Leaderboard

I had some time to play with the threadripper platform and tried a PBO with scalar 2x and -10 on all 96 cores, went from 119k to over 153k 😄 But the second try it shutdown 🤣 Still have the 1200w PSU 1U inside that the case came with so i think this is the weak link..i need to mode the case, cut it so i can add Bquiet 1200w ATX PSU titanium but dont have the time for the work right now

Final (ish) analysis of the whole can't boot / memory problems: Motherboards: Asus X870E Crosshair Hero (still waiting for the Dark variant to be sent out) HP Omen 35L Prebuilt B850 tower (8400F, 5060, single Rage 6000 DDR5 stick, 512GB NVME) Asrock Phantom B850i Asrock B850M-C CPUs: 8400f 7500X3D 9800X3D Memory: Kingston Rage (Rage) DDR5 6000 1x16GB SR Teamgroup (TG) 8200 2x24GB Kingbank (KB) 8400 2x24GB Corsair Vengeance (CV) 9200 2x24GB --------------------------------------------------------------------- Rage memory boots and runs in every motherboard with every CPU TG, and CV boots and runs with every MB and CPU except the 7500X3D KB boots and runs in Hero and HP except with 7500X3D . Total no go in both AsRock boards. This is a two fold with conflation: KB known issue with Asrock boards so they're a no go atm....it was conflating an issue with the 7500X3D. 7500X3D has a dud IMC and can't handle 24GB sticks in single or double config. None of the 2x24GB sticks will post on Asrock boards in single or double sticks with the 7500X3D. They will post on HP and Hero but trying to get to desktop they keep getting BSODs and exception errors on the login screens over and over tested from 4800-6000 it doesn't matter. BSOD city on the MBs it can actually boot. It has no problem with a single stick of SR 16GB Rage memory. All MBs are functional. It was the KB issue and 7500X3D IMC being faulty causing all the problems. Returning the B850i Phantom (popping it in the mail tomorrow) and send the 7500X3D to AMD for an RMA or see if MC would allow a replacement but it will work itself out one way or the other. I plan on running the SFF with my 9800X3D now anyhow and put the 9850X3D delidded into the new Hero Dark when it arrives. In a "we're blessed" moment, Imagine not having a decent amount of hardware to swap and test to log data and diagnose problems all because of a flaky/dud IMC on the CPU and hidden but known compatibility issue with KB sticks with some AsRock MBs.....crazy. ------------------------------------------------- Smart play when you want a third decently powerful GPU in play since you run three rigs usually at all times. Odds of scoring a secondary 5090, unlike the 4090 days, for a somewhat sane price (less than $3k) have long flown the coop. $1100 is super close to MSRP. Did you snag a WF OC SFF or normal? Unlike some of the OCN forum members who continue to pick up new 5090s, that's too rich for me. I'm going to ride this Vanguard into the ground as my main rig gem. This. I'm more than content with my Vanguard since it is a 1.125v sample right out of the box, but the 5080 tops out at 1.040 so that is going to be major fun OCing the 5080 for funsies to see where it goes. Just hoping Jensen doesn't shoot us the bird right back and find a way to lock it out in a future driver revision. I can just imagine Jensen screaming, "THE MORE YOU SPEND THE MORE YOU BUY MOTHER%$*$)($S!!!" and smashing his keyboard against a bunch of GPU displays...... 🤣 ---------------------------------------------- Jensen right now watching everyone celebrating having control over our own hardware to push the voltage where we want:

Sold to our beloved friend @Reciever

Speaking of PSUs, the Super Flower Combat 1000W SFX unit was delivered. I have never owned or even seen an SFX PSU except in pictures and videos. It is incredibly small, but unbelievably heavy. It seems like it weighs as much as an ATX PSU. Pictures and videos are usually lacking where perspective is concerned. But, yeah... it's soooo little. It is going to make building a SFF much easier.

