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Dont know if its everyone, but forum is running slow for me. I pinged Hiew to take a look when he gets up so apologies until then.

Making a rare appearance, good timing I guess. Not to be a nihilist about it, as nihilism is lame and pure evil, but part of the reason I've partially stepped out of the technology realm is because of how politicized it's become over the past few years. Won't get into it here, but the whole reason I got into all of this stuff was mostly as an escape from the world. Physical hardware had almost nothing to do with any societal/political issues besides maybe the pricing of hardware. Not only have availability and innovation fallen off, I can't even discuss my joy and appreciation for technology without it spiraling into a political discussion. Maybe it's just me being at university and being surrounded by more people that have a very active political life than the average joe, but it just sucks. I can't fully describe it, but I have lost most confidence in sharing this hobby of technology and computer hardware I have with others ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The future will be brighter, but I'm impatient and want the future to be now, just as all of you guys probably want too. Hopefully you all will still be here to celebrate when things get better 🙂

Looks like my promotion is finally in the works. I am getting reports of multiple departments fighting to get me in their camp. Its a nice complement, but Im still treating it as non-existent until I get an offer letter. Due to my "detailed" approach, which is really just a really nice way of saying I demand details and ruffle quite a bit of feathers in the process. It has been deemed necessary for me to become an Engineer for Proof of Concept. Basically I work with onboarded clients and make the how-to for green IT'ish people to facilitate their orders. Still wont be able to justify a 5090 though lol

so my 1 1/2 year old son figured out how to open the magnetic side panel on my corsair 9000d. next he decided to pull out one of the hard tubing causing coolant to spill everywhere. nothing was damaged thankfully, but I did learn my pump only runs like 50% most of the time even with cpu on full load, causing high temps. I fixed that and well this is what happens next lol. 4.5Ghz on all cores W7-3465X. Yeah I probably should have kept my 2 RTX 3090s instead of selling them. Turns out they would have lasted awhile longer , but my RTX Titans are fun too. Still need to do the shunt mod. i forgot if it was @electrosoft who sent me a picture of the mod. I saw you were rocking an AMD system. It's unfortunate Intel didn't release the W790 platform with a sibling for a true HEDT successor for us "normal" people. I bought the motherboard for $949 on "sale" at the time. I was lucky to find someone selling a QS CPU for less than half of the $2899 MSRP for the CPU. 128GB RDIMMs before the rampocolypse for ~$700. Overall it came out a bit more than a i9-7980XE platform did back then but this platform screams Mr. Fox especially with the X unlocked CPUs. Nothing like overclocking +1.3Ghz on water pulling over 500w of power. 😂

We've banned millions of IP's at this point the bot nets are elusive buggers. Were looking at moving the forum to another server, Hiew may finally be up to getting donations setup but Im hoping to prod him along as I'd like to take some time off from work also.

Oh hohoho look what I found! https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19351/intel-wireless-wi-fi-drivers-for-windows-10-and-windows-11.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18649/intel-wireless-bluetooth-drivers-for-windows-10-and-windows-11.html?countrylabel=Asia%20Pacific&product=86451 Windows 10 drivers for a wi-fi 7 module you say? I thought wi-fi 7 required windows 11 (wink wink). I finally got the built in wi-fi module working in windows 10 on my Asus Maximus Apex encore motherboard this way. I'd been using a USB wi-fi adapter with wireless AX since I built this machine. I'm glad I get to free up that USB port now and get faster speeds as well. Note that these wi-fi and bluetooth drivers are for intel wireless modules. If your mortherboard has an intel wi-fi 7 module, these drivers should make it work in windows 10. I also found a windows 10 driver for qualcomm since I have an alienware m18 r1 AMD advantage edition (yeah, I know, BGA turdbook, but I can't get away from laptops as I still need them), and got that wi-fi module working in windows 10 as well. If your laptop also has a qualcomm wi-fi 6e module, these drivers should get it working in windows 10: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=7vt5x I've had some adventures on the m18 and will report on those later. While it is a BGA laptop, it's good for what it is and what I use it for. I also got it for a good price and really needed a second laptop when I got it. It's an excellent linux laptop (since it has an AMD GPU), and it's excellent for my software suite (which has a performance advantage on AMD GPUs, the main reason I bought this laptop). The fact it has an AMD GPU also makes it perfect for use as a Lossless Scaling frame gen machine (hmm, this opens up possibilities like using it as a terminal for a backpackable sff desktop, hmmmm).

@Mr. Fox @Papusan I'm back to desktop after a small break of 15 years. The laptops don't cut anymore. Anyway I repurposed the RTX 4070 Super eGPU for Raptor Lake Refresh 14400f and measly 2x8GB DDR4 3200MTps, MSI bomber B760M AX211 WIFI mobo and 512GB SN3000 QLC drive as costs for DDR5 16GB 6400 has driven up to 500$ for basic ones and good ones sell for 1200$ per stick.I got them for 600$ including the case. Too many issues with eGPU on windows 11 and stopped trusting Defender to go for Kaspersky Standard AV as I started getting few indie games and apps early for review for my youtube channel. All of the desktop are in test bench as I'm sick with HFM which my sister had couple of weeks ago. Stock RM1 Cooler can't sustain 120W and 45C ambient. Tweaked few settings in TS and uploaded few unofficial DLSS 5 mod into Miles Morales (lot of artifacts indoor lights/env), NFS MW Redux (much more cleaner graphics/UI).

