When i was a kid i played 12 hours every day on my crappy laptop. I watched every youtube video about maximizing fps so i could get to a somewhat playable fps level. I reached Global Elite, the highest rank in Counter Strike at 14 years old while playing on my fucked samsung laptop at 45 fps at 800x600 resolution low settings.

Now im 30 years old, earn good money, got a beast of a gaming pc that cost me more than im willing to admit. I play like two evenings a year, at most. Its not fun. I have 100 FPS in maxed out Cyberpunk, but i miss the times when i was a kid grinding cs with my friends on my old laptop. Life is fucked.

SK hynix has posted the biggest quarter in its history, and alongside the record numbers, the South Korean memory giant has warned that demand for memory will continue to outstrip supply all the way through 2030, even as it pours money into new fabs.

The news comes from SK hynix's third quarter 2026 results, announced on October 28, where the company stated it expects "the structure in which demand exceeds supply to persist through 2030." SK hynix's revenue for the quarter came in at 104.6 trillion won (around $79 billion), its first quarter above 100 trillion won and up 328% year over year, while operating profit hit 83.3 trillion won (around $62.9 billion) for an 80% operating margin.

On the Q3 earnings call, CFO Kim Woo-hyun pinned the shortage on the complexity of leading-edge chip processes and the long lead times needed to bring new production lines online. So, why can't SK hynix just build its way out of the shortage? SK hynix is expanding, with plans to ramp its M15X fab to maximum capacity by the end of the year to boost HBM4 output, and Phase 1 of its Yongin cluster set to enter full-scale operation next year, but new fabs take years to reach meaningful output.

Essentially, they can't build fabs fast enough to solve the problem today, or even in the immediate future. SK hynix has also signed long-term agreements with 14 major customers, including global cloud providers, that already cover more than 50% of its total production capacity for 2027 and 2028.

For PC gamers and smartphone buyers, the outlook isn't great. Kim said on the call that PC and mobile shipments are expected to decrease due to cost burdens from rising memory prices and supply shortages, while server DDR5, HBM4, and enterprise SSDs for AI data centers drove SK hynix's record quarter.

Getting a wireless keyboard soon so that should help too

https://x.com/llIllIIIlII1/status/2115189180087374331

TL;DR: Ordered two Voyager IV Ultimates ($15,140.83 USD / $21,572.62 CAD). After an "on track" email, a "production" email and a KYC check, Starforge cancelled 11 days later with no explanation. The refund came back $381 CAD short because of the exchange rate, and the same PC is now $1,000 USD more. International buyers, be careful.

I'm posting this to warn anyone living outside of the US who is considering ordering a PC from Starforge. I feel like I have been totally wronged, and I hope this post might gain enough traction for them to reconsider their stance.

Some backstory: with RTX 5090 prices climbing every week and the rumor that Nvidia was discontinuing them, I decided to buy two Starforge Voyager IV Ultimate rigs, one for me and one for my girlfriend, before it was too late. The total came to $15,140.83 USD after taxes and shipping or $21,572.62 CAD at the time of order (Oct 16).

5 days later on Oct 21, I reach out via email just to ask for an update on my order as I am eager to receive and there hasn't been any updates since my order. They confirm that my order is on track.

Order Status Inquiry From Me

2 days later on Oct 23, they send a production check-in email confirming that my PCs are "in production or fulfillment and is moving through [their] normal processes". Okay, great, everything is going well and my expected delivery date is within the next 2 weeks. I am patiently waiting during this time and honestly quite excited.

Then out of the blue 3 days later on Oct 26 (yesterday), I am sent an email where they say that my order was flagged for additional verification and KYC. They sent me a plaid link where I was to scan my driver's license and take a video of myself for processing and validation. I wasn't thrilled about having to do that, but I understood it was a large amount of money to be processing so I complied with it. They also asked me to confirm I am using the computer for myself and not resale, which I did confirm.

Today I received an email stating that my order was cancelled because it did not meet their
"payment security verification requirements" or whatever that means.