Well priced too. I think I'll pick one up for a proper "just in case" scenario. I went back to running the Matrix vBIOS because it keeps my game clocks steady over 3200 everywhere. Fallout 76 is no problem. I can even run stock settings, but WoW will trip the WVP2 without adjustments with the 800w bios. On the flip side, my hot spot differential is ~12c with the stock factory application so I'm good atm on that front. No native 12vhpwr on PSU? 🤣 Nice on the warranty just in case. How did the A-die fare in the 5080 variant for comparison? Would it boot at 1050mv VSOC? Let us know how stability testing goes... let's see how this 9955X3D in the 5090 variant compares to the returned 5080... How are the noise levels between the two?

Got warranty activated today including the start date being adjusted to my purchase date so its a full three years. Swapped in A-die. It did not want to boot at 3000/3000/2000 with 1050mv VSOC. 1200mv worked but is probably too much. XMP 6000 C36 equivalent timings (and tREFI 16k) at 1200mv VDD/VDDQ/VDDIO but need to stability test.

The same DEV that created the original Melonvolt just released a separate tool for manually setting/overclocking the XBar without touching MSVDD at all! Just tested on my 5070 Ti and works flawlessly. Just set the offset, hit apply and bam. Amazing work. https://www.overclock.net/posts/29605861/ I guess both Devs are now sorta working together and will implement this Xbar offset tool into the Melonvolt tool so we don't have to use separate tools. Things are happening so fast lately with RTX 50 series. Getting wild. Jensen is having a bad week! Edit: Tool works great because you can add Xbar without needing to waste power or push voltage to get it to scale up. Saves if you're power limited and saves on wasted heat. Real world gaming in Battlefield 6 was about 2% on my 5070 test. But I'll take it. Added 500Mhz to my Xbar. In total about 13% over a stock card. Not bad at all..

HOLY CRAP! here i was, just about to start work in the office when i stumbled upon this, bam 45 min gone LOL. omg cant wait to check this out once i get home.... what a total middle finger to Nvidia, friggin hilarious! show them those melons, guys! 😄

This is awesome. I tested it on both of my 5080 GPUs and it definitely works. I will test it on the 5090 and see if it will allow me to remove the EVC2 mod without losing anything. I hope that Jensen is not happy. He doesn't deserve to have a happy life.

Awesome. Thank you. I have always removed Defender garbage from Windoze so I don't have to worry about Micro$lop's ever-growing database of false positive file flags or bogus blacklists nonsense.

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29605610/ Defender throws up false virus readings. So had to disable to get it. 1150mV limits by default. 1250mv with XOC button. XBar scales with MSVDD. By default Nvidia made it so you can’t scale MSVDD beyond NVVDD default baked in. But now that we can raise NVVDD, you can push MSVDD higher and therefore XBar.

Now with Melon Volt 0.2 you can punch the voltage on that 5080, on both the NVVDD and MSVDD. No longer voltage limited on 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, or 5090s on default vBIOS. Now just power limits until shunt that is. Overclock.net forum going wild with new version that lets us unleash the cards! Jensen is not going to be happy about this lol.

I have had people (some not even noobs) argue with me and say things like "no, that's not the problem because my RAM is only reaching 65-70°C" and they often don't believe me that anything above about 40-45°C is "too hot" and will cause errors.

Yep, RAM is very temperature sensitive. The upstairs A/C in my house broke recently and we had to get it repaired. While I personally didn't mind the 10-15°F higher ambient temperatures, that destabilized the memory overclock on my desktop. At first, I thought something was horrifically wrong as the machine would just keep freezing and BSODing after over a year and a half of working great. Nope, it was just the higher ambient temps causing RAM instability. Whew. I wanted my 2.5% overclock though! Grr... performance being left on the table I couldn't access.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jXNs3Hrgpg Given the price mark up on Broadwell GPUs, you are going to see a lot more 4090s and 5090s get memory upgrades.