back from vacation gaiz! and damn... who wouldve thought that my hardware setup actually generates more returns than my actual stock portfolio?! LULZ but even at an average selling price of 6080€ (bought my Suprim at 3300€ incl. tax and shipping, so +84% markup now) theres literally zero incentive for me to sell. just goes to show that when it comes to my PC hardware hobby, the passion and fun i get out of it far outweighs any monetary benefit it might generate. since basically all our everyday expenses are pretty much on the frugal side (aside from travels), i guess u can call that my one splurgeful vice 😄 btw if anyone is looking for a game to max out the power envelope, im currently playing Resident Evil 2 Remake and it basically pegs the GPU at 700-800W, was surprised to see that! was also pleasantly surprised to see Control Resonant getting released, got it right away 🙂 games backlog is filling up very nicely with lots of awesome games im looking forward to! same way im looking forward to the AI bubble popping.... 😛

I've applied an 800W power limit to the 5080 using mvolt+ Extreme. Works great. WireView Pro 2 showed a max of 825W coursing through its veins. https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_steel_nomad_dx12/submissions/6074856 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164088570 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_speed_way/submissions/6074814 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164083593 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_port_royal/submissions/6074816 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164083791 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_time_spy/submissions/6074821 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164084556 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_time_spy_extreme/submissions/6074828 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164084873 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_sky_diver/submissions/6074861 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/164089114 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark11_-_performance/submissions/6074851 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/17000869

656W on load at 4.6Ghz 😅 now I know why the breaker trips when my wife uses the microwave in the kitchen and I'm benchmarking LOL

Thank you. I finally got it finished and set in place where I intend to use it. Very solid build and more "portable" than most desktops can be. I forgot how hot air cooled DDR5-8400 can get so I added that articulating fan to blast it is air. I am going to be selling a SFF build with legacy parts (X79 Rampage Gene, 32GB of quad channel and RX 590) on FB. It is so little and cute, and It even has an easy carry handle on the roof of the case. I think it should sell quickly for the $375 that I intend to ask for it. it does a great job with 1080P gaming with ultra or high settings on most titles, and medium settings on the most demanding titles. (As long as there is no ray tracing to turn it into a slide show.) Yes, it is definitely better. It was almost unusable before, so let's hope whatever was messed up stays fixed.

K|NGP|N coming back to the OC scene: "K-Pop Kung Fu Class" as a reason for switching studios was not on my bucket list of reasons to move to another location.... Looks like he's going with Asus..... New OC channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClS4F_eKD3PCihwI9ZvrdwQ Welcome back! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Same boat.... I thought about selling but I switched to my Power Devil 9070xt then 5080 in my main rig for a few days and watching those frames seriously drop and sitting at 100% util more often than not in WoW 4k ultra 10 sent me scurrying back to my 5090. Yeah, I could pocket $3-4k+ profit right now and then what? Sit around and bitch whine and moan about being capped out and not getting the performance I want for the next 12-18 months just to see the prices of the 6090 requiring a kidney assuming it launches by Q1 2028? I'd rather enjoy the here and now with state of the art performance for the next 15 months if not more.... Have you given your 5090 the mvolt+ treatment yet? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- That is awesome news @Reciever! Know your worth and demand no less. Sometimes you have to be proactive and other times those around you will see and acknowledge your quality work and reward you thusly. Now, just go ahead and finance that 5090..... 🤣 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Glad to see you taking the small, but meaningful, steps to right the ship and being able to drive again has to feel good. Losing self autonomy is never a good thing on any scale and driving is a big one. Just keep trying like you said to stick around and keep us up to date on the tech sector doom and gloom. 🙂 --- I am not shocked at that EVGA report. Nvidia and Jensen needed AIBs and gamers years ago but at every chance afforded to them well before the AI BS, they made sure to put the screws to AIBs and cook the books with crypto and continue to push prices as far as able while casting their illusions of MSRP and deliver less for more each and every cycle. EVGA went out on a high note with their GPUs and Motherboards and downsized to peripherals. I don't blame them one bit. --- The cable, according to TG data collected so far with the WVP2, is the primary issue regardless of MSI burning up or other makers like the PNY reported a day or two before this one. It was an Asrock PSU. In the comments: He literally recommended over and over to his friend to get a WVP2 or at least a better 3.1 compliant PSU. With the WVP2 I am pretty sure he would have immediately seen a high imbalance on a pin or two but without a WVP2, or a 3.1 PSU that reports pin monitoring or an Astral. Without any of these reporting protections, you are basically piddling blindly in the wind every time you use your 5090. Before my WVP2 and MSI sending me an Ai 1600T PSU, I purposely used the included tentacle just in case for warranty claims. Switched to the MSI PSU and its included 12vhpwr cable keeping MSI completely responsible for the warranty chain and then added a WVP2 and their warranty on top of it for extra added support. De8auer said they haven't had a single report of a WVP2 burning up yet from WVP2 to GPU connection. At this point, anyone running a 5090 without a WVP2, a pin monitoring compatible PSU or at the least using the tentacle to keep any burning issues warranty claims valid are playing with fire. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ditto, I'm holding onto my 5090 for at least another year if not more. Zero reason to sell. I'll re-evaluate the landscape next October/Nov when the 6000 series is potentially on the horizon. Hopefully the AI bubble will have popped or at least deflated a little by then. That makes sense with the 5090FE. The value proposition of it getting it for retail was its main draw by far. Price not being an issue, Astral is a sick card and removing price as a factor, I'd take an Astral over my Vanguard all day everyday on industrial aesthetics alone albeit I did find my Vanguard had the best silicon in my testing between it, the Astral and the Ventus but I would have to rerun those tests in the here and now with mvolt+. Whew, I'm glad you kept the overall better sample with the best fclk. It did seem the best on paper. Have you done any 8000+ testing yet? I agree on pressure. I was having issues with the delidded 9850X3D and the TG Heatspreader with 8000+ testing suddenly failing. One flaw I've found with the TG HS is heat expansion and cooling eventually loosens up the screws a bit. This might not be a problem with a tight pairing and a block keeping the pressure where it needs to be, but right now I'm still sorting out the Z-height issues so the pairing isn't as tight as it could or should be atm so eventually over the course of hours or days, my memory settings will fail. I dug through some older AM5 compliant heatsinks I have on the shelf and found a set of shorter by ~2.5mm non-spec standoffs I plan on swapping in to compensate to see if that helps along with shoring up proper pairing pressure to get temps to be a bit better. At the moment, I am not super pleased with the TG HS, but we'll see after this final testing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I still need to get back to the G16 for some Bios tuning and testing but my desktop has been my focus atm. Yeah, three of them showed up. Two sold for $3500-3700. One was delisted but it had scam written all over it at the time. Do a completed sales history search on 9955HX3D 5090. Purchasing from an official outlet definitely was the way to go and get that three year warranty. With the way the market is going and offerings, it will be the best overall for the next few years. We won't see a 6000 mobile refresh till 2nd or 3rd quarter or 2028 at this rate. I plan on playing both retail and forever. I've always played Paladins since launch but I also alt druids and hunters from time to time. During Vanilla, I was all about my Paladin, priest and hunter. Priest had Benediction in Vanilla and Hunter had Rhok'Delar. I was guild leader with a top raiding guild back in the day and once we had MC and BWL on farm, loots eventually trickled down since we ran DKP globally and once everyone was geared up enough I let alts tag along for runs to get some good loot too. We had a server first Hand of Ragnaros but could NOT get the second half of the binding to drop for Thunderfury! 🤣 I burned out halfway through BWL and went casual after that. WoW stopped being fun and became more a job and managing egos. I'm pretty sure I am going to main a druid this time around and alt a hunter again.