Obviously I was totally caught off guard by this, I paid for the PC using Shop pay with a credit card I have used for numerous purchases on Shopify. They were so vague in their wording and I couldn't understand what flagged my order and moreover, how I failed their verification. The only thing I can think of is that I used my preferred first name "James" on the order as opposed to my legal first name. This was autofilled on Shopify as I have used James on all my online orders before without issue. And also my shipping address was a bit different that my billing as I had since moved out from my parents house (however we are in the same city and only 10km away). Conveniently, the price of the same Voyager IV Ultimate has also increased by $1000 USD since I ordered and is now out of stock.

At this point I was pretty furious and wanted an explanation on what exactly caused me to fail their verification, I asked for my case to escalated.

The response from their Customer Service Director was no different, and they couldn't give me any more details on why my order was cancelled. The cherry on top is that the CAD strengthened against the USD in the past 11 days, and when I received the refund notification an hour ago, I ended up received nearly 400 CAD less than I originally paid (mind you, my CC has no FX fees, so this is just exchange rate).

This whole experience was just abysmal. Having no phone support either is rough when there's over $21K on the line. Every reply was a short canned email, and nobody would tell me what actually went wrong.

I think what really irks me is their timing. On Oct 21 they told me my order was on track. On Oct 23 they told me it was in production. Then on Oct 26 they suddenly needed a KYC check, and the next day it was cancelled. If my order looked risky, why wasn't it flagged the day I placed it? Had they cancelled within a day or two, I'd have been annoyed but whole. Instead they held my money for 11 days, the exchange rate moved, and I'm the one eating about $381 CAD for their delay.

If you live outside the US and are thinking about ordering from Starforge:

- Know that if they cancel, the refund comes back at whatever the exchange rate is that day, not what you paid.

If anyone from Starforge sees this: I'm not asking for anything unreasonable. Either let me re-order at my original price with my legal name and matching addresses, or cover the $381 I lost on the exchange rate. Or at least give me a call!

Has anyone else had an order cancelled like this, or gotten Starforge to reverse it?

My CPU was throttling and running hot, but whenever I opened Task Manager, usage instantly dropped to near 0%, making it impossible to spot.

I had an AI agent write a quick PowerShell script to sample process states differentially over time. Turns out it was constantly polling for Taskmgr to hide itself.

What a crazy timeline we are in right now. I post here daily on my favorite form of PC Gaming "Emulation".

3 Days ago UFC 5 was running at 20 FPS.

2 Days ago UFC 5 increased dramatically to 60 FPS.

Now Today we have UFC 6 running at a Perfect 60 FPS.

Mind you this game only came out 4 Months ago!

The PS5 Emulation scene is on a whole nother level!

With all the BS going on in the PC Tech Space at least I can find some sort of joy through all this chaos and share it with you guys.

There is More to come for sure. Full Vid Here

If you also enjoy High end Emulation and Gaming. check me out.

Have a Great Day. Blessings to all.

Now that the 5090 is discontinued, 5080s have now soared in price. They’re not 3x+ MSRP on Newegg now. This is actually getting frustrating. I saw this coming a mile away where I heard the 5090 was getting discontinued, but actually seeing them climb up even more hurts to see.

After 30 years, I decided to take of the case and keys to clean the board itself. Not to bad for 30 years of dust. The first picture is the board before cleaning, the second after cleaning and the third the fully assembled keyboard. These darker spots around the switches don't go away. I guess it's something other then dust. This post is your reminder to clean you keyboard at least every 20-30 years to prevent new diseases from appearing out of nowhere.

It’s a 5070 and some iPhones and iPods

So far this year I have upgraded my wife and I off of our two PS5s and gotten 2 14900Ks, a 5070 and 5070ti for the wife and me, and a gaming laptop to boot. (7845HS/32GB RAM/4080/240hz 1600p). Rural walmarts are gold mines. Sold all my playstation stuff and doubt Ill ever go back. Got the rest of the PC parts off various store fronts online. I also got 3 1080p 27 inch 240hz gaming monitors for only 129. Two for me and one for the wife. I gotta say all the disc-less nonsense from Sony has been super off-putting. I’ve been on PS since 2006 on the PS3 and finally just jumped ship. I went full razr for the peripherals. They had pink for the wife and white for myself, many of those were also discounted by some amount.