Friday, March 4th 2022

AsRock Teases NFT Motherboard - The Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition

Remember that initial Phantom Gaming Evo NFT push from AsRock? It seems that the company was testing the waters amongst its user base - and the industry at large. The company is now seemingly doubling down on NFTs, but in a creative way. The company's latest "Unity Makes Strength: Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition" campaign is bringing community-based design as input towards the final production look of its upcoming Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition motherboard. The final design will then be minted into an NFT.

The company will be accepting submissions for motherboard designs around the motherboard, with users being called to paint it (the canvas is subdivided into 4,309 pixels) at their leisure. Then, AsRock will be taking five random designs among the submissions, and compare them on a per-pixel basis. The dominant color will then be averaged among the designs, and will become the final pixel. The designs can be submitted via AsRock's site from March 7th through March 26th, with participants receiving a sweepstakes code upon submission. Every entrant will be eligible to win the NFT associated with the motherboard's final design, but additional prizes will be offered on day one, 10, and 20 of the campaign. The winner is likely to hold a pretty valuable NFT by the end of it all; ASRock sold the initial allocation of 30 Phantom Gaming Evo NFTs on January 28 th for 0.1 ETH (~$250 at the time) each. With the Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition being a one-off, however, it's likely it'll fetch for much higher in secondary markets.
Sources: AsRock, via Tom's Hardware
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58 Comments on AsRock Teases NFT Motherboard - The Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition

#1
Assimilator
I hope that whoever at Asrock who came up with this idea, dies by having a motherboard shoved up their ass.
Posted on Reply
#2
GoldenX
Easy way to avoid an entire brand, thanks.
Posted on Reply
#3
Raevenlord
News Editor
AssimilatorI hope that whoever at Asrock who came up with this idea, dies by having a motherboard shoved up their ass.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Maybe a tower cooler, though.
Posted on Reply
#4
Fouquin
RaevenlordThe company will be accepting submissions for motherboard designs around the motherboard, with users being called to paint it (the canvas is subdivided into 4,309 pixels) at their leisure.
Ah yes, crowd sourcing designs. That's sure to not backfire with people spamming the site with pornography. Absolutely nobody post porn or gross images to their public submission form. That's in bad taste, and honestly just an awful thing to do. Definitely don't do that.
Posted on Reply
#5
R-T-B
FouquinAh yes, crowd sourcing designs. That's sure to not backfire with people spamming the site with pornography. Absolutely nobody post porn or gross images to their public submission form. That's in bad taste, and honestly just an awful thing to do. Definitely don't do that.
It's not a "public submission form." It's a "pay to paint a pixel" NFT thingy.

So the porn costs money. Not that that improves things. We all know we're just going to pay out the nose so some guy can draw dickbutt on our motherboard.

Don't you love the future?
Posted on Reply
#6
Fouquin
R-T-BIt's not a "public submission form." It's a "pay to paint a pixel" NFT thingy.
I'm missing the part where you have to pay to enter.

Posted on Reply
#7
CrAsHnBuRnXp
NFT: Becomes a thing.
Everyone: Fuck this shit we dont want this.
Game devs & Asrock: releases nft's that NO ONE asked for.
Everyone: Fuck you guys

Now we just need these companies to go bankrupt to learn their lesson.
Posted on Reply
#8
R-T-B
FouquinI'm missing the part where you have to pay to enter.

Doesn't sound very NFTish then. I was just assuming based on the fact it has NFT in the name that it'd be tied to blockchain somehow...

Honestly this is better. I'd rather they just capitalize on the buzzword rather than make this nightmare a reality.

EDIT: OH! You win an NFT themed mobo. Oh goodie. I don't really care... but I guess the real mobo would be nice.
Posted on Reply
#9
DeathtoGnomes
R-T-BSo the porn costs money.
Do tell!

The real acronym for NFT is Not F***ing Trusted, its not gonna reduce costs so why bother?
Posted on Reply
#10
TheUn4seen
Well, there is this anti-NFT fad right now - and you know what marketing says, any publicity is good publicity. On the other hand, how's that different from hardware branded by famous people playing sports (electronic or physical)? Both add no objective value to the device itself. It's just vanity, most people will not like it - but will talk about it which is exactly what marketing wants -, some may like it and will be more likely to buy it just because it seems like a niche product.
Honestly people: Don't like it and for some snooty reason you oppose the whole idea? Talking about it only encourages corporate marketing to push the idea further and with more emphasis.
Posted on Reply
#11
Assimilator
RaevenlordI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Maybe a tower cooler, though.
As long as it's a big one like the NH-D15, I'll accept it.
Posted on Reply
#12
Steevo
AssimilatorI hope that whoever at Asrock who came up with this idea, dies by having a motherboard shoved up their ass.
I’m not religious, but Amen brother, amen!!
Posted on Reply
#13
Tomorrow
Look the the bright side. Atleast this NFT motherboard will have decent VRM.
Posted on Reply
#14
Darksword
AssimilatorI hope that whoever at Asrock who came up with this idea, dies by having a motherboard shoved up their ass.
I'd pay for an NFT of THAT! :D
Posted on Reply
#15
R-T-B
DeathtoGnomesDo tell!