The 5090 pricing is really crazy right now for sure. I have not been tempted to sale my 5090 Astral, but my brother sure has been pestering me about selling it lol. Amazing GPU! I like it so much better than my FE, and I really liked my FE. But I think most of the likeness for the FE came from the low price and ability to actually get one fairly quickly after launch. I have decided to keep the 9950X3D2 that runs the 2,200fclk. The IMC has no issues stabilizing tuned 6400c26 with a mere 1.500v VDD, and 1.400v vddq. Using the new to me G.Skill 6000c26 sticks, and reducing VDDP voltage to 1.050v, has made its IMC feel just as strong as the other one. And now I actually got its tPHYRDL’s matching on both ram channels with both at 35, which is great! I noticed on AMD that they are sensitive to waterblock mounting pressure. And maybe this last mount last night swapping back to the 2,200fclk chip, must have gotten something perfect. I swapped between these two chips and unknown amount of times. I think I ran each one at least (3) times. This one also boosts higher in games. No PBO+ or anything like that is enabled. It’s running higher clocks on average by about 70-100Mhz. The AMD CCD0 and CCD1 in Windows is also quite good! I see my games typically use CCD0, while windows services are targeting the slower CCD1. It’s pretty amazing to see this work so well. For now I am hanging on to that 5090 Astral.

Yeah, it does. If a person had the soldering skills and DDR5 BGA template, that would be a cheap way of "making" RAM as long as they didn't need 8000+ MT/S speeds. Congratulations, brother. I am glad that your dedication to excellence, faithfulness and hard work is finally being recognized. I'm glad you are being facetious, otherwise I would be concerned.

thats the kind of stuff that reminds of the good ol' NBR days 🙂 very nice! no justifications necessary, JUST DO IT! 😄 at 6000+ bucks its a steal and totally worth it hahaha

De8auer going over data from problems detected with the WVP2.... ~9 months in production data sample window compared against WVP1 dataset Sold 5x as many WVP2 as WVP1 WVP1 reports of melting/issues ZERO reports of melting WVP2 units 98% of the cases are cable issues 2% were WVP2 replacements for various reasons up to and including a faulty connector 0% were the GPU connector itself... Noctua edition has beautiful refinements and obviously runs quieter. Noctua uses a different heatsink and PCB for full PWM control vs just DC control on the original. Original WVP2 price on TG website is $140.28 Noctua Edition is $222.18 So Noctua is ~58% more Extrapolating on Amazon, the current WVP2 is 169.99 so expect potentially to pay ~268 on Amazon when it finally arrives.

Thank you. Yeah, it does have a lot of headroom. The scores are lower but it is actually more fun due to the headroom. Here are the settings applied with mvolt+ Extreme. I still need to test with the 5090. If they can make the function survive NVIDIA driver updates this eliminates the need for hardware mods like EVC2 and shunt resistors.

My new to me rams came!! MBPC.GG is totally legit. These bad boys were $429.99 which is amazing in today’s horrible hardware era. We shall play a game called “Limbo” and I’m going to run them at default 6000c26 Expo profile with merely a 65k tREFi and start taking voltage to see just how low they can go! @electrosoft After some testing on these 6000c26 rams with their stock Expo II timings and I only changed the tREFi to 65,535 I set 1.38v VDD and 1.35v VDDQ in bios and they are SOLID! They are definitely a decent enough bin. I will add this as well, this is with my weaker IMC X3D chip, my other CPU should run them with even lower VDD! Wow! 5090’s sale for $8,000-9,000 USD now.