you win some, you lose some: GPU cable keeping steady, still at +/-10% max. current imbalance, roughly equating to 1-1.3A, very happy with that. but now suddenly my machine kept crashing during RE9 Requiem gameplay, sudden black screen followed by a reboot, not BSOD, no warning, no freezing, nothing, just instant reboot. had a hunch so i ran TM5 and voila: the RAM started getting unstable! currently retuning the timings while keeping the speed at 7600. not sure if this is silicon degradation or rather the current heatwave. ambient temps are reaching 28-30C in my little gaming corner in the living room, thus pushing the RAM to the upper 50s during gameplay (remember: this is with RGB switched off and a 140mm fan pointing directly towards them). in any case, back to RAM tuning ugh....altho not much in the mood, crazily enjoying my gaming phase 😄 ill just do it on the side, one timing a day i guess.... 😛 at least i found the culprit quickly and can go back to stable gaming without reboots 🙂

Hey @Mr. Fox I would buy your parts, but I actually bought my 9950X3D2 and Dark Hero and Ram with the BestBuy 0% store Credit Card. So, if I were to return it all, it just goes back to the card. I used the card because I was not sure if I was going to even like or keep the setup. So it was a way for me to give it a good run in and test it daily. It seems pretty solid, other than being a weaker sample. And, I still might return it all. If I do, I’ll maybe be going for a 270K Plus. But I have really Moved away from overclocking and XOC. I just play games when I have time. I’m so busy with buying junk cars these days. I pretty much just keep it simple man! Congrats on the binned 270K plus purchase! That is a very nice chip! This is a picture of my yard full of cars from a days work. 😂

Id love to splurge on this. Great deal! But, I have to be smart. I don’t have a job anymore, so I’m completely self sufficient these days since May 2026. Things are going well, but I feel like bad luck can happen at any moment. So I have to be smart.

I made @tps3443 a crazy low offer on the 9950X3D2, X870E Apex, IceMan Direct Die block, G.SKILL 6000 CL26 RAM and Supercool Direct Touch RAM cooler. That CPU is a WHOLE lot better than the one he has. So is the motherboard and RAM for that matter. If he doesn't want it, if anyone here is interested I will let it go for the same utterly insane low price as a complete package. Ready to use, turnkey. Speaking of 6000 CL26, this is the best that the garbage V-Color dual rank trash kit is capable of doing. I spent about 5 hours yesterday with it installed in the SFF build and it just doesn't have much to offer. As the low clock speeds it is capable of it performs actually quite well, it just can't hit any clock speeds that are worth a darn. It is not even bootable at 6400 in 1:1... debug code 00 on every attempt. Great example why one should never judge a book by its cover. With EXPO specs like this kit has one would think it is a fantastic memory kit, but it really sucks unless you run it close to stock. As sucky as it is, it will be good enough for the SFF build since it is not going to get put through the benching meat grinder. It will have a mundane existence that is limited to the mediocrity of web browsing and 3D gaming.

The 5090 is a beast compared to the second and the (3rd) last.

Wow, by far the easiest delid I have ever done using the Thermal Grizzly Delid Die Mate and the Die Mate heater. Removing the residual solder from the die after delid was also much easier because there was less of it. Most of it stayed on the IHS and hardly any left on the CPU die. And, as always massive thermal benefit to bare die. The temps are fantastic. Cooler temps = less voltage and power, higher clocks... profit by every measurement. I am pretty sure I could use the heater to delid a Ryzen CPU with 75% less time and effort if I were to use dental floss to cut the glued spots.

