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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. 😂

So far I have been strictly playing with 1:1 memory tuning. 6400c28 is completely solid even with 2,200 fclk. I think I may even can stabilize 6600 1:1. But it starts to show IMC limits at 6600 (1:1) I just tried 1:2 today for the first time, DDR5 8000 1:2 posted up first try. Even with only 1.400v VDDIO. There was definitely something seriously wrong with my last setup to not work. PS: These are my setting below. I can't seem to get my latency down much. I am wondering if its OS related at this point. I even tried some manual Nitro Path settings. I am on a really old bios 1401 from 05/2025.

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

Nasty finger salute to the Green Goblin, with both hands. People that care just won't use their cancer drivers that block mVolt+ from working. I'm still using 576.28 and I generally won't play games that require that I install a specific driver or newer. It's a matter of principle for me, and that matters more than falling in line with their wishes. Same reason I won't play the crapified new games that require Secure Poot and TPM to be enabled for some garbage anti-cheat bloatware to work. They can kiss my post-defecation, smelly, unwashed posterior orifice.

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.

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.

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.

For less money? Depends on the eyes that see. Still heavly overpriced. Should be more like "more garbage for more money"😎 PC Partner warns of rising GPU prices and budget card shortages — analyst suggests makers are hiking prices beyond memory costs The question is whether price increases have benefited anyone beyond those early in the supply chain. Jon Peddie, who has been tracking the graphics industry for about 25 years, does not seem to believe that all the graphics card prices are due to increased costs. "[This all does] not necessarily equal an increase in profits, although I suspect it does, and the AIB suppliers are taking advantage of all of the press reports on higher memory prices and shortages to raise AIB prices more than the delta in memory costs," Peddie said.

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 😄

Z890 Apex #2 landed and launched. The crappy Gigabutt Duo X is on its way back to Amazon. Everything is as it should be now. No problem not booting with 40x D2D like issue with the Duo X. The BIOS was from 2024. I flashed 9901 but left the 2024 version of Intel ME. No plans to update it. No need until something proves otherwise. So far nothing has. Temps are great. Runs 8800 no issue, same as the other Apex.

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

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

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

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

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

You misspelled "God Mode".... 😂 Does 1.25 make it completely stable or is 6000 still problematic? Really looks like that 9955HX3D wants to settle in at 5800. Not the end of the world, but meh.....I know the 7945HX3D had no problems with 6000 in a similar dual die setup. It was a straight full assembly swap and not a panel only swap? Makes it much easier for warranty claims in the future to swap back easily but that is a strange bug too. I like the eventual @Mr. Fox drift to a new primary platform. Whenever you have two chips of the same ilk, that is the dominant platform. 270k has finally supplanted AM5, so it now rules the HenHouse. 🙂 Eventually AM6 and/or Nova will slowly move in and either AM6 will replace thje Epyc and/or Nova will replace the lesser 270k..... Yeah, I thank the stars daily for pulling the trigger when I did on various items especially memory. The upper tier stuff is disappearing completely or becoming bonkers expensive. I see you're well enough to lift those abominations into the box for a photo shoot @Papusan 🤣

Always a pleasure buying from you @Mr. Fox. Personally it's much less stress buying from you since you know what's under the hood and no post-sale shenanigans from me. Here's hoping your next project will scratch that itch just as mine will for me! A bit of a laugh but I actually tried to get a second opinion from my good friend Hiew to talk me out of reaching out to Brother Fox. He just straight up told me I was buying it before I even said anything. He's been so happy with the previous bundle I bought from Fox so that it comes up semi-regularly the performance compared to the 5800X3D for anything he does. From time to time he's downloading at 5Gbps and just giggles as the cpu gets to work. 5800X3D pretty much took care of all my needs but I did like the idea of the 9950x3d2. I have been too busy with work to know Mr Fox even had this chip but more than happy to buy it from him. Outside of our circle I probably wouldn't even consider it. Time to pick up a waterblock for the 9070 XT everything on my pc will be under water now. I may take some time off from work to get everything set up.