Yeah I just can’t see my self getting a RTX6090. I think of it like this, the RTX4090 cost $2,500+ so the RTX 5090 is at least +80% more expensive at $4,500 dollars. So we can only assume the RTX6090 at launch will be fetching $8,100+ dollars. And after it settles down probably closer to $7,000 dollars. So $7,000-$8,000 dollars. I cannot see anyway possible it would be less expensive than that. Are you going to get one? I think the gun hobby is the way! We could go buy a Barrett M82 50bmg instead! Or maybe automotive performance parts. Or even exotic unrealistic home improvements. High end GPU’s are dead forever it seems like. They’ll start building NVIDIA dealerships locally and we walk in and test drive the new RTX7090 and finance for 48-72 months with interest! 🤦‍♂️

So 100% stability tested on all three tested 9950X3D2’s. (1) 2167fclk@6000c26 SP117 (Ultra Weak IMC) (This turd already went back) Ran this one on the Dark Hero open box I had. (2) 2200fclk@6200c26 SP118 (Cores use the least power of all, ultra efficient highest clocking chip, it uses the least pwr and has some very low temps. (I actually may have just stabilized 6400c26@1:1) I noticed a discrepancy in screenshots. The auto CLDO VDDP voltage was running at 1.150v stock, my other chip with the strong IMC will automatically run this at 1.045v. So I changed it on this one, and now it’s running VT3 at 6400c26 1:1. 🤷‍♂️ (3) 2167fclk@6400c26 SP118. The chip has such an easy going IMC, it’s just hard not to love it. But the cores don’t run as high although it’s still very good. I’ll probably be keeping chip #2. Further testing will be done with new G.Skill 6000c26 ram kit. Finally a high binned kit to test!

So Im thinking the next step for my setup should be a UPS, I am currently using a really nice extension but its probably time to get a proper power delivery system. From what Im reading something with Sinewave PFC to clean up the power. What do you guys use? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00429N19W?tag=ustxtaddt-20&plpRedirect=mhFallback&ref=clp_hp_h_pc&th=1 This appears to clean power from utility as well as on battery.

Snagged another G.SKILL 8400 kit for a good price to have in my backup/spare parts stash. This was pre-rampocalypse pricing for this kit. It was interesting to see someone bashing the seller for asking too much. Not sure what planet they are from. This is the same memory part number running in the system built in the LIAN LI O11D MINI V2. https://www.overclock.net/threads/g-skill-trident-z5-rgb-ddr5-8400-48gb-2-x-24gb-f5-8400j4052g24gx2-tz5rk.1820341/

The final words (19:06).... Jensen was spot on. Pay more... Get more. Less than this and you got almost nothing. DLSS 5 revives SLI setups: up to 127% more FPS using a second RTX for Neural Rendering The high performance cost of DLSS 5 Neural Rendering has led to SLI configurations gaining popularity among modders.

I get this way too with wallpapers. The motherboard is the conduit to all and if it is system themed wallpaper, it has to be to that AIB. I am also open to mash ups...like I'm running an Asus MB but with an MSI GPU...that's worthy of a mash up.

I had to make a new minimalist wallpaper for the Unify X since using my custom ROG wallpaper with an MSI mobo just feels wrong. Feel free to download if you like. 4K and 5K widescreen. MSI 5120x2160 | MSI 3840x2160 | ROG 5120x2160 | ROG 3840x2160

So I'm in need of a Windows 11 Pro key. Has anyone used gvgmall or ggkeys to purchase a super cheap one? I won't script auto activate, but I'm sure as heck not paying retail off the shelf prices either.... ------------------------------------------------------ Current rig is in "ghetto" mode with the 5080 and X870E Dark Hero running on the Noctua 420mm in the soon to be departed Phanteks. I ordered an NZXT H9 Flow to replace it from best buy on sale for $109.99. The Phanteks has no room up top to seriously mount anything 420 and 360 blocks access to the top part of the MB along with the case being so wide/long that any AIO that needs to front mount has to have longer tubes. Noctua and Lian Li both have too short of tubes to reach. It could use more room in the back too. I've used it for 5yrs and 8 months. It has earned a worthy retirement. I've been testing the Noctua 420mm against several AIOs I have on hand (Yes, I have a problem): Lian Li Lite 360 Lian Li Galahad Performance Arctic LF II 420 ID Cooling Frostflow 280 (hottest of the AIO lot) Arctic LF III 360 Performance (mid 70s...this was disappointing) eK Nucleus 240 Asus Prime LC 360 Trofeo Vision 360 Paladin EX400 Air Cooler Stock AM5 OEM cooler (Insta throttle for shiggles) All with a center dot of KPX Tested on AM5 9850X3D delidded Pure stock (~150w-160w max load) Final verdict? Noctua beats every other AIO from 4c to 10c EXCEPT the $85 Lian Li Lite 360 ARGB which tied with it at ~66.5c. I think I mentioned before the Lian Li Lite 360 was getting best in class temps in testing last year and rave reviews. Downsize is the pump noise but tuning the curve in BIOS to 50% took care of that when not under high load. Don't let the Noctua fool you. That pump is loud. It has three manual selections on the pump high balanced and quiet and only quiet truly made it near inaudible. The other two it is very easy to hear. Fans it is no contest. Noctua is crazy quiet under load vs the Lian Li, but at low loads both are quiet. Difference is the Noctua is near dead quiet. The secret sauce to Noctua are those fans. Under load, the Lian Li fans are definitely front and center. Not a deal breaker but under load the Noctua fan noise level is that of many AIOs at idle. I'm going to switch to the Lian Li Lite 360 for a few days and see how it fares for normal D2D usage vs the Noctua. If I like what I see, I'll probably return the Noctua but we'll see....

