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5090FE is fine man. If I didn't like it, I would not keep it that's for sure lol! I had a 4090 Gaming OC and @johnksss that thing was cheap as hell, flimsy, light weight, and loud as hell with bad coil whine, but not this card, this card feels nice and premium and heavy etc. So, it's okay for $1,999.99 (People do try to convince me that my own GPU sucks though, they do not like it, that I like it I guess 🤣) Last I checked, Astral+Block = $4,000, too much for me to afford. But at least they perform TOP NOTCH once you water block it, flash it, and solder it.. Yes, the FE's have weak coolers; I cannot hold that against it. It's going on water/shunt anyways. I mean, your Astral is probably faster than an RTX Pro 6000, but that doesn't mean it's better than one. FE's have weak coolers but not weak cores. Definitely an acceptable GPU for the price tag and performance. Card scores perfectly acceptable for a stock cooler, hot, non-shunted 5090 FE. Plenty of other 5090's that cannot hit these numbers out there, and this is the hottest one you can buy. 🥵 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 video card benchmark result - Intel Xeon W-3175X Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG DOMINUS EXTREME

@Mr. Fox Not sure if you know this but..... The Best Computer Store in Phoenix, AZ The Wait Is Almost Over – Micro Center Grand Opening Coming in 2025! Micro Center is coming to Phoenix with over 25,000 items in stock and the industry’s best customer service. Phoenix, get ready to experience Tech Heaven for yourself—stay tuned for opening details! https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/phoenix.aspx You might be able to rent that 5090 yet!!

It would appear you didn't have a chance while the card was on air either. (This is called being petty and didn't need to be said. Hoping you start to understand what I'm getting at.) No EVC and no water cooling. This whole scenario was not what I was looking for. Not even close. I was genuinely hoping to see you push the card using your skillset. A brother from notebooktalk showing the rest of the world how the 5090FE runs in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. That way we know it's true potential. To many folks not knowing how to overclock or setup OS's or have the right tools for the job. That's what I was looking for. Not all the excuses on why you can't beat other AIB cards. That wasn't even the topic of discussion. And the fact that you keep throwing around how much you paid for your card and water block. Is just kind of crazy my friend. I can reword that whole downplaying of how much you spent into a completely different light, but I choose not to. I don't do my friends like that. I'm not here to clown, just want to know what the card can do from someone I trust. That's it. No hidden agendas.

#29 HOF 3Dmark with my Founders Edition. 😁 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 video card benchmark result - Intel Xeon W-3175X Processor,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG DOMINUS EXTREME

You would be surprised how many people do not know that. Only works with FAT/FAT32 (no NTFS). Off-topic... saw the new John Wick movie last night "Ballerina" and it was awesome, just like all John Wick movies always are.

Honestly cant see myself spending more than 700ish for a GPU, that being said I will happily buy used in order to still maximize performance per dollar spent as I have done for years at this point. Though in reality I'll upgrade to suit the need, if there is a title that I must play and I know that its beyond what my 7900 XTX can support then I'll likely sell this card (if today, it would likely be at cost or even a profit strangely enough) to look at the next step up. It would be hard to see anything short of a 4090 as an upgrade. Would have to be bewitched to spend 3k on a GPU though... That being said its all relative, I come from lets just say extremely meager means on more than one occasion so my barometer for such things is skewed in that direction.

If everyone would be smart and say eff ewe to companies selling $3400 5090s and $1200 9070 XTs there would be no companies selling $3400 5090s and $1200 9070 XTs. They'd be selling them for what they are actually worth and making a reasonable profit in the process. They have priced them based on how much an idiot is willing to pay for them. Too many people have issues exercising self-control, restraint and prudence. They are driven by their desires more than intelligence. They know this and they are exploting this flaw in their humanity.

daaaaaamn, bro Fox will be basically moving into the new MC as a permanent resident 😄