Yeah MSI really came through as I was not sure if I would get any kind of extended warranty given that it was an open box model. Not that there was a choice because they discontinued the config with 9955HX3D and 5090 instead of just modifying it to have 2x16GB RAM. Ended up having to dial it back to C38 and tREFI 11677. I only ever used the stock 2x16GB Hynix in the 5080 variant. These have factory seals and I was hesitant on keeping that 5080 due to price so I never opened it up. The 5080 variant however definitely could do 3000:3000:2000 with 1000mv VSOC stable. The OEM memory had locked PMIC so 1100mv VDD/VDDQ pretty much. Fan noise was essentially the same, very good. Its one of the few that can have good performance, good noise and just warm palm rests. Not X170 levels of palm rest temps which could stay at ambient temp but the chassis is simply too thin to ever really be that good. This has much better fans than the old 2024 7945HX3D. Maybe it is better with heat dissipation. They use PTM7958SP from the factory so if the old model was using a paste this might be part of the difference too.

I have this Jonsbo Z20 on the shelf, but I'm going to go with the Mechanic Master C26 for the SFF portable 2026 project. Z20 = ~20.1lL vs the C26 = 13.2l. Both support mATX.The C26 doesn't support an AIO but I was going to go with the Thermalright AXP-120-X67 I have brand new on my shelf anyhow or a max height ~130mm air cooler if needed. C26 supports up to ~310mm length GPU so the GB WF OC SFF 5080 should fit as it is exactly the length of the FE edition (304mm) and ~2.5 slots wide (closer to 2 than 2.5). Specs: MC 7500X3D + Asrock B850M Combo deal MC Open box GB 5080 SFF Corsair SF1000 Samsung 990 Pro 2TB KB 2x24GB 8400 sticks Thermalright AXP-120-X67 Noctua NF-A9 x4 Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 PWM Sx2-PP Mechanic Master C26 Then it comes down to the C26 or Z20 The downsize from 20.2L to 13.1L is pretty massive..... C26 weighs 6.6lbs (3kg) vs the Z20 11lbs (5.5kg)....again in the land of portability pretty massive The entire buildout in the C26 will weigh right around the Alienware 18 + PSU or a hair less actually and more importantly open up carrying case room for wireless KB/M and a 18-23" portable display and be much quieter under load vs any gaming laptop out there along with being able to tune every component with no restrictions. This type of build allows a 5090FE to slot right in but with a 1080p or 1440p 18-23" portable display that is overkill. The idea is lock in 120-165hz solid fps on the go\ as quiet as possible. This Windforce sff 5080 is much quieter under load than my Vanguard 5090. I'll probably end up with a Noctua NF-A12 on whatever cooler ends up end game on the CPU. I don't think a tuned 7500X3D will hold back a 5080 especially at 1440p, but if I do find it is a bottleneck, I will shift my 9800X3D into it and then sort out my desktop core system again. C26: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's that positivity!! 🤣 Good set of baseline data though to see how it fares over the coming months/year. Are you going to routinely test the connection with a firm push check from time to time or leave it completely alone and see how the integrity potentially gives up the ghost? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Curious to see your results with the A die swapped in and hopefully the warranty extension can be applied to really bring it home. There is always the chance of a poor IMC even on a laptop unit so fingers crossed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember to pre-order your ROG 20th edition bundle to get the 20th edition 5090 Astral since it isn't being offered stand alone for only $5499.99...... "Only" $10,349.96 or $11k+ after tax.... https://eshop.asus.com/us/90yv0nf3-mvaa00-rog-astral-rtx5090-p32g-edition-20.html Don't forget you still need a CPU, memory and storage too.... might as push for a $15k build at this point....

BlackwellHotspot_v1.2.dll.txt Use this new version of the .dll I've added Hotspot Delta which is the delta between the coldest and hottest sensor. So now you'll get not only the hottest hotspot, but the delta between the 6 sensors. Edit: Make sure to download it as all files, and save it as BlackwellHotspot.dll

I'm a quiet enthusiast for modular, old, laptops, and I have a soft spot for old HP Elitebooks / ZBooks. I know enough about computers to be fairly confident (read dangerous) mucking about the internals. I have an HP Elitebook 8770w that I'm thinking about sticking a new GPU in, and I'm on the hunt for a Zbook [15/17] G4 spec'd out. I have an old, what would've been top of the line Elitebook 8530w that I refuse to let die. One of the things that bothers me the most is the move away from repairable laptops to thin clients that break if you look at them sideways. It's not a real laptop if you can't beat a man to death with it and have it still boot, or something. Anyway, I hope to find help here in my journey keeping the machines I love so dearly alive.