It "requires" W11 only because the driver developers are lame Micro$lop butt-kissers and you're required to use the new cancer OS because they've not done right by consumers in terms of releasing drivers for Windows 10 or Windows 7. The Redmond Retards told them not to and they obeyed. There are no true operating system incompatibilities, only a lack of quality product support. It is particularly bad today for me. Accessing anything is met with lengthy delays and unresponsive web pages. I had a good run in the sun with Ryzen and their latest generation is the only product stack that has been any good for me. No regrets, only minor disappointment with the limitations. However, I've always preferred Intel and I still think they make a better CPU all things considered. At least that is true if overclocking is your primary consideration on making a purchase, and it's no secret to anyone here that this is my primary consideration. Ryzen overclocking is very limited in comparison. The SFF build with the B850MPOWER and 4585PX is still in the family. It is my wife's desktop now and connected to the living room TV where she can use it as often (or as little) as she wants. It's a potent and respectable build and I still like it. I like the Unify X a lot, but the 270K Plus that came with it is a pretty crappy sample compared to the other two I have. I'm probably going to buy a better one and sell it to offset the cost. It is a voltage pig with a weak memory controller. Totally usable and a good candidate for a gaming or content creation focused build. I am going to move it to one of the Apex systems for testing to confirm my impressions about the silicon quality. I think it's probably very average and the two that I had already are better than average. I wish I had purchased another 270K Plus when Microcenter had them on sale for $199 about 10 days ago. I'm going to keep watching and snag one when they drop the price again. I'm not going to delid this since it is going to be replaced and will be easier to sell to a normie or gamer boy. That tends to freak them out due to general ignorance and the misguided belief that delidding is bad, or the preference to give priority to warranty over performance enhancement. The motherboard is very nice. Nicer than the Apex even. But the firmware is your typical MSI/Gigabyte "gamer-focused" trash BIOS that is lacking in features needed for world-class overclocking. There is a reason A$$zeus dominates overclocking leaderboards... A$$zeus is the only manufacturer that actually knows what they're doing when it comes to firmware now that EVGA has left the building. I'll probably reach out to Svet about the missing features and VNNANON 1.00V cap that is an impediment to D2D overclocking. It needs to be raised to at least 1.100V. I am very tempted to do something bold and crazy, like taking a dump of the Apex BIOS and forcing a cross-flash on the Unify X using an SPI programmer just to see what happens and see if it would actually work. I think it would actually be safe to try since it has a dual BIOS.

I love my PC hobby, but I've been Mac and iphone as my core setup for years now for work along with an iPad. With all the cross platform tools, there's a reason many of the big houses now deploy Macbooks for dev work. I agree with @Mr. Fox on this one @Papusan. You have to attack the problem on all levels and the reason Microcenter implements a one per household / ID checked policy on many products IS to prevent scalpers and also in this case straw buyers and agents from buying up 5090 products and just either finding a way to sell/ship them as is or ripping the cores and memory off the board and shipping them that way. This isn't much tighter than their valid ID on file / One GPU per month quota they had during the Pandemicryptoboom. It is also why Microcenter routinely has items in stock while you can't find them any place else online because bots don't work when you can only reserve items online for pickup and then have to eventually enter the store front to purchase and pick up in person. In short, on any level, any potential scalper/straw buyer/agent that is turned away by this new requirement opening up even one unit for a legit customer is a win. I agree the main culprits are the corporations and big AIBs/resellers, but would you rather scalpers and straw buyers be able to walk in and just buy out everything they want? Toss out the baby with the bathwater? Trust me, if Microcenter decided to go all Newegg/Amazon and just volume sell online, their stores would be even barer than they are now for many products. $7k desktops anyone? It is the one thing still hanging on atm for 5090s..... As for the 5070, at MSRP to me it was one of the sweet spot cards I called around launch. Yeah for a bit there it was running like dogwater.... I just load it up and go get something to drink... 🤣 I usually don't complain. I know you guys are all over it when you get time. Ruh Roh! You tend to keep things in threes.... This means either one of the Apex's is on its way out or you're heading towards being done with AM5 before Nova drops 🤣 Looks nice! Again, I was tempted to snap it up but I've yet shockingly found myself with a pile of hardware again that I will have to wait till January to downsize. I'm on the cusp of kicking myself up into another tax bracket because of this year and I definitely don't need that.... Or I am going to have to go the local/FB/CL route which I haven't done in a bit to offload some gear.

Nice to see you, and happy that you've ditched the notion that turdbooks are OK. The harsh reality is they are garbage. Please keep sharing what you're doing and post some pics for us, brother. If you remember from the GamersNexus investigation, China actually has people buying new and used in the US and shipping banned GPUs to China. So, I'm totally supportive of this and would like to see more retailers taking action like this. Showing ID is normal and touches every part of life and the only resistance to it is a very recent development that is politically motivated. If a person is using a credit card they will have to show ID for that anyway if the retailer is doing their job correctly. Will this fix the problem? No. But, it is a paper cut and thousands of them can lead to death. Have to start somewhere. Hopefullly, other retailers will follow. Nice to see you again. I hope you have fully recovered from your accident. You're right about the political crap. Even the comments above (sorry). The university scene is probably one of the worst examples of sheeple that are brainwashed by a huge agenda. It's horrible and we have seen some of the worst examples now that the balance of power has shifted away from the left. I don't like it either. (I do like the conservative shift, but not the irrational reaction from the insane folks on the left.) People insert things in subtle ways and for many people it is difficult to ignore nonsense when it is obvious what they are doing. It is trolling. We no longer have a live-and-let-live culture like most of us have known for our entire lifetime. If people were as passionate about living decent and Godly lives and doing good to others, America and the world would be a better place. Politics and destroying those that hold a different view is their new religion. Very sad. Eternity won't be kind to them.

Alienware 14 R1. 3DMark 11 score of 4,568. Please let me know if this is good or bad for what the laptop is, lol. This was my first time using 3DMark. I decided to use 3DMark 11 since my graphics card is on DX11 and that version of 3DMark is free. Benchmark was ran at my laptops native resolution of 1366x768p. Hopefully I have done it correctly. Link to 3DMark results: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/17007367 Screenshots attached.

