Leaderboard

I used Asus Astral 5080 vBIOS before since it has a 450w limit on the MSI 5080 I had last year for a bit but all three fans worked. I'm going to end up flashing it again on the SFF OC like yours. That and Melon should open them up like a beast especially yours on water so a fan not working won't be an issue for you. I wonder if a different version might wake up the non working fan since there are three variants floating around for the Astral 5080 (Black, Noctua, White) The tight knit community is alive and well. Crazy how enhancements and QoL are being implemented Fast and Furious.....

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:

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.

Sold to our beloved friend @Reciever

I returned all of my stuff to BestBuy a few days ago, I came home spent a couple days browsing and I decided to try some different parts instead. More or less the same setup. (1) 9950X3D2 (Really love this CPU I bought it again could not resist) (2) Asus X870E Strix E-E (This one has Debug LED, does not have a quick release PCIe though and these can damage GPU's with improper removal apparently? (3) Gskill DDR5 2x16GB 6800C34 (This was the same cost as my Corsair kit) Hopefully this setup can hit the measly DDR5 8000. 💀 Almost went 270K Plus route, but I found my self splurging much more on Z890 motherboard cost and Z890 ram cost, which easily bridged the gap from 270KP to 9950X3D2 cost. So the savings of 270KP were just getting stuffed in to fancier board and ram to run the 270KP. I really liked the 9950X3D2!! I ran it for a solid 2 months. Gaming performance with 5090 Astral OC was excellent, it really impressed me so much. I just wasn't happy with my combination of parts, or quality of parts, so it all went back. My original open box X870 Dark Hero was questionable, my CPU bin was questionable, and even my Hynix A-Die SR ram was very questionable. Would like to play around with 8000-8200 Gear 2. Or daily 6400 Gear 1. 😁

I had a dickens of a time figuring out where I could mount the WireView Pro 2 Wired version in this small case. It does not look nearly as clean as it would attached to the GPU and I am not "thrilled" with the mounting location. But, I think it is better to have it than to not have it. Maybe in a week or two when I am bored and want something pointless to do I will route the EPDM tubing a slightly different way so it looks less "busy" than it does now. At least it is easily viewed in the current location. Looks like the shunt mod is working, so that's good. MrFox's 3DMark - Steel Nomad DX12 Score 10202 marks with GeForce RTX 5080 @ 3435.00/2250 MHz

5090 is fixed. Got the new fuses from Mouser today and installed them after work. My SMD soldering is ghetto-looking because I am scared of exploding caps and blowing small parts off their pads with my hot air station and always use an iron. Using the hot plate to preheat the GPU to 110°C helped a ton using the iron. (I should buy a dead mobo or GPU on eBay super cheap and use it for practice to get over my fear of messing things up with the hot air.) But, hey, it works now. Powered through an 800W run of Steel Nomad to confirm it. I had ordered new thermal pads for the block and they got delayed from Amazon, so I will have to take it apart again tomorrow after work to replace the thermal poop with liquid metail and install the new pads. (Assuming they are actually delivered tomorrow.)