Sweet! Just tested it and it works perfectly. Thanks for alerting us. Jensen stopped caring about what we want and need, so he needs to also stop caring about what we do if he has not already.

Yup, works like a champ on my 5090, too. I'll do some testing and if it does as good or better I will remove the EVC2 mod and just use this instead. Then I won't have to care about the WireView Pro I2C conflicts because there will no longer be one without the EVC2. The MSVDD did goose my crossbar clock a bit on all three GPUs. I think this could end up being the world's most loved utility. I haven't even used it for an hour yet and I love it. It gives us all what we deserved to get from NVIDIA, but they're just too scummy to give us everything they owed us for buying their absurdly overpriced gimped GPU crap.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/161882960 Good enough for #13 Bartlett Lake is the CPU that could have been. This chip with 8400-8800MTs would have been elite.

xx60 class card above $800. Hmmmm. Nope. No thanks. Hell freze first. Madness is the correct word for this. GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB pricing hits $800+ in the US as memory crisis takes hold NVIDIA raises RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell price to $16,000, now 87% above original MSRP

That was my fear with that board, great looking board and features, 2 DIMMs, but the Gigabyte UEFI has been rumored to be trash, especially for D2D tuning. This is why APEX is such king this gen, despite slightly lower memory tuning compared to OCF. If I can't push D2D, or get a reliable stable setup, being able to push slightly higher on memory OC is worthless to me.

I am returning the Gigabyte Z890 AORUS Elite Duo X. It arrived today after a 5-day slow ride from Amazon in Baltimore and I have spent about 8 or 9 hours fighting it. Super nice motherboard, but something is bugged with the hardware or the firmware. When I first installed it, could not get it to POST normally with two RAM sticks. It would POST, restart and then hang with the DRAM debug LED illuminated. So, I swapped in another memory kit. Same thing. Cleared CMOS several times and nothing. I then got it to boot with one RAM stick, but Windows would freeze while loading. I tried to reflash the BIOS using the EZ-Flash button after renaming the BIOS file GIGABYTE.bin but the button would not do anything. Totally unresponsive. I finally got into the BIOS and the file was seen as "invalid ROM" by the BIOS. I moved the memory stick to the other slot and tried again, then it worked and I flashed the BIOS. After that it booted with both RAM sticks. Both memory kits booted fine. I turned it off, unplugged it, then plugged it in again. This time the EZ-Flash button worked and it seemed all good. Easily hit 8800 stable. I thought "OK, that was weird, but everything is fine now." NOT! I began working on tuning the CPU, but any change made to the D2D clock ratio other than leaving it set to "Auto" it would only boot to BIOS Safe Mode with the message that the BIOS settings were unstable. Another issue I encountered, even though it is a 2-DIMM board, the memory slots are spaced several millimeters further apart than the Apex and the Supercool direct touch RAM block would not work with it. I considered getting an ASROCK Taichi OCF, but don't really like the brand or how it looks. (I have hated all three ASROCK mobos I have owned in the past.) Ordered another Z890 Apex for $25 less than the OCF. It was $100 more than the Duo X, but I don't need any more drama. It will be worth the extra to keep my sanity. No more likely to drip on the GPU than the CPU block. I've never had a memory water block that leaked before. This story made the thought of getting the Taichi OCF an even more unattractive option. That, plus the fact that I have never actually cared for any ASROCK motherboard previously, including a Z370 Taichi and X870E Taichi.

OK... The decapitation was painless and the thermal improvement was even greater than my other 270K Plus (which was about 15°C). Using the same BIOS settings, more than 20°C cooler in Cinebench R23 versus stock solder and IHS. The IPC uplift with 270K Plus over 14th Gen Intel and AMD's finest is pretty insane. (Captured in the CPU-Z benchmark.)