Why? Because.... 1. MSRP. 2. I like the look/form factor of the FE series. 3. Price:performance it is actually one of the best (if not the best with 9070/xt temporary launch pricing now a thing of the past) just like the 4070 was retail pricing which I pointed out back during ada. Of course the above is no longer true because the temporary introductory prices of the 9070 and 9070xt no longer exist and the MSRP is now higher while the 5070 FE has remained the same. People seem to get stuck on the whole VRAM issue. I am one of the few who thinks the whole 8gb fiasco is blown out of proportion and an 8GB card is ok depending on your use case. I also think 10GB and 12GB is just fine too. I watched the reviews of the 5060 and 5060ti and went, "Ya know, it's not that bad at all..." Same for the 9060xt w/ 8GB of VRAM. Moving that 3Dvcache underneath the CCD has made a major difference. Once they slap it on both and improve their interconnects even more, it will be near perfect. Oh, and go ahead and offer a dual binned variant and call it "Extreme Edition" if you want ala Intel style and charge a touch more and I'm there for it.

But that is what everyone says about everything? If I didn't like it I wouldn't keep it. If that is the case, I would expect far more for my 2000, for as heavy and premium as you say the card is, but then say the cooling is crap. So i'm kind of at a lost on that part. I'm not here to convince you my friend, that your GPU sucks. As I have been down this road with many other ideas I have had over there years and people have said worse. (AC on laptop or pointing in case at GPU or using a water chiller before that was even a thing) And boy did people have nonsense to say. You either buy what you want or you buy what you can afford and that's it. All the rationalizing in the world just means a person can't really afford it. Example: And this went for something as cheap as 50 cent cheeseburgers at McDonalds. Those things are like 3 bucks now. Astral + Alphacool Block + 2 year Accidental Warranty cost me 3,771.36. Potential loss at the end of the day? About $600. That's why I look at it differently. Now if I sell the block then that 600 drops lower. If I give it to @Mr. Fox then the price stays about the same. The astral is not faster at stock for stock for the very obvious reason that the Pro 6000 has more Cuda cores automatically makes it faster at stock. Over clockers are not getting the card to bench it stock. So if that card can not get past the 600W max, then it's just a 10,000 dollar "Hey look at me I spent 10K so I can say I have better stock numbers" card is just foolish. If you bought it to just game/Ai/work and the occasional benchmarks and said nothing, then it's your money and buy what you want. Why? Because that person is not bragging about it. So until that card is unlocked/shunted/modded and cooled, it's just another GPU in the world of over clocking for numbers. And at this point I'm pretty sure no one wants to be represented by Nvidia in the world of over clocking because Nvidia would just take what the people showed them to make it better....A way to lock it down further. Just like Dell/Alienware did. Unfortunately those scores are not acceptable in my book, but that is my opinion, but they are acceptable for gaming. A shunted card doing 16,6K in Steel Nomad is crazy to me. Again, only my opinion. If I'm gaming I would not even bother shunting it. And in reality, this is like the 2nd card I have shunted in 17 years. I would rather not have to do that. That last line is debatable as that is based on user. But I will keep hope alive in that they figure out why the shunt is not working as intended, but I would recommend them not sharing that in the open forums or the next FE will be locked down even further. These are facts and not opinions. Edit: It's not Nvidia as a whole, it's mainly these old timers at the top that do not want to go outside there're comfort zone. Like any company their are a bunch of bright minds that get stifled because of that BS seniority rule. So new ideas do not get seen or past on to the customer. I saw this first hand with Clevo. Not everyone at Nvidia wants to follow Jensen and senior staff, but when it comes to running your mouth or keeping your job....Those people would rather keep their jobs.

I'm glad you don't care what other people think. That is how it should be. It only matters if it affects them and this doesn't. The fact that you like it is all that matters. There are some people that make their decisions based on what their friends think is best or coolest, (without anything else to base it on,) which is really dumb.

Now where is @tps3443 ? I've been waiting for him to get his block and shunt going so we can see what the 5090FE is "supposed" to do. Edit: Now, I am standing here tapping my foot impatiently, waiting.😂

5090 pricing drops and market saturation continues..... 13 different models of open box 5090's on Newegg starting at $2549 with several being marked down even further from their original open box pricing.... Now Newegg is offering +$200 gift certificates on three models including: Gigabyte Gaming MSI Ventus (which already had a price cut) MSI Vanguard (which already had a price cut) Only models truly out of stock (IE, original MSRP listings still up do not count) are three Gigabyte models and that's it: Windforce (cheapest non FE model available) Aorus WB Aorus AIO --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't expect pricing to fall below launch MSRP, but if we can at least get back to it, I'll revisit it. Cancelling an Astral 20% off was an epiphany for myself in regards to how much these cards are really worth to me and how much I would pay for one. Even the 5090FE is overpriced but the least egregious of them all by far at this point.