Happy birthday @Papusan! Hopefully it is a good one and shout out to Mrs Papusan! -------------------------------------------------------------- 4k only WoW testing to see if I wanted to upgrade/switch the wife's SP109 14900KS + 4000 Bdie tuned at 4000 vs 270k + KB 8400 tuned at 8400 (both passed TM5 Extreme). Tuned up the 270k at 5.6ghz with the KingBank 8400 sticks ran some vs tests with the same settings as the wife's 14900ks DDR4 tuned system and the 270k officially equals the 14900ks at 4k with the exact same CPU bound results even with a 9070xt in areas (fixed spots out in the world devoid of player data, namely Eversong Woods) dropping to 91-93% whereas the 9800X3D can lock it down to 100% on those same 9070xt cards. This is setting up two platforms and the 270k running the Powercolor 9070xt Red Devil and hers running the Gigabyte OC Gaming 9070xt. Swapped cards back and forth, basically the same results. In same scenarios, Red Devil runs 3200+, while the Gigabyte runs 3100+. Red Devil pulls ~18w more stock for stock too. Gigabyte = SK Hynix Red Devil = Samsung Overall, even in raids, scary just how powerful the 5090 is and how much Blizzard has improved their optimizations for GPUs but they really do need to to where I can cap out the 9070xt easily in raids on X3D at 4k and even push the 5090 close to cap out many times even with all the FX going on and seeing 70-98% utilization depending on encounter and situation. I must reiterate how much the Intel anything + 9070xt is dogwater for Fallout 76. Running the 270k + 9070xt again is just the worst...... ------------------------------------------------------------------- Couldn't resist and picked up an open box Asus G16 9955HX3D + 5070ti for $1800 from Amazon Warehouse to do some testing especially in Fallout 76 since the Alienware 275hx + 5070ti was grossly underfeeding the 5070ti in spots in QHD most likely due to the architecture and inability to tune memory / support much higher speeds. Need to see if the 9955HX3D caps it out properly at QHD and at what fps. Pros: The Asus bios for AMD supports full Overclocking options for AMD versus the Intel counterpart. This model is known to run dead silent on light/ no load for desktop use Actually has a lower sound profile under load than the Alienware Cons: No out of box BIOS level memory tuning for the 32GB of DDR5 5600 memory (2x16GB). If the 9955HX3D caps out the 5070ti in Fallout 76 in QHD, which I expect it to do considering a 9800X3D caps out a desktop 5070 in QHD, it gives more weight to a potential 9955HX3D+5090 laptop. @win32asmguy how goes the Raider tuning and testing? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Still waiting on Asus to send the X870e Dark Hero so I can set up a test bench with it with the delidded 9850X3D and collect more WoW/Fallout 76 data testing all my cards: 5060, 9070xt x 2, 5080, 5090, 6000. It's the linchpin to start moving other parts around and get the SFF going too. ------------------------------------------------------------------- @tps3443 Titan Rig has a nice open box sale on an Astral GPU block if you want to block your beast: https://www.titanrig.com/openbox-alphacool-core-geforce-rtx-5090-rog-astral-gpu-water-block-with-backplate.html

Confirmed only blown fuses. GPU is totally fine. I bridged the F1 fuse solder pads with a wire for testing and it's good to go. Now I just need the fuses and we'll be back to normal +1 fuse for extra capacity.

I am actually kind of surprised they have not already blown the way I have pushed this GPU for benching. I've run way more than they should have allowed me to, but Steel Nomad is famous for the massive power spike in the first couple of seconds and I think that experimenting with the 2000W vBIOS together with the shunt modding was the straw that broke the camel's back for the fuses. I normally have used a 800W or 1000W BIOS.

Finally overclocking GPU is fun again.

This is with the Astral 5080 XOC vBIOS. It totally exhausts the 450W power limit (pegged to 450W on the WireView Pro). I've ordered a block for it and will shunt mod it. One fan does not run so it is getting too hot and thermal throttling, but the software works great for the tweaks.

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.

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

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.

Yeah I liked my setup, but it was kinda weak. Booting 7600 1:2 was a miracle scenario maybe 1 out of 4 tries in that platform. I was kind of bummed about the 2167 fclk, but not a deal breaker for me. That's really good to hear about the motherboard!

If you get a good setup, like what I sold to @Reciever and offered to you, the 9950X3D2 will be great. I do not know why, but is seems like with the X3D chips (all of them) it is harder to find one that has an IMC strong enough to handle 8000 and 2200 FCLK. I had the Strix X870E-E motherboard for a good while and it was a very good motherboard. I think you will like it. It overclocked the memory as well as the X870E Apex does with a good CPU. Ran it 8000-8200 daily. No issues.

That was quick delivery. Are they available stateside for the wired version? Do you happen to have your best AM5 6000 2x24GB zentimings tune on hand? I'm in the process of tuning the Vengeance 9200 2x24GB sticks at 6000 now so I want to see how they stack up while dialing them in. I'll then take a small break to benchmark the 9070xt's and 5080 for comparison to the 14900KS / 270k data I've collected in WoW and FO76. Then head on to 2133/6400 and 8000 after. My ETA for actual Hero to Dark Hero swap is probably a week to ten days from now.