The pleasure is mutual, brother. I am super excited for you and I can hardly wait for you to get the stuff in your hands. Having everything under water is going to be a real game-changer. I think my next purchase may need to be a block for the 5080 Prime if I can find one that isn't absurdly overpriced. I do not like anything being air cooled if I can avoid it and GPUs put off a ton of heat into a chassis.

It never ceases to amaze me how much better temperatures are bare die.

So Asus is sending me an Asus X870E Crosshair Dark Hero all shiny new to evaluate and add to my collection which is nice. I'm going to hold off on putting the 9850X3D delidded combo in the current MB in LM form and do it all up with the revamped edition. Glad I found out before I tore down my current system to install it. Still might pop it in but with just paste for now because that's quick and easy to collect some baseline data. Wonder if I can get sent one of their newer AIOs that interface directly to the MB connectors? 🤪 My original Crosshair Hero is solid but the LCD is flickering a little (common problem) so I could RMA it for a new one or at least a repaired one to then sell off with the 9800X3D. I could also just switch the wifey to AM5 and sell off the 14900KS SP109, much needed to be retired Asus Strix-A Z690 (loose USB ports in the rear) and B-die 2x16 G.Skill 4000 sticks. Does anyone in this thread still run a 13900k/14900k besides @Talon and I? -------------------------------------------------------- I saw that over there, congrats brother! Definitely looking forward to the lid and delid results! It's a top notch sample and best way, just like @Talon, to get the most out of it. I'm working on it, lol. I think I want my ram water cooled equally as much as the CPU at this point. Even with a fan, temps are an issue 8000+. I suspect they could even provide a little bit of help on the low end too. Still being able to game at 5.8 is damn nice and that is with just auto scaling and no fine tuning. Power and thermal reductions must be nice too. With credit flexibility, why not return it all and give a 270k a whirl to compare and contrast? Worse case, you return it and pick up another AM5. 270k would definitely be cheaper. At the very least, return the 9950X3D2 and try another one. Sorry the job situation hasn't resolved itself yet but at least you have a good side job that seems to be paying dividends atm. Man, that's a lot of cars lol. What do you do with them exactly?

SP97 with just Noctua AIO. Was around 300w and 70c for a single run. Crazy good silicon.

If I had not already purchased the 9950X3D2 I might have considered it, but 3x retail is too much even if it is an amazing silicon sample. It will be obsolete too soon to make it a smart buy. Kind of nutty when you think about it. No response from him yet. Crickets. I'm surprised that I didn't hear from him. I offered all of what I mentioned for $1600. You could not even buy the mobo and memory for that, not to mention all of the extras it would be like getting for free. Maybe he did not see my text message. Yeah, there is not much difference in anything except memory benchmarks to be brutally honest about it. A little bit, for sure. Not a lot. And, a little bit doesn't mean very much when it comes to gaming, and it won't mean the difference between winning or losing. A little bit really matters when you've barely got enough to make things work.

So, I used the Thermal Grizzly Intel socket 1851 Delid Die Mate heater that I used to delid my 270K Plus to delid my 9950X3D2. It worked flawlessly and effortlessly. It was more work threading dental floss behind the IHS "legs" to cut through the rubber glue pads than it was to delid. As soon as the heater hit 165°C and flashed ready I simply lifted the CPU off the IHS as if it were never attached. As an added bonus, most of the factory solder stays on the IHS so cleaning up the dies after delid is way lots easier. (Same was true for the 270K Plus. Very little solder left to clean off the dies.) I am going to do all delids this way from now on. Much better than working up a case of carpal tunnel moving the AM5 IHS back and forth 100 times until it falls off. Major thermal improvement (about 15-18°C) in Cinebench, exactly as expected.