I love ya bro but..............🤣 Back to our regularly sponsored programming.... I mean a shunt is only because you can't do it via vBIOS and it still doesn't address the memory OC capability of +5000 vs +3000. 😞 Eventually the XOC will be solved. More info and tips and tricks leaking every day but at least you can shunt mod every 5090 so wattage is never the problem which is nice. I'm quite adept at soldering (been doing it since I was in the single digits when I would mod of RC cars as a kid along with rebuilding lawnmower engines to build go carts) but I still would prefer to just use an XOC vBIOS along with getting the opened up memory tuning. But either way tearing down your 5090FE to block it and breaking 17k on SN is quite righteous! Plus gaming steady with 3300+ clocks everywhere is icing on the cake. I thought your pics of the cleaned up 5090FE PCB were great too. You did a really bang up job and it shows. I've really been enjoying your result posts. I still think you should at least drag the chiller out of retirement for a limited engagement so we can see where it goes chilled for benchmarks or it will always be a case of "what if?" I can easily see hitting at least 17.4.k+ on it. Flex it, bench it as hard as possible for a few weeks then put the chiller back into retirement and ride the 5090FE blocked till the 6090.....

PHOENIX!!! YES lol. I'm out there every now and again when I go to the In-Laws home. Finally! And now I can answer yes to the question if I'll ever move back lol. Phoenix based and have access to a MC if I moved out there again. Get your wallet ready lol. It's very dangerous having MC so close by lol. Edit: Just saw it's right next to Sky Harbor. Very dangerous for me on short overnights lol.

We (enthusiasts) are definitely outnumbered by those that don't know, don't care, or exercise restraint when it comes to spending. While I think cost per FPS is valid and something to pay attention to, where we mislead ourselves or rationalize purchases is by thinking in terms of "I am paying for an upgrade" when we should think strictly in terms of "I am buying NVIDIA's current best GPU. Is their pricing in line with what the flagship product was last year, or am I getting screwed?" This should be the primary basis for the purchase decision rather than size of the uplift over last generation equivalent. The size of the performance uplift doesn't matter in the context of needing a new GPU. They need it to be priced based on what it is, not how much better it is or is not. If you think in terms of how much you are paying for an upgrade, an upgrade from what? Where one person measures is different than another. And, that could go the other direction and the price change would need to be smaller for those whose upgrade would be smaller. And, we know they wouldn't want to operate that way because it would be right.

It's getting close! Looking forward to results late tomorrow when I get back from a night on the town with the wife and daughter! @tps3443 tomorrow waiting for FedEx 🤣 And that is good pricing!

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @jaybee83 managed to fix the inconsistent cpu performance in gaming and high-Low CPU usage issues with Process Lasso with Performance and Idle Saver enabled. I didn't think I would be using Process Lasso during my Vista/7 days in 2025 with Windows 11. Windows 11 task manager is broken and doesn't calculate the right CPU frequency of Ryzen on both 23H2 and 24H2. Also, did a cache benchmark from AIDA64 using Strelec with only basic ryzen drivers installed and found the minimum memory latency to 97ns to 105ns compared to my aging skylake 6700hq with 54.5ns on 2667MHz DDR4 which might explain day to day latency I felt skylake was better than ryzen unless I run PS5 ported games and anything CPU heavy.