The real acronym for NFT is Not F***ing Trusted, its not gonna reduce costs so why bother?
It makes sense for certain select things, as I have said before. Issue is it's being used for all the absolute worst case scenarios instead (monkey jpegs and gaming... lol).

It's like whoever is in charge of NFTs wants it to fail. They are sailing headfirst into a market that not only does not need them, but loathes them.
Posted on Reply
#16
robot zombie
TheUn4seenWell, there is this anti-NFT fad right now - and you know what marketing says, any publicity is good publicity. On the other hand, how's that different from hardware branded by famous people playing sports (electronic or physical)? Both add no objective value to the device itself. It's just vanity, most people will not like it - but will talk about it which is exactly what marketing wants -, some may like it and will be more likely to buy it just because it seems like a niche product.
Honestly people: Don't like it and for some snooty reason you oppose the whole idea? Talking about it only encourages corporate marketing to push the idea further and with more emphasis.
When the majority of people in a market seem to hate it, I don't think it helps them. For people who hate NFTs, it's not about taste but ethical issues and general mistrust for NFT tech, because of its notoriety for hosting a variety of scams (or being used to make fraudulent NFTs AT SCALE - nearly every musical artist has been grabbed already,) spending energy for essentially another thing for people with money to speculate on, etc. People hate what is being done with NFTs. They see companies they would otherwise buy from and decide not to buy it, and encourage others to do the same, and it becomes a 'cool' thing to do, because it turns out many people aren't interested in these tack-ons. Lets not strawman that entire group of people as people with high noses, as though there haven't been a massive litany of issues since NFTs were first rolled out.

The thing is... it won't seem like a niche product. It just IS a niche product in this market. People will avoid it just to prove a point. That's not the look you want. I know people say all attention is good attention, but the issues with NFTs kind of hit people on a deeper ideological level. It's like 'masks off' for some people. "Oh, you guys are actually everything I hate? Cool, buying from another company in this crowded, hyper-competitive market space, who sells a very similar product without that."

Or, it's another thing saying "PC building just isn't for me." Because not only has it become grossly not affordable, but the companies making the hardware are more interested in alienating things meant for people with more money to play with. It starts to feel like normal people are being bought out of this whole game.
Posted on Reply
#17
Chaitanya
A company known to make garbage quality motherboards wants money for NFT, this should be fun lesson in how to make $hit.
Posted on Reply
#18
R-T-B
ChaitanyaA company known to make garbage quality motherboards wants money for NFT, this should be fun lesson in how to make $hit.
The sad thing is their motherboards as of late have been anything but garbage. And the other sad thing is pretty much every vendor is buying into the crypto/NFT bandwagon as much as they are able. It's weird.
Posted on Reply
#19
Chomiq
TomorrowLook the the bright side. Atleast this NFT motherboard will have decent VRM.
That's what Steve from Hardware Unboxed said.
Posted on Reply
#20
looniam
think they might have gotten a better response with a RX 6900XT NFT.

i might have been tempted at that (while drunk). :p
Posted on Reply
#21
Ravenmaster
AsRock NFT Edition (No F*cking Thanks Edition).
Posted on Reply
#22
Valantar
R-T-BDoesn't sound very NFTish then. I was just assuming based on the fact it has NFT in the name that it'd be tied to blockchain somehow...

Honestly this is better. I'd rather they just capitalize on the buzzword rather than make this nightmare a reality.

EDIT: OH! You win an NFT themed mobo. Oh goodie. I don't really care... but I guess the real mobo would be nice.
From what I can tell you (might, likely not) win a motherboard-themed NFT, not the other way around. I see no mention of there being physical prizes.
TheUn4seenWell, there is this anti-NFT fad right now - and you know what marketing says, any publicity is good publicity. On the other hand, how's that different from hardware branded by famous people playing sports (electronic or physical)? Both add no objective value to the device itself. It's just vanity, most people will not like it - but will talk about it which is exactly what marketing wants -, some may like it and will be more likely to buy it just because it seems like a niche product.
Honestly people: Don't like it and for some snooty reason you oppose the whole idea? Talking about it only encourages corporate marketing to push the idea further and with more emphasis.
Lol, "anti-NFT fad" - more like a broad range of people seeing right through an environmentally damaging system that is literally only useless for facilitating scams, gambling for the wealthy, and money laundering.

Also, what you're bringing up here is a false equivalency: while neither add "objective value" to a motherboard (please tell me how value can be "objective", i.e. not relative to any aspect of human society, btw), one adds to a system that is causing massive environmental damage, while the other pays some royalties to some niche celebrity and uses some extra paint. The drawbacks are not comparable, in other words.