OK, I have the EVC 2.0 working again. Between the python scripts and helpful suggestions @Day/drifter provided and using AI/search I am back in business on Windoze 10 and Winduhz 11. In case it saves anyone else the heartache, the instructions are posted below. Since it fixed the software not detecting the device in both OSes, it seems to be the remedy. I think the WireView Pro 2 installation and firmware updates to it may have been what triggered the malfunction because it is also an I2C programmer. Ensure the device is running the latest firmware (0009 or later), as older versions like L4 may require specific driver configurations. The WinUSB driver is not installed correctly. To resolve this, manually configure the Windows registry: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\048357400200. Set the osvc value to 01 50. Create a new DWORD named NewInterfaceUsage. Do not change the values. Create a new BINARY named SkipContainerIDQuery with value 01 00. Uninstall the device in Device Manager, but do not scan for hardware changes. Unplug the EVC 2.0 USB cable, and plug it back in. Launch the EVC2 Software in Admin Mode. EVC 2.0 Fix.zip

Hello. I'm new to this group, but I am not new to computers.

I will soon. Too many projects at once. Spent the entire weekend doing computer stuff and still not done. Thoroughly exhausted. Built the A3 mini Installed the 9950X3D2 for testing... seems kind of meh, but haven't given it enough attention. It does need less core voltage than my other CPUs, but I didn't realize I would be losing 200 MHz on the AMD fused max boost on PBO. Completely gutted the O11 XL EVO for cleaning, flushed all of the parts, disassembled the disto block and cleaned the inside manually to remove all of the white chalky residue on the acrylic from something, (no idea what,) and now running a batch of PrimoChill System Reboot. (So another system flush and refill will be needed in 24-48 hours.) I redid the loop and removed the distribution manifold, forcing everything to flow in series rather than parallel. My flow rate is now 310-315 L/H (up from ~215-225 L/H). The EVC 2.0 is no longer being detected by the EVC software for some reason, so now I have to figure that out. Supercool memory block should be arriving tomorrow for the CUDIMMs in the Z890 Apex. (I already have Supercool memory cooling on the G.SKILL 8400 DIMMs but I don't what to have to swap things around, so I ordered the new kit so I could leave the other kit as-is.) So, I will be doing that next. Everything is a mess. I'll have to clear a spot in my office for work tomorrow and finish cleaning up and putting things away.

Here are the photos. Everything is working well. If the 9950X3D2 is a keeper I will move the 4585PX from the Apex to this system and keep the 9950X as a backup/spare CPU. Or, I may just leave it with the 9950X, put the crappy VColor 6000 C26 dual rank kit on this board and put the Kingbank 8400 kit back into my surplus stash along with the 9950X. Everything was tight, but nothing had to be forced or modified to fit. I even found a spot for the remote debug LED, power/reset panel. (I love that feature and it was a deciding factor in purchasing it. I do not like motherboard that are missing debug LED, power and reset buttons.) When I say "tight" there is about 3-5mm of clearance between the PSU AC power connector and the front AIO fan above it. Lian Li/Dan clearly put a lot of effort into designing something where things that are supposed to fit actually do. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I could still fit a 5080 or 5090 in place of the 3070 FTW3 if I needed to. I remembered that I had a couple of old Scythe low profile 120mm fans, so I managed to fit one of them in the floor at the rear to help cool the dual NVMe PCIe card I have in the bottom 4X slout under the GPU.

unfortunately i cant use native cables, still rocking 2x8pin on the PSU side 😄 but this sounds like a nifty lil feature!