Those defective 6000 chips will go into China as their newer AI server chips paired with +48GB GDDR7. No point make 5090Ti if they don't cost north of $4500. And that's too much for 5090Ti/Super class cards. The Fury say sing so😁 And very equal as.... This is waste of money @Mr. Fox

I like to think about the 4090 compared to the 4080. My experience was a substantial upgrade very nice boost in games. Everyone with/without a 4090 talked about it, and thought it was +$400 more well spent going for the $1,599 dollar 4090. Now consider the 5090 is also +$400 more than 4090 but an even larger upgrade than that was. I’m beginning to seriously question if anything is ever good enough for me or most people. When we all had 3090’s, and the 4090 came out, we complained because the 4090 was too damn good. It was so fast with frame Gen it made the 3090 instantly obsolete (Nvidia was no friend to us gamers because our 3090 is obsolete now) But now the 4090 owners complain because that didn’t happen again. I don’t think we can ever truly be happy with high end hardware no matter the product they give us. I really don’t think any company or product can fit the bill for what we actually want that would make everyone happy and sing praise lol. All we can do is waste our money, convince ourselves into buying the GPU, then we sing our praises about the things that are true.

Maybe better have a nap😁 Not all average Joe see it this way. If the PC cost above $1000 then it has to be good. And don't expect everyone know the difference between 8 and 16GB vram. You shouldn't give so much credit to humanity. Even stupids can be great people. Sad seeing they become screwed. See bolded text.

I share similar sentiments regarding the 8GB VRAM from an abstract stance, that being said the people who most likely need to be the ones checking in advance as to if that should be a concern are also the most likely to never consider it in the first place. I can think of a litany of uses for 8GB VRAM, but at 24GB Im not thinking of use cases anymore.

@tps3443 is making want to go buy another Astral right now and run it at stock just to see what it gets today. LOL I would do an FE, but that card is like a 4 leaf clover at our Micro Center.😂

Yes, I am sure he does know. He has to know he is our buddy and we think very highly of him. But even so, sometimes a guy feels like an underdog if everyone has a different opinion. The important thing is that a person doesn't change his opinion based only on what others think in order to have their approval or feel accepted in the echo chamber, but it is OK to change it because you have changed your mind as an exercise of your own volition.

w00t w00t! we got separation! 🙂 Stick No. 5 of kit 3 is stable at DDR5-8600 😄 Fun fact: this is one of the open box items, thus significantly cheaper than the new kits 😛 now off to 8700...

RTX Pro 6000 is absolute pure baller class. If price was no object, I'd scoop one up ASAP and pray it doesn't sound like Der8uaers.... 🤣 It is the 5090FE TI Super edition..... As for the Astral 5090, I had fun for two months playing around with it. Trying several vBIOS, OC'ing it, benching and collecting data in WoW, Fallout and Deus Ex along with 3Dmark stuff. Testing V/F curve offsets vs traditional, idle testing and all the fun stuff that was offered along with the 5080FE from launch moving through all the drivers and such. I'm good right now with the 9800X3D + 9070xt. $3600 is steep and personally I loved the 5090 overall but the bang:buck just wasn't there especially in WoW. I think I said it when I got it the problem was the 4090 was already being underutilized in PvP/PvE content and the 5090 just extended that even more. I really gathered a lot of data between the 9070xt and 5090 with WoW and I don't know if it is driver overhead in combination with the WoW engine but when the 5090 is firing on all cylinders, it is firing monstrously. Put the 5090 in an area with zero players and letting the CPU feed it properly and it was almost doubling the fps of the 9070xt (also at 5x the price) with both cards hitting 99% utilization. The problem comes back to player data/physics and when raids/orbs/assaults come into play, both cards tank hard but I found in let's say the new Radiant Flame assault and the final boss fight that the 9070xt actually gets better fps than the 5090 on the bottom end when the CPU is just getting hammered overall. I ran it over and over switching between the 9070xt and 5090 using two independent SSDs with their own W11 installs and the 9070xt just handled the CPU tanking better than the 5090 which results in better game play overall when fps really start to dip. I think I said it during my first round of ownership with the 9070xt when AMD fixed their drivers (understatement) and while the 9070xt was getting overall lower fps, the gameplay was just "smoother" than with the 5090 or 5080FE in WoW. Having run numerous Tier 11 delves solo, the gameplay, smoothness and responsiveness of the 9070xt is >=5090 even when it is getting ~160-170fps vs the 5090 clocking in at 238fps capped to monitor 240. This is with all the cards running 4k Ultra RT max. I'm tempted to pick up another (that would be my 4th or 5th) 7900xtx so I can see if it is fixed properly too with the newest drivers and runs just as smooth but its Achilles Heel was RT on just brutalized it and it was always recommended to turn it off. The 9070xt doesn't suffer from that problem in WoW. It seems odd to say it, but I'm finding the 9800X3D + 9070xt providing the best overall WoW experience atm especially during crunch time vs the 5090 when the CPU is gasping for breath and GPU utilization plummets. On the other hand, the 5090 absolutely wrecked the 9070xt in Fallout 76 and when dealing with outdoor bosses or dailies with plenty of other players, you can definitely feel that difference between the 5090 and the 9070xt. 9070xt is completely playable, but man that 5090 brought the high heat and then some. In the end, it was the $3600 just like in the end it was the $2665 for the KPE 3090ti that I could not reconcile.... The only cards on my radar now are potentially a 5090FE via VPA/BB because while it too is priced stupidly it isn't AS stupid but I'm in zero rush and that's because I want to dabble in some SFF build outs with it and that's the last area to explore with the 5090 for myself. When I get one, if it is a coil whine mess, off to eBay it goes.

