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The Dark Hero fan works amazingly well. I ran it full blast on my test bench. I'm going to miss that feature. I noticed the fan would blow air strongest at a certain point on the fan, and I rotated the fan in the orientation where the ram sticks were getting hit with the best breeze. PS: For some reason BestBuy sent me (2) 9950X3D2's. 💀 I guess it's meant for me to find a 2,200FCLK unit! 😂 Still waiting on motherboard.

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

Using CPU-bound settings, the 270K Plus holds its own against the 9950X3D2 in this benchmark. This is a run by Zero989 at oc.net and a run with my 5080 system using the same settings against his X3D build. I actually played the game last night for about an hour and it was extremely boring. (I have never cared for this genre, so that comes as no real surprise.) I should have just stuck with the free demo. It was a waste of money for me, but it was super cheap so no great loss. What you see in the benchmark is the closest you will get to experiencing something mildly stimulating when playing the game. 9950X3D2 270K Plus

This is the state of my setup right now. I'm excited to test the 6800c34 ram for sure!

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

So far testing this 9850X3D, it is a slightly better sample than my 9800X3D. 9800X3D can do 2133/6400 but at 1.29 VSOC while the 9850X3D does it on auto no problem. 9850X3D can boot 6600 but fails TM5 even at 1.30v. 9800X3D isn't booting 6600 no matter what. 6600+ stable (let alone booting) is unicorn territory. 9850X3D can do 8200 on auto no problem but eventually fails at 8400. 8400+ is unicorn status so I wasn't expecting it to pass if it even managed to boot. 9800X3D can do 8000 but fails 8200. 8400 won't boot at all. 9800X3D = SP113 (solidly average) 9850X3D = SP120 (slightly above average) I'll end up tuning 2000/6000, 2133/6400 and the as always in sync 8000. I've never fully tuned all three sets of DDR5 around AM5 so this should be fun! Might do a 8200 profile since this chip can fully support it. ------------------------------------- Out of the box quick benching, it is literally identical to the 9800X3D running CB23 but we'll see where that goes down the road after I wrap up memory testing and lock down all three sets of DDR5 to really dial it in and as always do a static vs test for shiggles. I haven't done any game benching/testing yet. That will be in a few days once I get at least 2000/6000 locked down on the 9850X3D. Realistically I expect the CV 9200 sticks to reign supreme as they did testing on the 265k/270k but those are slated for Nova Lake later this year so I'll want to make sure to have the KingBank or TeamGroup on standby 🙂

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.

So far so good. I received my X870 Strix E-E today from UPS. Very thankful this board has Debug LED! And easy access CMOS battery. 😅 BestBuy sent me “Buy one Get One Free”9950X3D2’s. So I popped one in, and it booted right up with 2200 FCLK, and 6400c30 1:1. Already better results than my 1st 9950X3D2 from a few months ago. I plan to thoroughly test this one and become well acquainted before I drop in the other one for testing. Theres nothing like swapping chips and feeling that crappiness, or feeling the greatness from one to the next. But it takes some really getting to know one chip, or that feeling never occurs with the 2nd. PS: This chip is a SP118, not really sure if that’s good or not. But I’m not too overly worried about core silicon clock-ability. Mainly want good FCLK and good IMC! These 9950X3D2’s just rip bone stock anyways. I will report back with anymore further findings and what the 2nd 9950X3D2 is.

Good Evening Everyone! Finally had some time to set aside to upgrade to the platform I purchased from Brother Fox. CPU and Memory are phenomenal, had the profile from Mr. Fox when he had this and thus far its been great. Had to apply a bit more LM and reseat the direct die block for temps to be where they should otherwise its been a breeze! The one weird issue I havent been able to square quite yet is the 9070 XT. Since the combo was coming included with a CPU and RAM block, I decided to block the 9070 XT also so now everything is in a loop 9070 XT > RAM > 7900 XTX > CPU > Pump > 1080mm Rad > pump Sadly thus far I havent been able to get the 9070 XT to output video. Its detected, no errors and drivers install but 0 output. The one oddity I could find is that doesnt run at PCIE 4.0 (set to 4 for testing) only cycling between 2.0 and 1.1 PCIE Gen link. I have removed my NVME to 10Gbps adapter occupying M.2_1 which should be CPU linked but no change. I was going to try moving the DIMM_2 adapter today but discovered ants in my bedroom so I've been doing a full cleaning today instead of more troubleshooting. CPU is sitting at 37c for idle and load temps were 57-59 for the 9950X3D2, load being BattleField 6. 7900 XTX temps increased to 35c load where it used to be closer to 25c when it was alone in the loop. If I can sort out the 2nd GPU slot and get video output from the 9070 XT ill be right as rain but for the moment I am pretty stoked

Here is something interesting. I normally use a hardware KVM to switch between computers, but using two at once with a KVM is not a solution to use both systems simultaneously. You are merely switching from one to the other. I decided to give Synergy 3 a go and it works flawlessly for using a single keyboard and mouse on two computers connected to separate monitors. It functions indistinguishable from using a single computer with two monitors. Really useful. Similar to the old "Mouse without Borders" utility, but better and a lot more features. https://symless.com/synergy/download

I figured out a better mounting location for the wired WireView Pro 2 than using the radiator fan screws. I did not like it where it was. I had not noticed that the distro block had holes that went all the way through where the screws attach the distro block to the chassis. I used those holes with screws to attach it to the distro block much lower than before. The fan mounting bracket included with it aligns perfectly with the holes in the distro block. Now it doesn't have the ugly long "snake" for the 12VHPWR cable. This is aesthetically more acceptable.

