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We are a very small, tight knit community that started as a cast off from the original NBR forums which were already dying to the point they shut them down in totality. Those forums at one point were so large and influential that representatives from the major laptop makers would frequent them on the regular for interaction and feedback but with changing market conditions, social media and other means of delivery coupled with niche and specialized laptops dying out and being replaced with thin fast and cheap laptops the writing was on the wall. You can't blame laptop makers for this as they simply go where the $$$ is and the vast majority of consumers have zero desire to tinker with their laptops and just want them to work, with good battery life and be light and portable. Every year, we saw true DTRs dying off and those original representatives basically abandoning NBR till all that was left was Clevo and their last somewhat true DTR based on desktop chips was their 12th gen hybrid 15.6" model (Clevo NH55) which did poor enough to signal the end of DTR anything as we knew it with interchangeable CPUs and GPUs. The first real death stroke was Nvidia basically abandoning MXM and upgradeability standards. ----- A community such as this is only as good as the enthusiasts who still have a passion for some older hardware and many of those, myself included, have moved onto more modern laptops because all the modding in the world will not approach the power modern models provide. The best you can do with modern laptops is look for models that at least have or offer the possibility of flexible BIOS so you can at least tune your hardware. Prema still offers his BIOS services on some models commercially followed by MSI which still has their excellent unlockable BIOS options. Dell/Alienware does offer some limited options as does Asus. You can also look to make mods to the actual cooling system itself from something as basic as upgrading the thermal interface material to modding the actual heatsink and fans themselves along with the chassis to improve air flow. Good luck!

Thought you all might appreciate a few photos I took from my own reference of the internals since it was my biggest interest on the redesign

Hello everyone! Do you want to upgrade your old laptop MXM GPU? But you can't since the newest RTX Turing, Ampere and Ada aren't working with your eDP display? I have the solution for you! The backlight mod to enable eDP display for your MXM card! Finally the mystery was resolved on why these cards don't display in our eDP laptops. Every cards from Turing to Ada generation, from brands like Aetina, Adlink, PNY, ZRT and X-Vsion will work with this mod! What was the issue with these cards then? They were all lacking 3 essential pins. These pins are used to power on the panel. They are called backlight pins! Without them, your screen stays black, even if you have eDP or DP signal in the right video port. The solution: Making a solder-less mod, a flex FPC cable that allows to power the 3 backlight pins with ease! Version 1 manufactured. The 3 backlight pins are set in 23, 25 and 27 pins of the MXM slot and the MXM card. What we're trying to do is to power the backlight pins using the 3.3V from the pins 278 and 280, that's it! The flex cable is going to be insulated and will be able to handle high temperatures! I'll use double-sided insulated tape for the back side of the backlight pins, to secure the installation. Where can I get one? You might ask. You can purchase them online, I'll even give a PDF file for instructions. Price (without shipping): 13.75€ on PayPal Friendly (DM me) 14.99€ on eBay (listing available, just search for it) We can finally have an RTX 4080 or an RTX 4090 in the master slot of the MXM and output thru the main eDP display! Clevo P870 with dual RTX 4090? P570WM with an RTX 4090?! P775 with an RTX 3080 Ti?! Will work with (for MXM slot that allows eDP or DP on DP_D and cards that lack the backlight pins) RTX A3000 (XVSION), RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3070 TI, RTX 3080, RTX 3080 Ti (ZRT, X-VSION, Enbik) RTX 4050, RTX 4060, RTX 4070, RTX 4080, RTX 4090 (ZRT, X-VSION, Enbik) RTX 3500 Ada (Aetina), RTX 5000 Ada (Aetina), RTX A4500, RTX 3000, RTX 4000, RTX 5000 (Aetina, PNY, Adlink) (Tell me if I forgot some cards) Brightness control works only in my P570WM with 4080 and 4090 if the vbios is set to eDP out. Sleep mode and saving modes work. Working on: Dell Precision M6700, M4700 (PURE-UEFI, NO OPROM LEGACY) Dell Precision M6800 and M4800 eDP version, Dell Precision 7710 and 7720 Clevo P570WM3, Clevo P775, Clevo P870, Clevo X170 Potentially Potentially could work on HP ZBOOK G5 17 and HP ZBOOK G6 17 Disclaimer, Requirements! - This mod can work with laptops that have the eDP set to DP_D and has the backlight pins assigned in 23, 25 and 27 pins in the slot - The BIOS of the laptop shouldn't have any whitelist - The BIOS should be in pure-UEFI - You need to have an eDP display that supports DP 1.1-1.2 (2011-2013 laptops) at least for RTX Ampere and Ada GPU - You need to install/edit EDID data for RTX 4080 and 4090 from X-VSION and RTX 5000 from ADLINK ONLY!! Because the VBIOS set the DP_D eDP to disabled and which results to a non-PnP data being initialized everytime you start the laptop ___________________ After a lot of research and some testing with soldering, that's the conclusion to the solution! Thank you!