Wow, I’m surprised you returned this thing. What 5090 are you buying next? Maybe the more budget friendly RTX Pro 6000? 🤣

Bartlett Lake confirmed! Looks like we won't have to go to Xeon CPUs to escape the E-core madness after all! https://wccftech.com/intel-confirms-nova-lake-s-nova-lake-u-p-core-only-bartlett-lake-s-desktops-panther-lake-laptops/

Oh, the Xeons can also have scheduling issues. I have had trouble with CPPC, so processes on the 2495X do not automatically run on the highest clocked core or the favored cores. Also with hyperthreading enabled it can cause issues with the scheduler similar to what you would see on the 7950X and 9950X. In latency sensitive applications some cores are also more mesh hops away from a given DDR5 or PCIe5 block so depending on which slot you have a GPU in some cores may be better to use than further away favored cores. It will get more interesting if we end up getting a Granite Rapids WS Xeon at some point, with Redwood Cove P-cores. Maybe a LCC or MCC monolithic variant could be tuned to give a 285K or 9950X a run for its money. It would be great if it could also not require registered memory (as was the case on the 3175X) and the latency penalties associated with it.

285k vs 9950X3D both tuned (ish) Overall 9950X3D has higher fps, but the 285k has higher 1% lows sometimes substantially. Now THAT coil whine is identical to my 3090 FE. Just throw in a massive amount of variable pitch changes like the Aorus..... But with that being said, outside of the price, this is what the 5090 should have been from launch with just 32GB for the stupid prices being charged for the 5090. I LOVE the look and design of the Pro 6000 more than the 5090 FE plus you get the full fat GB202. Icing on the cake is the 96GB to run larger LLMs (well for me, I don't know about you). For AI work, it makes more sense for me to pick up a M4 macbook than a 5090. It makes more sense to pick up an M3 Ultra than the RTX Pro 6000. "The 5090 is the waste. The garbage from the production of these (6000)" - brutal. His end rant is spot on. You are getting the die rejects for the 5090 and yields for the full fat are much smaller. I'm sure Nvidia is stock piling the dies that can't even make it to mid range 5090 status and we'll get a 5080ti to dump those off. The fact the 6000 Pro can look and run like a 5090 is all you need to know in regards to Nvidia just pushing and upselling everything to absurd levels. Everything about the RTX 6000 Pro is the 5090 FE on steroids from the looks to the internals. 🤑 I still want a 6000 Pro though.....just not at $8k+

5090 is just an expensive midrange high end gamer cards. The more you pay the more you save. Here's Nvidia's new "gamer "flagship" card😀 Not sure this would please @electrosoft😁 The $10.000 cards almost sounds like a real circular saw. Very special sound from it. Not the worst I have heard but the sound from this is awful and more annoying than this one from my older post

Alright my last resort didn't work to get SLI working on W790. So I will put the 5080 in as primary and maybe use rtx titan for PhysX LOL

Not the best results but Corsair is smart enough to continue offer 2x8-pin to 12v-2*6 cables on the 2025 refresh. Due this you get loads of 8-pin connectors. Corsair HX1200i ATX v3.1 (2025) power supply review – Efficient, quiet and not quite cheap A note on the pair of 8-pin connectors powering the device’s 12V 2×6 cable instead of a native connector. In my professional opinion, this is better and safer as the load is spread across two larger connectors rather than a single one, which helps to keep operating temperatures lower under high load. It also makes it easier to bend the appropriate cable closer to the side of the power supply without the risk of damaging the connector and increasing the resistance of certain conductor cross-sections or pins.