Thank you. The Bykski block looks and works great. My hotspot temp is like 8°C more than core with liquid metal. I wish a PC enthusiast vigilante would find the people responsible for it and exterminate them. Maybe if we pooled our resources and put a bounty on their heads, LOL. https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_steel_nomad_dx12/submissions/6062828 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_speed_way/submissions/6062831 That silly 3DMark "Estimated game performance" measurement is so hokey. "Less than 20 FPS" LOL.

Man that is purdy. I said it before and I'll say it again. That industrial blue and off white with the black and just that TINGE of red from the Q-Code display always has that blend of blade runner meets Neuromancer. I might have to go with some Noctua or Arctic 140mm aRGB fans ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No surprise here.....bots be botting trying to scarf up any type of hardware deal possible to regurgitate it back on the market at higher prices....#winning ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice to be back in beast mode.

I am surprised the Asus bios has support for any overclocking options. Granted the last Asus I tried was that Strix Scar 17 which was quite some time ago. I have currently the 5600 Kingston CL40 2x16GB kit at stock timings other than tREFI 24k. This lets VSOC set at 900mv which is great for balanced mode where the chip is limited to 55W in combined loads. Supposedly memory heatsinks from Aliexpress can help keep bumping VDD/VDDQ from pushing temps as high, so thats the next thing to try with memory overclocking. I can tame the RGB by setting keyboard brightness to zero via the toggle FN-F8 key (EC can remember this setting unlike anything configured in Steelseries) then unplug the front lightbar and the lid logo RGB is gone courtesy of the Vector A18 lid. I think the Asus could be a good alternative if the bios is not limiting and you get full support using the G-helper tool instead of Armory Crate. 9955HX3D is definitely outperforming 14900HX running around in the new content zones and raiding activities. I have heard that Nova Lake HX will not have a bLLC variant, so I guess 9955HX3D will be it for another year. Who knows if there will be any mobile GPU refresh. Probably not when the AI craze still drives the market.

Frank and Dusty are jamming together in paradise now. Billy is no spring chicken, so he may join them soon. ZZ Top was one of my favorite Southern Rock bands of all time. True icons that produced some legendary and timeless music hits. The entertainment industry just does not make music like they did any more. I had the privilege of seeing them live, in concert, at the Arizona State Fair in November of 2005.

Hard to keep up these days, so many changes. mVolt 0.33+ add many new features, including fan controls, new System Clock and Video Clock Offsets. No idea what they are for. Also have a new Xbar Ratio that allows even higher Xbar according to some. https://github.com/b00nz/mVolt/ @Mr. Fox Sorry to hear about your fuses, but glad it was just that and you'll have them fixed up with higher amp versions soon.

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/274990/274990 https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/273887/gigabyte-rtx5080-16384-250110-2 This should work. 450w from Aorus, should make all fans work and has a higher default boost. If not maybe Gaming OC, same 450w but lower boost by default. https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/273730/gigabyte-rtx5080-16384-250108

Maybe another variant would wake up the non-functional fan. This is the XOC 450W vBIOS I use on the Prime 5080 and all three fans work. The one not working is near the I/O so that is a more critical fan being close to the die and VRM. But, it certainly will not matter when blocked. Absolutely. I have hated having to use the EVC2 for voltage control. It is a cool mod from a hardware geek perspective, but a real pain in the butt to have to implement, and we should not have to. All GPUs should function like a K|NGP|N or HOF GPU. I'd love it if we could get the power limits unlocked (adjustable) or simply removed (increased to something more than the GPU can ever pull, like 5000W) using software to avoid having to shunt mod. The risk involved with that kind of geeky fun (and loss of warranty) loses appeal when GPUs cost two to five times what they are actually worth. If it is done with software, there is no way to prove or enforce a warranty that excludes overclocked hardware that fails for reasons that have nothing to do with overclocking.

