Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardcore hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. In it, we dive into the hottest topics from our YouTube show, plus hot news from across the web.
This week, the theme is gaming: a possible new X3D CPU from AMD, Steam showing detailed performance stats, and the future of Xbox. We also squeeze in two pieces of breaking news to kick off the show!
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In this episode of The Full Nerd…
Alex Esteves / Foundry
In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith first go off-script to quickly cover Nvidia’s new sub-$300 GeForce RTX 5050 and Microsoft’s surprising extension for Windows 10 security updates. (There is, of course, a catch.)
Then it’s on to the topics of the week: AMD’s likely release of a 9600X3D, our take on the Steam Beta’s new performance monitoring stats in the overlay, and what the next Xbox could look like.
- We meant to start with leaks, but instead we had solid news to kick off the episode. First up: Nvidia’s new RTX 5050 is sliding into the light with very little fanfare—this fresh addition to the RTX 5000 series will come in at $250, a price point sorely underserved currently. Also potentially underserved: Budget gamers, who won’t get the perf they deserve with the RTX 5050’s 128-bit bus.
(When asked offline, Brad said, “I’d look at the used market instead to get something much better, or pray you can find a B580 around the same price.”)
- Also: Surprise! After our long discussion last week about Windows 10 and the security implications of its coming end-of-life in October, Microsoft unexpectedly announced a one-year reprieve for everyone. Well, sort of. You can get an extra year of Windows 10 security updates if you activate Windows Backup and sync to OneDrive. Or, the better deal hack: Use Microsoft Rewards points to pay for it. You can earn the needed points pretty quick between now and Oct.
- Could the 9600X3D be a Micro Center exclusive part? Adam thinks so, but I don’t. We won’t know until the official announcement, though (which seems likely). What is confirmed is the coming Ryzen 5 5500X3D, an exclusive to Latin America…and the unfortunately rapid-climbing DDR4 memory prices. If you’re hanging on to an older Ryzen 5000 chip and want more RAM, upgrade ASAP.
- Adam loves performance info—a detail that we learn while discussing the new performance monitoring stats in the Steam Beta’s overlay. (Meanwhile, Will doesn’t want much to do with them, unless he’s troubleshooting. I respect it.) Of interest to me: the granularity of the data. Steam displays FPS counters not just for your actual frame rate, but the display frame rate generated by DLSS, FSR, or XESS. Its approach to CPU and GPU perf, as well as memory usage, digs in similarly deep.
- Will the Xbox console as we know it go the way of the dodo? In Adam’s opinion: Yes. Despite a newly announced extended partnership between AMD and Microsoft for hardware, he argues that the ROG Xbox Ally X signals Microsoft moving to a more hands-off approach. We’ll see a gaming version of Windows that applies to a variety of devices, from handhelds to all kinds of larger PCs. I’m not nearly as convinced yet, though it is clear Microsoft’s approach to Xbox as just a console is over.
- As for our Q&A section of the show: Viewers ask us some tough questions, including if we have faith in businesses lasting long enough to fulfill their warranties—and if we trust groups pledging to create security patches for unsupported operating systems. One fun question from regular Ivan R: Are random Linux flash drives on a show floor safer than floor candy? (Choice quote from the resulting discussion, in relation to a prank Will once played: “A clown car of thumb drives.”)
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And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds.
This week’s interesting nerd news
A quieter week for news, but a few stories stood out. On the good side: a glorious PC dedicated to a Pixar franchise of my youth. (Creak, creak.) But on the rougher side, I’m not looking forward to the change to Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death.
Microsoft
- MSI’s Toy Story gaming PC is glorious: You can relive 1995 in the best way with a fully themed Toy Story build from MSI. My only complaint: Why does only Taiwan get this good stuff?
- Legendary Sound Blaster ISA sound card gets a driver update 30 years later: ISA. There’s a name I haven’t heard in years.
- Should PCs smell good? Adam asks this completely trick question (IMO) of our friend Steve Burke over at Gamers Nexus. As our colleague Michael Crider puts it, off-gassing is not an appealing term, and that’s what Adam is hyping here.
- Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models: As a book lover, this news filled me with pain. Especially on the back of news that AI companies don’t need permission from authors to train their models on their books. I’m no lawyer, but the idea that training an AI to write in someone’s exact voice doesn’t quite fit the bill of a transformative work to me.
- Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death is…dead: In an F-U to everyone saddled with informal tech support for loved ones, Microsoft is officially killing off the BSOD in favor of a black screen. Can’t wait to have phone calls where you have to ask for clarification if your grandfather has a black screen (because no video signal) or a Black Screen (of death).
- Rare Franken-GPU has both AMD and Nvidia branding: Mistakes happen, as a seemingly irate buyer of a Radeon RX 9070 XT discovered. The more interesting discovery via the TFN Discord—the phrase “beyond acceptable” is not as widely known to others as I thought.
- Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds finally met for the first time: World didn’t implode. I also checked outside my window for pigs with wings.
That’s all for this week—I’m going to spend now until the next newsletter shivering my buns off, in stark contrast to the eastern side of the U.S. If it’s hot in your region, stay safe and cool out there!
Alaina