Thanks for the well wishes my friend. Yeah, I am doing good again. I am mostly back to normal now. I still can do physical exercise, or lift heavy stuff. We did a full day trip to see our son on his birthday. Over 1000 kms of driving. I am feeling it this morning, but I will be ok. I can't wait to get back to 100 percent because I will be better than I was previously! Now if I could get this damn laptop to co-operate with me I would be happy! ha ha.

Just got my PC up and running. 3AM now going to bed! Okay, shunt mod WORKS PERFECTLY! Voltage locks out to 1070mv and card runs 2,902Mhz default with no overclocking. Power usage is cut in half all the time. Temps are beyond ridiculous. My card was idling at 26c, and in games running 38c-40c with some quick testing.

PS: My card is shunted for 1200 watts of cable melting power. 🔥 🤣

EKWB 5090FE block arrived. It looks like EKWB has finally included some quality thermal pads. They use to include that blue thermal tape previously 🤣 I may just use these!

I can check, but I’ll say 120+ fps without DLSS or FG in Starfield is pretty easy for 5090. Unfortunately I didn’t have any comparisons with my old 4090 using those settings at native without FG. I don’t see a huge performance loss when I turn off DLSS Quality and go to native with 5090. I think the 5090 is definitely faster over the 4090 than people make it out to be. The efficiency is really amazing as well. Many scenarios I’m finding my 5090 using the same or just slightly more power than my 4090 like maybe 25 watts more, all while being much faster. It’s not too terrible for $1,999.99. Performance is there. Efficiency is there for sure. Performance has gone up everywhere! I’m feeling the slight effects of PCIe X16 3.0 bandwidth bottlenecks with a 5090 which is about 2% at 4K and 4% at 1440P.

You can use the NVIDIA driver team PPA and possibly get "old" NVIDIA drivers installed on your "new" Ubuntu distro. They have NVIDIA 390 and 470 drivers available for Ubuntu 24.04 to support "old" GPUs. https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa (This repo is maintained by the folks that actually package the NVIDIA drivers in the Ubuntu production repositories. They package older versions for newer versions of Ubuntu, and they also release NVIDIA driver updates to this repo usually within a few days after NVIDIA kicks them out.) For a GPU upgrade... Really, you can look at the Maxwell cards, GeForce 980M and Quadro M5000M. They have nearly identical performance and both work as a more-or-less drop-in replacement on this system. Maxwell is the oldest currently supported generation from NVIDIA though, so chances are you will run into the same problem again soon when they drop support. Next up would be Quadro P5000, one generation newer. It works as a drop-in replacement under Linux only. For Windows, you have to flash a different vBIOS on it to get it to be bootable. Both of these require a minor mod to (most) GPU heatsinks in the M6800. They have the VRMs at the "top" of the board in a slightly different position. There is a bit "jutting out" of the heatsink that bumps into these such that you cannot install it flush. You have to use a Dremel or something to cut that bit off. If you are largely relying on the cards for hardware video encoding, you can look at "cheaper" versions of these cards (GeForce 970M, Quadro M3000M, Quadro P3000, etc.). 3D performance will be less but video encoding performance is the same among all cards in the same generation. There are later generation cards from NVIDIA (i.e. Quadro RTX 5000, which is Turing) that can be made to work, but the MXM board format is changed so they require more substantial physical modifications. (If you are running Windows, you need to do an INF mod for any "unsupported" NVIDIA GPU to get the driver to load, but this shouldn't be an issue under Linux.)