Thanks. Nice. All rolled into one now. No need to use a separate tool for crossbar. I love it.

so guys, for easier follow-ups here the author profile on overclock.net as well as his newly set up GitHub page for the magical mVolt tool that lets us unleash our GPUs via software ONLY 🙂 overclock.net profile: https://www.overclock.net/members/b00nza.701858/?filter_threads=1&filter_replies=1#activity GitHub: https://github.com/b00nz/mVolt/ latest version now supports profiles, profile set at logon, V/F curve editor and other UI tweaks. i did a quick check last night, both Xbar and GPU Core Voltage adjustments work flawlessly on the fly, same with Clock offsets for Xbar, Core, vRAM. like....no need for anything else anymore, really 😄

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.

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.

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.

Just saw you grabbed that SP98! I honestly debated grabbing it too. But this SP97 is so good already, I have no complaints with it. I'm able to game at 5.8Ghz P and 5.3Ghz E on this beast. @electrosoft 5.85Ghz P passed gaming for the short bit I tested, but got angry in geekbench of all things. This was all with no manual core voltage tuning though, just auto scaling. Percentage wise for gaming, over my SP89, it's about 5% faster in some tests for gaming. Nothing amazing, but what you'd expect from the clock speed bumps.

Seems to have passed for now. ill try to keep an eye on it

Definitely, the more I research, the more I am settled on EPDM. I need to locate that pump res combo you recommended I picked up for a good deal from PPC and res and fittings. I finally locked down on a new shelf to hold a large swath of my parts and boxes as the other room is full. Wife is giving me funny looks now..... 🤣 I like that you've tested each variant now with no X3D, 1xCCD X3D, 2xCCD X3D to see the progression (or regression) in regards to overclocking capability with X3D and peak stock clocks coming into play. I came to the same conclusion, outside of X3D beneficial games, that the 270k is actually one of my favorite CPUs on every level. Unfortunately for me, as always, Fallout 76 disproportionately loves X3D cache....scarily so even at 4k. I've tested and retested extensively the last 3 years and that massive chasm remains across the 14900k and 270k. Do you think the IMC on the 9950X3D2 you have is weaker than your other chips? Congratz on selling the HEDT rig over on OCN! Still a $1k+ difference now and I wouldn't rule out another price hike before we escape 2026. I've been testing my Windforce 5080 SFF back and forth against my 5090 in my main rig the last few days. I'm not unplugging the 5090 12vhpwr connector. I'm using the Corsair 1000w SFF instead externally to power the 5080 so swapping is quick and easy. 5090 is just a monster. WoW and even Fallout 76 keep the 5080 pegged at 99% outside of player heavy areas. Then again, there are many areas in WoW that keep the 5090 at 99% too even with a 175fps cap in place. As long as a GPU doesn't make that, deep seesaw screeching whine I can usually work with it. No GPU is truly silent under load and if I need to put my ear right next to it to hear it, to me that is effectively silent. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can touch that 3090FE whine I had. That was next level nauseating. Definitely keep the Astral. Still the most beautiful 5090 IMHO with that industrial slab look. I love the heatsink on that thang and prices are climbing and climbing. If I were you, I'd return the 9950X3D2 at a minimum to fish for a better sample or pick up a 9950X3D from Newegg which is on sale for $569.99 AND includes a free AIO or maybe see if @Mr. Fox wants to part with one of his samples OR return both the CPU and MB and see if @Talon wants to part with one of his 270k samples and go Intel. Of course going Intel you're going to want 8600+ capable G2 ram, cpu and MB at a minimum. If you want to stick with BB for their credit line, 270k is, oh, $600 cheaper than the 9950X3D2..... good deals on MBs and that helps compensate for memory costs. Damn, that's not good news if it can't even do 6000. MSI only guarantees 5600 on that model so you can't even send it in for a swap. Might have to just tune around 5800 or run a dirty OC that's "good enough" for gaming but still a major bummer. Silicon lottery strikes again.... Still a damn good deal though on the price and I'm not sure 5800 vs 6000 will even make any meaningful difference in gaming and you can maybe tighten up the timings even more. Do a dirty mem OC test 5800 vs 6000->6400 in games and go "meh....." Nice snag on the entire hood assembly so a small silver lining.... ------------------------------------------------------------ "Progress" = ~10% uplift.....