Thanks brother. It is true PC hardware is an absolute mess right now, but that is why I went with the slightly older stuff. The problem is that the average PC buyer still thinks we are back in last 2024/early 2025. They still have that 60 to 70% off mentality. They argue that the PC isn't worth 1200 to 1300, even though the PCs I have built outclass anything selling new in that price range. The 4070 Ti is still going for 500 to 600 used and I won't even get into SSD/RAM pricing. However, I will always stand my ground. We shall see how it goes. I am happy to see you're enjoying your return to Intel. Next gen should be very interesting and I think Intel will give AMD a run for its money, as long as Intel keeps pricing reasonable. But only time will tell.

What in the world! I come back from a hiatus (thanks @Mr. Fox for reaching out, I miss my brothers here!) and almost everyone is running AMD CPUs. Update on what I've been doing: I got back (never really left, just didn't buy inventory) into the S.I. business at the wrong time, lol. I purchased several Gigabyte mobos and 4070 Ti's, 13700K's, and no one is buying locally. Doesn't help that I went with DDR5 boards and hence, DDR5 RAM and storage prices. LOL, I had people offer to trade puppies, PS5's, old bikes and etc. 😂 Trying to talk to people through my YT community about overclocking is funny. These people are engineers, that can completely build a 3D printer from scratch, but try talking about overclocking RAM, CPUs or GPUs, they aren't interested. However, say anything bad about certain companies like Prusa or Bambu Lab, they attack LOL. I do miss overclocking, but it's no real fun with a 5070 Ti/9070XT. I need the big boy but that comes with big boy pricing. I am hoping Intel's next platform brings me back into the fold. I hope all of you and your families are doing well, mine is doing well. I'm back now, lurking as normal.

Thanks! I can see some areas to flesh out, but once I started tightening up my Corsair Vengeance 9200 sticks even at 6000 temps shot to 76c and errors so I plan on testing no fan (obvious overheating) vs with the included ram fan to see where it tops out vs the 140mm blaster master. Corsair heatsinks are just the worst.....followed by Patriots. Middle of the pack are G.Skill heat blankets and Kingston (HP). Best I've seen so far are KingBank and TeamGroup. Good call. That setup was just not delivering. Did you check Gear 4 just to remove the MB from the equation? The fact it was open box always leaves a "why was it returned?" on the table. 2200 fclk, 6400 and 8000 are the minimum entry bar for being "acceptable" in my book. I've binned ~7 9800X3D CPUs and sent back 4 and sold off 2 to guildies who don't care about that criteria. You would have to really remove the GPU wrong and it would take at least 50-60+ insertions and removals to notice anything. If you picked up the newer revision with the AIO power connector on board, it has been corrected on that model. It sucks that we sometimes have to parts fish, but for us PnP doesn't cut it. I assume you kept the Astral? Time to play around with mVolt+ with that big 'ole heatsink on it. I've been working with the eval x870e Dark Hero for ~3 days now and 2200/6400 and 8000-8200 is no problem on this delidded 9850X3D. I can't stabilize 8400 but I'll keep trying but I'm asking for unicorn magic sooo....yeah. I really like this motherboard as it is basically the Extreme bones underneath this time around vs the normal Hero and it shows. I may kick it into gear 4 so I can see if the Dark Hero can truly do 9200 since it is rated up to 9600 and I've already tested these Corsair sticks up to 9066 on the z890 Strix-A once in Gear 4 I do the no fan vs included Dark Hero fan vs 140mm fan tests as outlined above. On the other hand, I am also a firm believer that eval and review samples may get an extra bit of QC too..... Hopefully this 9950X3D2 is a 8400+ monster!

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.

Cancer meet cancer. What can go wrong? 😀 Microsoft blames RGB peripherals for crashing Windows 11 — RGB software is causing blue screens, crashes, and game freezes

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

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 😄

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.

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

@tps3443 let me know he is not able to obtain these items, so if anyone here is interested in grabbing it for $1600 let me know. If not I may list in the marketplace at oc.net for probably $1800. 9950X3D (delidded) IceMan Bare Die Block (or Thermal Grizzly Performance IHS - buyer choice) X870E Apex G.SKILL Trident Neo 6000 C26 32GB (2x16) 1.450V F5-8400J4052G24G Supercool Computer Direct Touch Memory Cooler kit

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.

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.....