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BTS Update & Rewards Shipped for $20 Tier
🕑 Added 2020-10-19 17:42:46 +0000 UTCHi everyone,
First up: We just sent our shipping team the manual shipment requests for the $20 Reward tier dating back to September, so you should be getting a tracking email in the next few days if you've been waiting for one. On the upside, Patreon now has an export CSV function for addresses. Believe it or not, I've been personally gathering the addresses and emails for all those Patreon shipments because there was no clean integration, but Patreon has updated its CSVs to include everything we need now, so we should be able to get these out faster going forward.
Also, we just filmed 2 Patrons Ask GNs and a behind-the-scenes video, with hopefully another soon. Those will be going up for Patreon backers this week and next.
Secondly: If you're not in the GN Patreon Discord yet, you can join by following this link: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266-Get-my-Discord-role
Finally, some updates:
We're currently finalizing the Gallahad 240 testing. The 360 is done and results look good so far. It should be in the top 3 coolers, on average, and is right alongside the EK 360 and Arctic 360. That's your Patreon early look at the data. We've noticed that both Gallahad coolers have loud pumps, but that turning them down manually gets it under control. Running the pumps at full speed out of box is probably a little noisy for most people, so we have some testing with slower pump speeds as well. Mike has been running these tests -- he's our test technician we've been training on coolers for a few months.
As for what Patrick is working on, it's been cases, mostly: The Corsair 4000 series is now live, but the 4000X is next on the table, and we have some NDA'd cases coming in from a few other manufacturers. Patrick will be switching back to CPU testing shortly for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs. We'll be completely rerunning all the tests in our CPU bench to get a fresh set of data, which means we'll be ditching our last few months of data to move forward with a clean set. This is always a painful move to make, as it costs a couple hundred hours of time (spread between the team, fortunately) to rerun everything, but it's worth it. We don't like to transition into wholly new generations on old data, just because Windows updates and GPU driver updates start to get screwy. We'll likely be moving to RTX 3080s for this testing and leaving the 2080 Tis behind.
For what I'm doing: I've been working on finalizing the last few partner model 3080s we have, including the MSI 3080 Gaming X Trio and hopefully some Gigabyte cards that we're waiting to receive. We have a request out to ASUS for the Strix, but it's been hard to get. There aren't many samples available for media, so partners have been spreading what they have out across all regions to ensure even coverage in other countries. We're OK with that, but we wanted you to know that there will be delays on some model reviews as the manufacturers wait for enough inventory. While waiting on that, I've been reading up a lot on volt mods for GPUs to try and learn more about how to control NVIDIA's extremely locked-down voltages. We're looking at both memory and core mods. I think we've figured it out, with thanks to Elmor, but I'm not sure if we'll do the mods. They get into territory where it's not as easy to reverse as a shunt resistor mod. Otherwise, I'm writing more standard operating procedures to document all of our testing for the new CPU test suite and GPU cooler test suite. Behind the scenes, I often write SOPs (typically running 50-70 steps) for our testing so that we don't screw things up and so that anyone here can run a test if we really get slammed with review cycles.
The biggest thing I've been working on, though, has been trying to figure out how to get my hours under 100-120 per week. It's not sustainable or healthy, but I don't want to slow down GN's pace, so we're working on putting some new processes in place to hopefully reduce my hours by about 10-20 per week by end of year. The goal is to mostly reduce my hours spent on non-public-facing stuff, like doing office dishes and trash, for example, which can be hired out or tasked to someone on the team. Not that this costs a lot of time, but it's worth maybe an hour a week. Find enough things like that, and maybe more sleep is in the future.
That's about it for now. There's plenty more going on, but that covers the most interesting stuff. We're expecting Ryzen 5000 CPUs soon for testing, but aren't sure of the embargo lift date yet. We'd expect launch day, if not just before. Launch day is November 5.
If you've been waiting for a backer reward, keep an eye out for a tracking email. We'll be combing through the messages on Patreon today as well.
Thanks again for your patience and support!
Comments
Hey, thanks! I'm happy to be a Patreon in the first place. Y'All're QUITE busy with GPU and CPU launches, so.
Either way stay healthy :). Im sending this again because it sent early lol
That is indeed not healthy. Take a load off. Maybe have a vacation if you can. The channel Im sure will understand as based on comments on videos where you do mention this the general consensus is you need a break. Maybe prerecord the videos before live so that the channel at least has content.
Take care, Steve. And Mike & Patrick too. I don't want to see GN burnt like a 3080 inside an anquarium case. You should adopt Snowflake's attitude. You can learn a lot from him.
I agree with everyone. Take care, slow down, hire more staff, slow the videos' pace, whatever's needed, because breaking down won't help anyone. I've been there with lower hours than you do. Seriously, I'm sure you can figure out the best way for you to achieve this balance.
Could the 3090 be used for CPU benchmarking instead? The 3080 is something a lot of people will actually own, but I think the 3090 is the play for bringing up the most CPU bottlenecks. I'm also a bit biased given that I have one pre-ordered, I suppose. But given that it's more reasonably priced than titans of the past, it might be the thing to use?
Daniel Silva
Hang in there, team. Don't mortgage your future health too much. And thank you for all you do, your content is really good.
Steve absolutely needs to train additional talent. I understand this is his passion project and he wants GN to be the best, but tons of businesses fail when they're too reliant on irreplaceable people. If he reduces his load he might even have more fun on the show which will be evident to viewers.
I wouldn't expect new staff to be clones of Steve, just produce content that doesn't require Steve's full involvement. New content could leverage testing and benchmarking that has already been done, along with insider/acquired knowledge that is part of the GN corpus. Shows could demo how to choose builds, optimize, maximize, diagnose, or tweak. Of course, Steve will point out how much time it would take to get this off the ground, working against his immediate goal of reducing his workload. :D
Steve I'll do the dishes
The problem is Steve provides a lot of unique insights because of his communication with engineers or PR people at companies. Not an easy thing to replace.
I really wish there was a way you could add staff to take work off your plate. You should be able to dedicate your time to the most critical tasks and delegate one or more of your hats to a broader team. Adding a show host would be a nice thing, too. Fans will still want to see Steve, but if someone else could host a subset of the content, it might help a lot.
I will do your dishes! 😂
Peter H.
Take care guys, entire team is doing amazing work all things considered.
Eik Brønsro
I love your and your teams vids. if i where Living near GN i Would have done free work for you. I live in Denmark and im not a super user. So cleaning is the thing I can do. If you need help from outside US. You can contact me. Br. Eik L. Broensro +45 40747882. Text is good.
Get some rest and go shred! Glad to hear you are working on reducing some load. Also very glad to see GN becoming what it is now and where it will go in the future. Thanks for always providing great content and keeping your moral compass straight!
2 things: - Steve, get some rest please, it is not worth it. With current 3080 supply problems it doesn't matter if reviews for partner cards come out later - I am also waiting for Asus Strix 3080, but meanwhile I have settled for any EVGA or Asus model. Today I had opportunity to buy Gigabyte models, but considering poor performance of the Eagle I let it pass. Hopefully it wasn't a mistake :) I still have time until Cyberpunk release so hopefully I will get the card I want.
Treat yourself every now and then especially befire the onslaught of RDNA2 and Zen3
Burnout is real. Rest. I have stories :)
Get some rest Steve. It will end up catching up to you.
Christ man! I've been through burnout via the games industry. It can take years to recover from. Look after yourself
Rajeev Suchet Erramilli
Take care of yourself, Steve, if only for Snowflake’s sake. Glad to see that you’re working to make it easier on yourself.