Honestly pushing for more value is harder than I realized, have to push down the imposter syndrome and take a risk. Looks like they are targeting October 16th but they will have to agree to my salary demand. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another note, even if the 5090 was 2,000 I still wouldnt pick one up if I didnt have a WVP2 in hand to go with it, too much risk. It doesnt make sense to not have it. Looks like I get to drain the loop this weekend. One of the filters cracked (the glass) likely the cold air hitting it with the hotter water on startup? I have enough tubing thanks to @Mr. Fox recommending mcmaster I bought around 25 feet of tubing for exactly things like this. Was able to patch it and I do have a cup under the leak but for now it looks like it stopped leaking.

good to know im not the only bonkers hardware head here 😄 been following the mvolt+ development closely and downloading every new version once it dropped, but havent really gotten back into GPU tuning yet, aside from playing around with the tool to check functionality. havent finished tuning my RAM yet after the BIOS update (just takes sooo damn long, ugh!) and also been playing RE franchise like a madlad. between that, my lil toddler, work and just everyday life, aint nobody got time for anything anymore! but yeah, enjoying my hardware setup to the fullest whenever i have an hour or two to spare....god i hope nothing gives out on me anytime soon in this horrible market LOL but so far everything humming along smoothly, just need to do some dusting it seems (high airflow has its downsides i guess 😄) btw, looking to upgrade my Pixel 7 Pro pretty soon, eagerly awaiting the OnePlus 16 launch on 12-Oct, pretty much ticks all the boxes for me in a phone. IKIK, its likely only gonna be a China only release, but who cares, ive imported china phones before and was happy i did it 🙂

They do have a point, though..... It is one reason I purposely used the MSI included 4 headed dongle of death originally with my Vanguard and my Suprim 4090 because if anything were to go wrong, it is on MSI. Worst case, the connector melts. Best case, just one of the tentacles (or more) melts down which is an easy replacement. Either way, the entire chain is on MSI. Now I use an actual MSI PSU AND a WV2Pro with two layers of warranty claim protection if my 5090 goes POOF! In this case, what caused it? The connector? The Asrock Cable/PSU? Both? Looking at the pictures, it appears to be an Asrock issue as it is burned on BOTH ends. Not that it doesn't suck, but I'm going to agree with PNY on this one and the owner now needs to go after Asrock and loop them in on the claim and see where things settle.

This is nice... Double trouble and stupidity on top. What a combo. All PNY GPUs that require a 16-pin (12VHPWR / 12V-2x6) input include a PNY-approved power cable or adapter in the box. This cable is the only configuration covered under warranty. If a third-party power cable, adapter, or PSU cable is used and damage occurs - including melting, burning, overheating, or deformation of the connector - PNY cannot accept the product under warranty. Damage caused by non-PNY cables falls under the responsibility of the manufacturer of that cable or power supply.

Seing as your charger shut's off immediately, it is safe to assume that the main power rail (+19v) of your MXM gpu is shorted. The charger supplies the MXM slot directly, making it cut out with GPU installed = the MXM card is main power rail shorted. This is either due to a capacitor that shorted itself or a high side mosfet short, the high side mosdfet are driving a secondary power rail (+VCC_CORE, +VCC_VRAM, +VCC_PEX, +VCC_1.8v) Best case is a capactitor as it can't damage anything else, mosfet is more problematic as the secondary power rails I mentionned are all at <2v and they suddenly received +19v for a few milliseconds, this is enough to internally destroy the core or the vram chips. I would highly recommend you get a multimeter, even at your local hardware store it will be less than <10$ and very useful for future projects/life. With the multimeter you can trace down the short and then you will need a controlled power source, such as a lab bench PSU to inject a small voltage of 1v @ 2-3 Amps so that the shorted components warms up. Then the component must be replaced (this is more complicated) You can also go to a repair shop and tell them you think it is main power rail short because of charger cutting out immediately, if they do actual motherboard level repairs (not a given) they should be able to confirm it and tell you if the card is fixable.

M5 Ultra vs a 9950X3D + 5090 kitted out PC: CPU: Bonkers, next level CPU performance. Absolutely trashes Intel and AMD at 150w with their 36 core model both single and multi. Single core: ~44% faster Multi core: ~80% faster All this while consuming 25% less power in a small, compact box that makes zero noise 99% of the time and even under load is a fraction of the noise a typical PC generates. You're going to need a Threadripper 9970x (32 core) to compete, but not beat, at this point on multi. To flat out beat Apple, you will need a 9980x. On both, they absolutely get destroyed for single core performance. On Single, Intel and AMD are going to have to bring some serious magic in their next gen CPUs or Apple will just continue to dominate and I don't think they're going to even get close to catch Apple in single threaded performance. Looking forward to the 52 core Intel Nova "Open all salvos!" Lake beast vs the M5 Ultra. Heck, even the 28 core might get close in multi. Blender Render = M5 Ultra is ~72% faster GPU: Time to come back to reality Apple vs Nvidia..... Optimized for Nvidia, 5090 pulls ahead showing Nvidia's strength in terms of raw power, vertical integration and software stacks. LLMs: If memory isn't an issue, 5090 is a beast but obviously 32GB can't stack up against 96GB or 256GB. Toss in an RTX 6000 (or two or three) and it's game over but then again you can score a fully kitted M5 Ultra with 96GB of memory and 1TB storage and max CPU/GPU config for $6799.99 for less than half the price of an RTX 6000. You can score a 256GB model for $10799 which is 2/3 the cost of a single RTX 6000 at this point. In the end, Apple's massively upgraded Neural Processors are no match for Nvidia's raw power but their unified memory architecture is where they have always shined. Expect the 512GB model (not available yet) to cost ~$17k as the 256GB model is currently $10,799.,99 and upgrading from 96GB to 256GB is a $4k up charge. So you end up with a 512GB M5 Ultra for what is quickly becoming the cost of a single RTX 6000. Video editing, M5 Ultra: DaVinci = tied Abobe Pro = M5 Ultra finished in less than half the time Gaming: Time for a brutal reality check. Even Metal optimized, 5090 just trashes the M5 Ultra and is over twice as fast. M5 Ultra looks to be right between 5070ti-5080 in gaming performance but looking at some of the results that are actually taking advantage of the 80 core GPU, there is some optimizations to be had but....yeah, the 5090 just drops the hammer on Apple....just like Nvidia dropped the hammer on AMD with the 5090. My final verdict? M5 CPU architecture is next level. Absolutely next level. GPU has really come along way even vs M4 and its strength lies in its unified memory bandwidth especially in these AI driven days. For my personal use, target LLMs for particular use cases the 5090's 32GB is working out just fine and this is where it absolutely shines. If you need more than 32GB, performance scarily drops off as expected and you need to start looking at the 5080 based 4500 card with 48GB or even 5500 (barf) up to a 6000 to match the 96GB config from Apple. 256GB config for $10,799 really makes a compelling config for many small AI shops, startups or individuals because it costs less than a single 6000 by almost $5k and you get over 2.5x the memory. I suspect the 512GB will also be a very compelling buy for those on a budget but needing 512GB of memory.