As for this: while this seems exceedingly dumb and poorly thought through - which is par for the course for NFT projects, so hardly a surprise - have they even considered the effects of letting users submit per-pixel color value and then averaging them? If you mix a bunch of different colors, what do you get? Brown. Always brown. Nothing but brown. All shades of brown. So, either ASrock is being misleading about their "averaging" mechanism, or they have just created a wildly overcomplciated system for crowdsourcing a splotchy brown motherboard design. Wonderful. Knowing the current RGB aesthetic, some of that brown will be tinged in magenta, cyan, teal, or some other non-brown tone, but as they can't control which parts are which across submissions, the end result will be ... brown.

Are ASrock trying to make the most random camo pattern ever generated?
Posted on Reply
#23
ThrashZone
Hi,
Never used or bought a asrock board
The edition seems pretty childish but then again maybe that's the crowd their targeting

I really don't understand this image or "with users being called to paint it (the canvas is subdivided into 4,309 pixels) at their leisure"
Pixel by pixel seems pretty stupid way to color personally

Posted on Reply
#24
TheUn4seen
robot zombieWhen the majority of people in a market seem to hate it, I don't think it helps them. For people who hate NFTs, it's not about taste but ethical issues and general mistrust for NFT tech, because of its notoriety for hosting a variety of scams (or being used to make fraudulent NFTs AT SCALE - nearly every musical artist has been grabbed already,) spending energy for essentially another thing for people with money to speculate on, etc. People hate what is being done with NFTs. They see companies they would otherwise buy from and decide not to buy it, and encourage others to do the same, and it becomes a 'cool' thing to do, because it turns out many people aren't interested in these tack-ons. Lets not strawman that entire group of people as people with high noses, as though there haven't been a massive litany of issues since NFTs were first rolled out.

The thing is... it won't seem like a niche product. It just IS a niche product in this market. People will avoid it just to prove a point. That's not the look you want. I know people say all attention is good attention, but the issues with NFTs kind of hit people on a deeper ideological level. It's like 'masks off' for some people. "Oh, you guys are actually everything I hate? Cool, buying from another company in this crowded, hyper-competitive market space, who sells a very similar product without that."

Or, it's another thing saying "PC building just isn't for me." Because not only has it become grossly not affordable, but the companies making the hardware are more interested in alienating things meant for people with more money to play with. It starts to feel like normal people are being bought out of this whole game.
ValantarFrom what I can tell you (might, likely not) win a motherboard-themed NFT, not the other way around. I see no mention of there being physical prizes.

Lol, "anti-NFT fad" - more like a broad range of people seeing right through an environmentally damaging system that is literally only useless for facilitating scams, gambling for the wealthy, and money laundering.

Also, what you're bringing up here is a false equivalency: while neither add "objective value" to a motherboard (please tell me how value can be "objective", i.e. not relative to any aspect of human society, btw), one adds to a system that is causing massive environmental damage, while the other pays some royalties to some niche celebrity and uses some extra paint. The drawbacks are not comparable, in other words.


As for this: while this seems exceedingly dumb and poorly thought through - which is par for the course for NFT projects, so hardly a surprise - have they even considered the effects of letting users submit per-pixel color value and then averaging them? If you mix a bunch of different colors, what do you get? Brown. Always brown. Nothing but brown. All shades of brown. So, either ASrock is being misleading about their "averaging" mechanism, or they have just created a wildly overcomplciated system for crowdsourcing a splotchy brown motherboard design. Wonderful. Knowing the current RGB aesthetic, some of that brown will be tinged in magenta, cyan, teal, or some other non-brown tone, but as they can't control which parts are which across submissions, the end result will be ... brown.

Are ASrock trying to make the most random camo pattern ever generated?
This shows how deeply entrenched in the tech-bubble so-called "enthusiasts" are. No, people don't get turned off from building a PC by NFTs, people in general don't care about this niche activity. Computers are a commodity bought to fulfill a certain task, usually related to work or, at most, scrolling Facebook or playing games. I can tell you from experience that association with work and problems with Microsoft Office turn people off from even using computers on an incomparably larger scale than niche NFT market shenanigans even most enthusiasts don't begin to understand.
So, a few loud enthusiasts have a crusade against NFTs and try to rile people up to destroy the thing they don't like. Normal people have another thing to spent their money on. So, NFTs are a essentially a money grab - big whoop, do I really have to tell you about the thing called jewellery your girlfriends and/or wives demand? Diamonds are essentially worthless, but through efforts of De Beers and other marketing companies are now a thing you work your ass off to get a favor from a female. That's how economy works, if I got a cent every time I read that "microtransactions will destroy game industry, cause thermonuclear war and impregnate your sisters", I would have a big box of cents. And yet, most of those people now run around with colorful skins they despise so much.
You know what? You guys talked me into it. It seems like an easy way of separating fools from their money so I'm going to look into that.
Posted on Reply
#25
ThrashZone
TheUn4seenThis shows how deeply entrenched in the tech-bubble so-called "enthusiasts" are.
Hi,
Enthusiasts wouldn't be anywhere near this pos 250.us board series but as asrock notes it will worth more by third party sellers lol :laugh:

This is bottom of the barrel crap series at best.
Posted on Reply
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