I upgraded from my M1 Pro I've used for years and before that an Intel Macbook 15 and before that a Macbook Pro 17. You do know my "real job" is/was Obj-C dev work and now a mix of Obj-C and Swift right? 🤣 I love PCs, but I loved Apple first. I've used Macs since my first Mac Plus was given to me by my mom back in 86. Also had an SE/30. When I went to college, I had a 7100/66 Power Mac and then a Dual G5 tower before moving onto a Cheese Grater Xeon before finally just using Macbooks exclusively. I've also used iPads since launch and iphones since launch. Still rocking a M1 12.9" ipad because quite frankly it is more than fast enough but the way iPadOS 26 is shaping up to take on more Mac like features, if Apple converges their gaming pursuits properly to support the ipad and Mac (both run M4's now which is crazy) along with their promised gaming push from the WWDC, we might see something from devs. Best bet for Apple is to target releases from the iphone through the Mac. I rock an iphone 16 pro max and gave my 14 pro max to the wife to upgrade from her X which was also originally mine that I upgraded from a 7 plus and before that a 5 and before that a 4, 3g and the original on AT&T. I usually stick to PC talk in here though for the most part. Just thought I would drop a little WoW on M4 Max nugget since I spew forth so much WoW benchmarks and info on the PC side..(in case you didn't notice). And yes, project compile times are wrecking my M1 Pro and while it isn't spitting out insane fps in WoW, it is completely playable and the fans are audible in compiles too but NOTHING like any of my gaming PC laptops. I will say this one is definitely much louder than my M1 Pro though under load and gets much warmer stressed but that is to expected. M1 Pro stays pretty silent because it ran so much cooler overall as M4 has upped the heat and power draw ante. Now that is good news! Can'd (sadly) wait for the tear down and results! You still have your chiller right? Really sounds like you got "working as intended and nothing more" if it is capping out at 7600. I'd ship that thing back as fast as I shipped back that first 9800X3D dud. Absolute trash chip. --------------------------------------------- Best Buy has had the Astral ($3359) and the XFX Mercury 9070xt ($919) in stock for days now. These are both the most expensive AIBs for Nvidia and AMD respectively. Astrals have never gone out of stock at my MC for about a week now.... 11 different models in stock with some at 25+ PNY has now stopped saying their $3500 and $3200 cards were "on sale" at $2999 and now put them back at the lower MSRP. The initial "must have" rush is over.... The bulk of 5090 Founders Editions on eBay are all under $3k now brand new.

Thanks. I will have a closer look tomorrow. My 9950X3D is SP120 as well. I just got the Strix build put together and have about 2.5 hours to sleep before work tomorrow. No problem running 8000 C36, but still need to tune it. First distro plate I have owned. I like it, but getting the air out of it was a little bit tedious. It was very noisey when it had tons of air in it. Now that most of the air is worked out, it is cranking out some decent flow (318-320 L/H). It started out less than half that rate. Top and bottom rads both push/pull. I purchased a second set of KingBank 8400 and will probably sell my G.SKILL 8000 EXPO kits (3 of them).

Nothing beat the sound of the bagpipe😄

100%. That's what they do. They do it at the hardware/firmware level and they can do even more with cancer drivers. They've always been that way. I still remember and resent their clock-blocked crap on notebooks about 10 years ago using drivers. If you wanted to play games that required the new driver then you were SOL on overclocking. Very scummy.

In the words of everyone here....Form over fashion my friend. And all air cooler cards do not suck, just because they don't cool a card down to 30C. Not sure how this has become stand practice now. Cards run in the 70's at some people houses. And max is what 88C or something like that? Yes and no. I ran mine without a chiller and still got better numbers. 17699 to be exact. All I had were fans. I keep trying to tell you, it's Nvidia blocking the performance. My Astral is on chiller now. And I gained about 450 points with block and chiller. So nothing fancy there, but then I know why it's not higher. Everyone on planet earth knew the FE was always cheaper, I thought that was a given? I sure hope so, because right now, that card does not look promising when it comes to benching numbers, but gaming... it's great. If that card can't crack 17k shunted on stock cooler then there is a problem. And I don't think it's the user. Just my opinion. Still hoping you crack to code so we can see it move into the 17k range.🙂

