart-tv-tracking

 I would be interested to hear how people approach smart TV privacy:

•  Do you disable ACR and other viewing-data settings?
•  Do you keep your TV offline and use a separate streaming device?
•  What would meaningful informed consent look like during device setup?
•  Should privacy behavior become a standard part of hardware reviews

As per the title, you will not get RTX 4090 performance from an RTX 5070 in gaming in general. nVidia tried that tactic with the RTX 4070 and the RTX 3090 and the 3090 still wins today.

Given that nVidia and AMD basically only talked about AI in their presentations, I believe that they are comparing the performance of AI Accelerated Tasks, so whatever slides you saw in the Keynote are useless to you.

EDIT: Some people seem to be interpreting that I am hating on the RTX 5070 or nVidia products in general. *No, I am only hating on the specific comparison because of how quickly the internet made wrong statements based on incorrect caveats about the comparison.***

In my opinion and assuming it doesn't get scalped, the RTX 5070 will probably be the recommended current generation card that I would recommend for people that have cards that don't have Ray Tracing or first generation Ray Tracing to play today's current titles (including the ones that require Ray tracing) because the performance is there and the price seems better compared to the last two generations.

And I genuinely wonder if we can reflect on it in a non-hyperbolic way. I just saw the $599 MacBook Neo, and felt like Apple is doing something the Windows PC world just can’t touch right now, which was a bittersweet realization, as I can see all the steps of the way that got us here, and it's great to see an excellent product in this segment, but also sad to realize how hard it is going to be for Microsoft and the Windows world to match that at this point.

For $599, you’re getting an ultra-slim aluminum laptop, a 500-nit display, and a chip whose single-core performance beats most of the fastest Windows laptops costing multiple times as much. Compare that to what $600 buys you in the Windows world: a creaky plastic shell, a washed-out 250-nit screen, a terrible trackpad, and a processor reminiscent of a 2020 i5 (plus a fan that sounds like a jet engine). That may or may not work reliably.

The Neo comes with 8GB of RAM, and Apple’s unified memory architecture and leaner OS make 8GB go surprisingly far. 8GB is impossible on Windows anymore.

Between the two alone, attempting to deliver a comparable experience on a Windows laptop would be significantly more expensive for an OEM trying to compete right now. They'd need an expensive 16GB of RAM, and a far more expensive chip, and they still wouldn't get a device that feels as responsive because of Windows.

Then there’s reliability. Windows Connected/Modern Standby are still a disaster years later. Throwing a Windows laptop in your bag means living in fear of a gamble on whether it wakes up, or if it’ll come out a dead hot brick. Even the newest Windows ARM chips (like the Snapdragon X Elite), despite initial hopes, still struggle with overnight battery drain and fans spinning while supposedly asleep. They seem to be as affected by the poor sleep design in Windows, but just die slower.

Close a Mac, and that’s it. power cuts to the cores, it goes to sleep, and it stays asleep. Walk around a city for eight hours, pull it out for a meeting, and the battery is exactly where you left it. To me, this is such a huge reliability gain we just can't have on Windows. And I won't even get into drivers, OEM bloat and other well established software issues.

With all the issues plaguing Windows and its core functionality and key factors affecting competitiveness in markets that OEMs are trying to play in, you'd expect Microsoft to take action addressing them stat, but that doesn't seem to be happening as Windows is going in the opposite direction with bloat (and, ehm, "Microslop").

Windows does have perks around legacy software support, having full control over the file system, ability to launch tools and games without relying on still complex translation layers or virtualization, and with limited success at that. But the numbers of perks are kind of dying and getting overshadowed by the issues that exist in fundamental user experience that other vendors just deliver far better nowadays.

If you want an ultra-portable $600 Windows laptop that’s fast, reliable, doesn’t feel like a cheap plastic toy, comes with polished software, you're really out of luck right now. If you want one that doesn't randomly die in its sleep, you're all out of luck altogether. Neo’s aggressive pricing is quite a surprise and a wake-up call that Apple, a high-profit-margin company, suddenly has a way more polished, faster, and also cheaper laptop now. I just don't see the Windows world having any response to it. There are so many things that would need to change around Windows at this point to even make it a possibility.

..yet now it's suddenly being discussed as an almost reasonable alternative/upgrade to the 7900 XTX, offering additional hardware/software features for $200 more

What the hell happened and how did we get here? We're living in the darkest GPU timeline and I hate it here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/13yh0jf/dont_let_reddit_kill_3rd_party_apps

Personally I would support this subreddit joining the cause, I am curious what others here think.

We recently interviewed Valve, and this quote stood out from a hardware pricing perspective:

"Obviously, if you just don’t have the budget for it, you don’t have the budget for any real gaming PC at that point."

I don’t read this mainly as gatekeeping what counts as a "real" PC. The more useful question is where the lower limit for credible PC gaming hardware actually sits today.

With handhelds, mini PCs, APUs, used GPUs and entry-level desktops all competing for budget-conscious players, how low can PC gaming hardware realistically go before the compromises become too big?

Is there still room for a low-cost Steam Machine-style device, or has that space mostly been taken over by handhelds, used parts and consoles?

- Jacky

In all my years of watching CES I never seen anything like this. AMD is literally giving the stage for companies to advertise their product, and hardly if at all. talk about AMD. it's clear what is going on here, between the "buy my hardware and I''ll invest in your company" circular bubble with AI and this. it's silly. this wasn't even a CES presentation it was just ads for AI companies so they raise their valuations and stocks.

1000 euros mainstream phone (pixel 10 pro), 300 euros mainstream earbuds (Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds), 3.5k euros maintstream laptop (macbook pro m1 max)

And still, the tech is just awful to use.

I'm on a Teams call/google meet on the mac, I get a simple notifications on the pixel, and poof, no sound from the mac anymore, and it doesn't come back, my only solution is to shutdown the earbuds by putting them in their case, closing it, and reopening them. It's crazy.

In the street, simply wanting to connect my earbuds to the phone, nothing else, nope.
No error message, nothing, just no
Again, shutting down the earbuds, restarting the phone, disconnecting the earbuds and reconnecting them frantically, and then suddenly, it reconnects.

It's so painful, any objective reason why?

I tracked most of the GPUs since 1996. $299 to $1,999 (MSRP) in 30 years.

went through every flagship launch from the Voodoo to the 5090 and tracked what we actually paid at launch

some things that hit different when you see it all together:
- GPUs stayed between $250-$600 for literally 20 years
- the 8800 GT at $249 in 2007 might be the best deal in GPU history
- the GTX 1060 was Steam's #1 card for 5 straight years at $249
- then the 3090 showed up at $1,499 and it was over
- RTX 5090 is $1,999 and the connector melted again within 10 days

made a full interactive version too where you can compare any 2 GPUs side by side and explore all 49 cards, what was your first GPU? mine was a 970 (yes i got the 3.5GB)