Ha yes a multi milion dollar business (that is what his youtube channel is) saying the chips are legitimate doesn't have any skin in the game. It's not like if people buy these and it turns out they are fake they won't get any repercussions and people will lose their trust in what they claim ... Ho wait.
You have a risk inherent to buying used that is always there. He vouching that the chips are real is a big deal considering the prices these were going for .
That's completely retarded. Whoever does that deserves to lose their data and job. There is a reason businesses get stuff new . Support contracts . Warranties. On site support.If you can't afford the support and warranties as a business you can't afford the product .
First of all, it's not the question of whether the processor was fake or not - which I've never questioned. As Linus himself would've put it - it's not easy to counterfeit an HEDT chip like this, and he discussed the possible source of the chips (low volume production on almost idle 14nm fabs made to satisy demand in Asia, chips with cosmetic damage that would not otherwise fly being sold at a discount to liquidators and then resold). The question is whether you can trust a chip like that and what kind of post-sales support you can expect. At the end of the day it's still a company located in Shenzhen, China, and you are still buying something that has scratches and dings on it, which might or might not impact it (probably not). For some people that's worth the discount. For others (like me) it's not.
In terms of reputation loss to LTT if someone watched the video and bought a chip, and the chip dies in 6 months, and the seller screws that person over, how much damage would it do to Linus' reputation or his bottom line? It is just a heavily discounted scratch and ding chip sourced from China, who would blame him for it? He's not like he made a non-factual statement in the video. At the time of the day you are still taking a risk with the chip, and if it fails, well, tough shits. In this case whatever Linus says about it being real means nothing, and considering that he can do the story and not have any real long term obligation about the scratched chips that he bought, he doesn't have any skin in the game.
Eh, if you think that's a completely retarded scenario, there are some serious war stories on the STH forums of people trying to do dumb things to save a dollar or save a few hours of work. I can tell you a few war stories at my past employment of people trying to cheap out on server components like RAM or network components like SFPs/DAC cables, and getting massively bitten in the ass because of that (guess who's job it was to clean up after their messes, which might or might not happen while they are still here?) Not everyone on the management side of IT (or the CFOs) believe fully in the idea of support contracts or periodic hardware replacement.