Yeah, the 5080 really has the headroom too fully appreciate overclocking at what tops out at an extreme but "sane"ish type level vs the 5090 requiring a nuclear reactor. Extrapolating, that Steel Nomad is like scoring ~ 21k+ on a 5090... That Timespy score is bonkers both GPU, CPU and combined... I see you right behind Jwick on the bot in the 2 slot a few times, lots of top 5/10 finishes and #1 in TSE! Excellent work!

Yeah, crazy. Essentially the functional equivalent of a 222% slider for power limit. Check the 3DMark links showing the GPU clock and average GPU clock values. (They are almost the same value versus the scenario where average clock is typically considerably lower.) It holds clocks much better. Voltage and power limits were tweaked significantly. mVolt+ - Tuning Overview Profile: OC2 01:39 Driver: 616.64 VBIOS: 98.03.3b.40.27 CLOCKS Core: +350 MHz Memory: +3000 MHz XBAR: +350 MHz SYS: +350 MHz Video: +250 MHz POWER Power limit: 800 W (222%) NVVDD OCP: 5001 A MSVDD OCP: 120 A Voltage Boost: 100% RAIL OFFSETS NVVDD VMIN: 0 mV NVVDD REL: +140 mV NVVDD ALT/OP: +140 mV NVVDD OV: 0 mV MSVDD VMIN: 0 mV MSVDD REL: +60 mV MSVDD ALT/OP: +60 mV MSVDD OV: 0 mV VOLTAGE NVVDD limits: 800–1200 mV MSVDD limits: 800–1120 mV Core voltage offset: +5 mV XBAR voltage offset: +5 mV SYS voltage offset: +5 mV Video voltage offset: +5 mV OTHER NVVDD/MSVDD ratio: 0.90 Clock range: 0–3600 MHz Boost Lock: Off Fan: Auto V/F curve: 0 / 127 points

mvolt+ Extreme works nice. The highest power limit I could find for a 5080 vBIOS was 450W. I used it to unlock the power limit. Set it to 600W and applied my previous mvolt+ overclock profile and the WireView Pro 2 showed it pegged above 600W throughout the entire Steel Nomad run and instantly beat my previous best score by about 180 3DMarks with no change in core or memory clocks. It was definitely crippled by power limit. Now I will have to play around with higher power limits above 600W, additional voltage, XBAR, Sys and core clocks to see what it can do with no power limits crushing the GPU's gonads. https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_steel_nomad_dx12/submissions/6074610 https://www.3dmark.com/compare/sn/15702068/sn/16244399#

This is the growing theory and something we discuss in a few think tank groups. Right now, Nvidia has such tight vertical integration they rule the roost. They also lead in performance but the integration and software is key. Rest assured, AI focused companies like OpenAI, Claude, Anthropic, etc... are working towards common stacks to integrate ASIC for hyperscalers to get off of Nvidia's teet along with smaller operators. On the other hand, you can see the writing on the wall with China and them slowly, but surely, moving everything in house or how DeepSeek took everyone by surprise showing a potential future of better optimizations and larger, wider scaling. Right now, Nvidia is IBM circa 1975-80ish but it won't last forever. AMD is working feverishly on their next gen AI products. Nvidia is entering the CPU foray because they realize eventually CPUs will increase in importance for AI performance in the long run. We're still in the wild wild west phase atm, but the moment normalization/common models are established and/or open standards, Nvidia is in trouble. Throw in some ASIC level computational processing? They're in REAL trouble. One thing that won't change is the need for high bandwidth memory but a sudden and abrupt shift in needing expensive GPUs to ASIC like devices like what happened with crypto mining would be beautiful to behold. Right now, I wish the 5070ti (even some 5080) and down potential customer base would all switch to AMD for the cost savings alone and when Nvidia looks up, they've lost major market share going forward for when that day comes but as we saw with the last market reports, Nvidia actually gained back half the market share they lost to AMD in the consumer gaming sector.....crazy.