Yeah my Astral wasn’t even that great of a deal either lol. At the time they were brand new for $4,329.99 + tax and they had a single open box for like $3,779 or $3,889 + tax in the Best Buy store, I’m forgetting exactly how much it was. The box was kind of ripped a little, coil whine is not as quiet as my 5090 FE was (That one had a tiny bit, but you had to like put your ear against it to hear it, 1.2KW per limit certainly amplified it just a little bit) But the quietest GPU I ever owned was probably the 5080 Astral OC, it did not make any sound under load, even with your ear right against it lol. The 5090 Astral isn’t bad at all though but it makes a deep buzz if you lean in and try to listen to it. You won’t hear it in a closed case or anything though. Not a squeal or anything annoying at all which Is perfectly fine for me. I think most high end GPU’s will make a buzz under heavy load if you lean in close and listen to them. Too many check boxes these days to be super picky on GPU’s. Max Voltage, core overclocking ability, are 1% lows impacted with +3,000 memory OC, coil whine?, are the core and memory chips actually soldered on the board? lol, does it even work? lol. 😂 Unless something is making a high pitch squeal noise, I don’t care! Two prior products come to mind where I did care!!!. My Z590 Dark Kingpin motherboard, and EVGA power supplies lol. But yeah the Astral overclocks really well, and that’s what made me love it and decide to keep it. Excellent GPU. I’d probably long return my 9950X3D2 and Dark Hero X870 before that 5090 Astral goes anywhere!! Speaking of which that return period is coming up FAST on the AMD chip!! I may swap it out.

I am making a little more progress. This dual v-cache CPU doesn't like being rag-dolled like my other CPUs. It is more sensitive. That's not a good thing, but it is good I am starting to better understand what it can tolerate, and when I treat it kinder and gentler it performs better.

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.

Ah, then that wouldn't work for me. I like to float between projects in flux and know I always have something to work on at any given time. I can see that approach would drive you batty. My wife is a completest to the point she can have problems falling asleep if something she is working on isn't completed. She'll lay there and think about it. She will be dog tired (even now) and can't stop till something she's working on around the house is completed. Me? I can shut down my brain and disconnect. I had to learn to do it years ago because as a programmer, I couldn't turn off my brain even after work. I would sit there or lay in bed with code just dancing through my head to the point I would have to get up and keep working. A lesser form would take hold in any hardware or software (or even gaming) projects I did back then. Took awhile, but I was able to translate that into everything I do and learn to shut down and then turn it back on the next day. Agreed, we didn't know how "good" we had it back then but AI and generated scarcity is driving record profits. Companies are charging these prices but I see everything in stock in abundance on the consumer side except 5090s which are in the single digits at MC so the wall has been hit for everything 5080 and below. Cheapest is the $3599 Ventus..... Those two Gigabyte Infinity OC 5090s at my local MC are still in stock after all this time at $5299.99. Biggest shock was I haven't checked Best Buy stock in quite some time. Only two 5090s in stock. The $3999 MSI gaming and $4329 Astral. Newegg cheapest in stock is $4149 TUF 5090 with a very limited selection.... I mean....sheesh.... 5080s? Plenty in stock everywhere but prices are still going to rise across the entire stack outside of the 5090 which does its own insane thing.... https://videocardz.com/newz/msi-and-colorful-announce-rtx-50-price-increases-for-distributors-rtx-5070-ti-now-starts-38-over-msrp Incoming MSI and Colorful price hikes: It will take a bit, but as always these prices will hit everywhere else and in the US prices will just adjust up with some retailers adjusting in the now even with current stock on hand because....profits.... Glad I snagged that $983 open box 5080 when I did last week. Same as snagging that $1971 Vanguard 5090 last August. The market is reaching a point where inventory is just going to stagnate because even at current pricing clearly cards aren't moving same as ram and storage. Crap tons of stock everywhere..... Something has to give and when this crashes, I hope it is spectacular...

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.