I'm sure you know the answer (and you say so). Black tubing is the only option for me. I used clear tubes many years ago. But only for a short time. Black is pretty. Black is classic. And black tubes offer less maintenance. So best of both worlds🙂 What a fantastic stupid connector design choice for the cards. They (the engineers) know the fragile tiny trash can melt/overheat and burn up, yet they prefer to hide the problem behind the 4th fan. Aka you'll never know what about to happens before it's too late. You may get lucky and get blackscreen and can find the problem. But not everyone understand what't about to happen. Here's @Mr. Fox looking on the stupidity from his smartphone... Aka nowadays computer for the young ones. Make stupid design choices... Then hide the tiny connector/cable to make it more pretty🙄 Gigabyte Launches the Aorus GeForce RTX 5090 Stealth Ice Graphics Card Here's one more. Hide the power connector behind plastic covers.... Out of sight. Out of mind. Until you can smell some burnt plactic. AX Gaming GeForce RTX 50xx X3W MAX Series Debuts With Hidden Power Connection System

^^^ This ^^^ AND, Hyperthreading. Super-retarded that they did away with that. In fact, this is the primary reason I went with an AM5 build. Had Core Ultra 285K not been missing hyperthreading I am 99% certain I would have bought A Z890 Apex and 285K instead of 9950X. They screwed themselves extra hard on that one, and customers have spoken loudly with their wallets. Overall, I still think Intel has a better platform than AMD and I am sad they've screwed it up by making stupid choices. (Why does it seem like I am saying this frequently about all brands now? Because they are all idiots. None of them deserve our support at this point, only our wrath.) Only item remaining is the 14900KF (SP104). Everything else has sold. @YoungChris at oc.net is interested but having to scrape up the cash. It's not being held for him. First-come, first-serve. I've got a WireView and WireView Pro that I am not able to use any longer. I sold the Gigabyte 4090 that one was used on and the other one will not fit my 4090 Suprim with the new Alphacool Core waterblock. (It did fit with the Byksi block.) I will probably list both of them and the MSI 4090 Byski block. If anyone is interested before I list them drop me a PM to let me know.

Did you have one melt before? Yes, I sawed it. I could see your FE sucks flag/banner raised up from my bedroom window. 🤣 How much do you wager? 😎

Everyone that purchased parts on overclock.net has been thrilled with their purchases. Especially the guy that bought the Gene parts combo. He made out like a bandit, LOL. Nice to see good parts getting put to use instead of collecting dust on my spare parts shelf. I still have the Strix combo with the excellent bin 13900KS and G.SKILL 7200 kit and the SP104 14900KF for sale. If the Strix combo doesn't sell by the time I do the second AORUS Master build I will probably sell it locally on Facepoot Marketplace as a working system minus GPU or with the old Titan Black GPU. That would probably be better anyhow because I would have to figure out how to get rid of the Antec C8. While I am waiting for Central Computer to send a replacement for the AORUS Master that was damaged from the NVMe heatsink slamming around inside of the unopened motherboard box, the XL EVO and distro block to arrive I decided to go ahead and integrate the RAM water cooling on the existing beast. I used the EK manifold for this as I usually do, but mounted it to a new place. This will also make it easy to connect the chiller and bypass the radiators. The QDC fitting for cold water leaving the chiller is on the dual D5 pump housing (same place as before) and the "hot" water going back to the chiller will use the QDC fitting on the EK manifold. It still purging the air from the loop, but working well otherwise. So, the internal loop routes like this: D5 pump/res > RAM block in RAM block out > EK manifold EK Manifold > CPU in CPU out > EK manifold EK manifold > Top radiator Top radiator > Rear X-Flow radiator Rear X-Flow radiator > Bottom radiator Bottom radiator > IceMan Dual D5 block Dual D5 block > GPU in GPU out > D5 pump/res Using the chiller the routing will be: Chiller out > IceMan Dual D5 block Dual D5 block > GPU in GPU out > D5 pump/res D5 pump/res > RAM block in RAM block out > EK manifold EK Manifold > CPU in CPU out > EK manifold EK manifold > Chiller in

12VHPWR or whatever popular thing they are calling today, or whatever they decide to rename it tomorrow, is truly a POS connector that never should have seen the light of day. It is a sketchty, ill-conceived, fragile, unreliable and dangerous piece of crap. Nothing they can do to it--ever--will make it a good and reliable power cable. The group at NVIDIA responsible for bringing this abortion to market need to be stripped naked and caned in public until dead, then resuscitated, their employment terminated, citizenship revoked and then deported to a far away horrible place where life is miserable.