They did ship the memory. New ram kit will be here Monday! I did some research on the G.Skill 6000c26@1.400v and G.Skill 6000c26@1.450v kits. And read so much about both kits from the pro’s and extreme binning enthusiasts. So it’s literally just luck of the draw, but the 1.450v kit can be better than the 1.400v kit, and the 1.400v kit can be better than the 1.450v kit. But the 1.450v kits are not lesser than the 1.400v kits by default. But either kits are both equally binned and it’s completely luck of the draw with winning the memory silicon lottery with either kit. Some kits can do 6000c26@1.330vdd some need slightly more.

For whatever reason, I had not bothered to look at my Karhu speeds on my Z890 builds. I used to do it all of the time with my Ryzen stuff. I haven't even really tried pushing the memory overclock much, just plugging along with this pedestrian 8800 profile. Maybe I will find some downtime to play around with 9000 and higher soon.

Ouch, well as I've found over the years, wife requests override personal projects. 🙂 I didn't even know they "refreshed" the 2025 SKU with a 2026 SKU so I went and took a look. So basically, a 240hz->300hz display and jacking the price up from the original MSRP of $2499.99 -> $3299.99....yikes. Yeah, mine was open box for ~$1800 (1805.28 to be exact) listed as "used, acceptable" but arrived looking brand new with all accessories. Only the box was a little beat up. I realized I hadn't done anything with it and the return window is less than two weeks away (22nd) so I went ahead and finished setting it up and ran some basic benchmarks before I start tuning with the BIOS OC controls. Timespy performance is basically equal to Alienware performance mode just the G16 pulls 35w less. 9955HX3D definitely beats my Alienware 275hx in performance mode CPU wise in CB23. I said it before and I'll say it again, Asus fans have some of the best pitch I've heard on laptop fans. Definitely front and present, but max for max, I've always preferred their overall acoustics. Reviews were right. Even in Performance mode, this thing is nearly dead silent doing everything not stressful and even then the fans didn't really kick up that much. It took Turbo to bring it to life and Manual to really let you know it can move some air. All tests were run on a flat, hard surface with zero rear elevation which is how I would normally run it on the go with some laptop balls. I'll end up spending tomorrow playing and comparing Fallout 76 and WoW with my Alienware data but I expect the 9955HX3D to pretty much own it badly in Fallout 76 and beat it overall in WoW because of the lack of tuning available for the 275HX and dog slow 6400 memory. The real performance question will be can the 9955HX3D cap out the 5070ti in QHD in Fallout 76 because the 275HX couldn't only in pockets so we shall see. If it can really cap out the 5070ti, that makes a compelling argument to get a 9955HX3D + 5090. If it doesn't, then the G16 it is. Some data to compare against your Raider with the 5090 before I dive into the BIOS OC options.... Performance (default) mode: Turbo Mode: Manual Mode (All sliders to Max): ------------------------------------------------------ Nice snag! I was away from the forums over there so I just checked and saw the poor arguments for the price being asked. If they think prices are bad NOW, wait till next year..... I'm always on the lookout for good sets to grab, and I would have grabbed those and jettisoned my KingBank's to eBay or similar (or sell them in a parts constructed system). Actually, those KB sticks in the 265k box did 8933 so I shouldn't poo poo on them too bad. It's just their poor AsRock and Asus fails that has me salty. 🙂

Despite Nvidia trying their damndest to kill off SLI, dual GPUs are all the rage now for offloading rendering and especially in AI boxes with software designed to patchwork them together quite effectively. Another technology that will require more and more powerful cards ala early RT days and justify future purchases.....at higher costs of course at this rate. All reports really do lean towards AMD producing a monster on the level of the 6000 vs 3000 series days. Fingers crossed! Sucks but still a good set of sticks for someone looking to run 1:1 6000 tight. At 6000, tuned, do they run better than your other sticks tuned at 6000? That is where they could shine. I saw that price for the 2x32GB C26 kit and ran away as fast as I could! 🤣 Oh I know you will!! 😁 Hmmm, I have never ever heard of that place, but it seems to be a good used market front. That's a good price on those sticks and they should be a good bit better than your current sticks at 1:1 nice find!

I ended up getting that kit just like you had previously. Amazing deal! Heck yes! My rams are sweet, but dang they need the JUICE! But now that I’ve tested the Corsair kit, and now my G.Skill 6800c34 kit. I’ll hopefully be able to fully appreciate the bin. This kit is a G.Skill 6000c26@1.450v (2x16GB) @electrosoft You ever buy from MBPC.GG? Looks like a small shop that sales used premium parts. They had a 6000c26@1.45v kit listed for $439.99, I used a -$10 off promo and got it for $429.99. https://mbpc.gg/products/g-skill-trident-z5-neo-rgb-32gb-ddr5-6000mhz-cl26-36-36-96-desktop-gaming-memory-ram-2x16gb?variant=53407464554785&country=US&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21505374951&gbraid=0AAAAA-CjMDB6Y2qkjRbGAWsMtZp-CYEda&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3LDl4ZjelgMVujgIBR0AHjBcEAQYASABEgKr6fD_BwE

😬 It seems like the jump from 6400c28 to 6400c26 needs significantly more voltage, I am using 1.700v VDD currently. Anyone else try this profile before? What sort of voltages did you require? I do not know why, but for some reason I do like the 2167 chip #2 better, the memory controller is more fun to play with. I will enjoy it for another 1-2 days, and then I will pop Chip#1 back in for 2200fclk and more testing! And if I find myself where I cannot live without Chip#2, then we will go from there! lol. But 6400c26 is amazing to me. 1.700vdd is high, but keeping the 1.400vddq keeps temps realistic with a fan. (3) cycles on VT3 and sticks were 45c.

Ironically I bought a RTX 5080 in early 2025 before all the AI hype but returned it because it felt weird going from 24GB RTX Titan SLI to RTX 5080. I was hoping to find a 5090 but at this rate I might as well wait for the 6090 😄