ok so i figured since im having so much fun with RE Requiem and it draws an insane amount of wattage ill test my current GPU cable connection thoroughly and provide you the summary for comparison / reference sake. so total of 5 gaming sessions recorded with HWInfo64, threw out all data points below 95% gpu core load and anything below 600W for both total gpu power, as well as 12VHPWR only. that left me with approx. 7.5h of data with a monitoring frequency of 1s (27,215 data points total). the game was maxed out with RT and PT at 4K, no FG and DLSS set to Quality. as mentioned before im rocking the matrix vbios as a daily driver with a 24/7 stable OC of 34Gbps vRAM and +130 on the core, that gives me gaming clocks in the range of approx. 3060 Mhz +/- 30. ambient temps are currently quite high, were talking about 27-28C in my little "dad corner" 😄 gpu core is in the range of 68-73C under load, vRAM hotspot a tad higher at 70-76C and GPU hotspot approx. 85C on avg. with short spikes up to 93-94C (top 10% are in the range of 88-90C). FPS avg 102.9 1%% low 72.4 0.1% low 67.8 Total GPU Power avg 703W 10% high 761W 1% high 775W MAX 799W 12VHPWR Power avg 688W 10% high 744W 1% high 753W MAX 758W (interesting to see that as 12VHPWR wattage approaches the vbios limit at 800W, the gap to the total gpu power widens, thus the PCIe slot starts to draw more and more power, on avg. only 15W but the max spike is at 41W). Max Delta Current across 6 pins avg 1.06 A 10% high 1.99 A 1 % high 2.57 A MAX 3.3 A (stock setting for alarm in WVPII software is 4A) Max Delta Current across 6 pins (%) avg +11% 10% high +22% 1% high +29% MAX +35% (stock setting for alarm in WVPII software is +40%) this is how it should be, with even the absolute max individual data points still below the alarm threshold (which only comes into play if you get repeated, sequential limit breaches in a row, so a single data point spike aint enough to trigger it). this will provide a nice baseline once this cable inevitably gives out on me an ill need to test a fresh install / cable to compare 😄

Will do. Will test more later tonight or in the morning. Thanks for the help. I tried it on my 5080 and it is not working even after enabling the DLL. The hardware ID should be G1B3 = 2C02h (forgot to add the h) Maybe there is something different needed in the DLL for 5080. Correction: also working on the 5080. I forgot to add the "h" after 2C02 for the HWID.

Given my amazing results with liquid metal on the CPU in my other systems, I decided to go ahead and repaste my Alienware 17 R1 with liquid metal. Man, it runs even better than it did when new! As predicted, it significantly increased my thermal headroom, which increased my indefinite sustained power envelope from 55w to greater than 75w. I haven't tried pushing it yet, so I don't know the actual limit yet, but this is exciting. Having the Chichen upgraded heatsinks for this laptop also helps a lot. Perhaps I can beat my previous winter benchmarks at 4.1 GHz all core and do that during the summer now, plus more. It's crazy that a 13 year old laptop is still useful for a lot of things even today. Backstory: since my memory requirements have increased due to my development workflow, I needed more RAM but didn't want to buy any, so I opted to instead reuse old hardware, and thus bring my Alien back into daily service. I'm offloading lighter tasks to it that I know it can handle, as ultimately I needed to unload web browsing from my desktop onto my Alien instead, freeing up 12+ GB of RAM for making builds of the games I develop (yeah I have lots of tabs open). Easy reuse of the 32 GB of RAM in my Alien. I think it enjoys being out of retirement. I missed it too.

Morning project done, did this with ChatGPT in a couple of hours. Remove the .txt from the hotspot.dll @Mr. Fox @Papusan @electrosoft BlackwellHotspot.dll.txtBlackwellHotspot_MSI_Afterburner_Guide_v3_1.pdf

Good news, because HWMonitor sucks. Another happy degradation-free experience with 13th and 14th Gen Intel.

so guys, seems like HWInfo is already on it with Blackwell hotspot readouts:

I want it in GPU-Z. This is me from one of the very best days I have had the last two months. Today going out and eat (outside my preferred place). I don't know if I will be the same as before. It will take time. Loads of time before I will/start feel well with myself. I feel broken🙁 They say it takes at least a year before you can feel more confident. The first 3 months after the stroke is critical. After one year you can start feel safer and try come back to yourself. The progress goes slow but steady forwards. Thanks for asking my good friend🙂