For the past 6+ years I have used my own desktop PCs for work and now I will be using a company-issued turdbook for work. I repurposed my dual Acer 4K 160Hz panels for the work PC since I will be needing the massive screen real estate for work. I grabbed a 40" Samsung Odyssey G75F 5120x2160 180Hz WUHD monster on sale at Micro Center for $638 (model LS40FG75DENXZA) and it seems pretty great so far. It doesn't like the 4090 and neither does my ASUS 4K 120Hz monitor. I have to lower the resolution to not have a BIOS or Windows Boot Manager black screen (same problem using the ASUS screen with 4090) when using DisplayPort. Something about 40-series firmware and high refresh rate 4K on DisplayPort is glitchy. There are many examples of people complaining about this online. Using HDMI 2.1 it functions flawlessly. The 5090 doesn't care whether I use DisplayPort or HDMI.

We opened this forum so that it can be a soft landing pad for those who still surfed those forums could still mingle. Personally I wanted to keep in contact with those of like mind in hobbies that I also enjoy. Forums have become fragmented over time especially for laptops as manufacturers become more and more locked down both on software and hardware. The identity of the forum may change over time as a result. That being said we are able to keep the forum relatively light in cost so as a result we are comfortable keeping it alive effectively forever. You can always PM me if you have questions or concerns I do try to be as fair as possible in moderating.

The main problem is, that this community has rather few members and not everyone left is tinkering around with their laptops anymore. Like me for example. Normally, i only login once a week, because there is not much interesting activity. This is not, what NoteBookReview once was. Unfortunately. In addition, there are not many models on the market available, that can be used for modding. Almost none with current hardware. Which makes such a forum really difficult to maintain.

Hey everyone! Still rocking the same system. My 5090 has been strong! Hard to think its already been 8 months since I got it. 6 months of that has been shunted for 1200w. It has been getting rung out hard though. I essentially lost interest in talking about this hobby and just been using it for work/gaming daily. 😆Something has pulled me back in to talking about the hobby though. I suppose I needed a break from the daily PC discussion lol. On another note, tonight I flashed my Acer Predator 4090 18" laptop to some random unverified Asus 4090 Laptop bios from techpowerup, and this thing picked up tons more performance. I am able to pull 175w steady in games, I could never do that before, usually 150-160w before. So, I checked my bios, and apparently my bios was the 1215Mhz clock/ 1590 Boost. And the bios I flashed to now is a 1590 clock/ 2040 boost. My GPUz said mine was a 175W bios, so thats why I never tried this before. So, I flashed out of curiosity. And it's just blowing the doors off of the prior bios that was on this Acer Predator. I am not really sure why. But I can run another +250Mhz on the core. It is really odd. Anyways, hello everyone!

The stock voltage is 1.15v and the stock power is 600w. The XOC vBIOS is publicly available on tech power up and is 2001w, which further unlocks voltage and memory another +1000 over other 5090s. Some nice individual over at OC.net PM'd me the extra special HOF tool for even further voltage, LLC, and switching period control. Basically the same as the old KingPin tools. Ordered the HOF 5090D IceMan waterblock on AliExpress. Figured the card is pretty rare and any future owner will def. want the ability to put it under water to take advantage of the voltage and power limits.

Just scored a 980Ti for 50 bucks on ebay. Not really anything to write home about, except that it appears the owner was not aware that it came equipped with the morpheus 2 aftermarket heatsink which can't be sourced for anything less than 250-500. Obviously not going to spend that much on just a heatsink so I'm quite happy with the purchase. It's going to be a busy winter this year :)

I do! I'll snag a picture when I get home :)

What's up everyone! I am sorry I have been away for awhile. I am trying my hand at YT and hopefully build a large enough following to get sponsored by a CNC maker or continue to build my reserve to buy one. I haven't had the urge to upgrade any of my PC's to the latest and greatest (although I am thinking about the 9950X3D). I came across some local listings on a 5090, that weren't exactly deals (used, still above MSRP). The days of great used hardware prices are dead - people want 80 to 110% of their purchase price, and with new cards closing in on their MSRP's, I don't know who is buying used at these prices. I think that if Intel releases the B770 and it's under $400, I'll pounce on that card. I only need something good enough for video editing and CAD. I hope you and your families are doing well. I'm back here fully, doing my normal lurking.

Sometimes this is why I love this hobby. O it's no supposed to work Intel? Lets see about that.

Maybe someday I can be bothered with Memory tuning, but its not going to be today, or tomorrow, or the day after :) I enjoy overclocking to yield tangible gains in gaming. Looks like PCIe Bifurcation works on my Aorus ITX x570. That being said I had to scrunch up the ribbon cables so much for the test that I think it was rendered non-functional. The 7900 XTX wouldnt show up at all and the 3090Ti was misbehaving quite severely reporting the link at PCIE 2.0 But it POSTed! so thats progress of a sorts. Got a shorter ribbon (60mm) so hopefully that works i'll test this weekend.

Grab it before its too late😁 Remember its an limited edition. MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPUs listed on eBay for almost $27,000 — limited edition graphics card demands 500% premium from resellers As you can see... The world is filled with stupids. I'm sure there is some out ther that are willing to pay $27K for the Lightning.

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29562444/ What grade are you in? Are your classmates really mean to you, or is it a parenting issue?

While I missed the boat on the best pricing for 8000MT+ RAM, I am happy I spent the 150 to 180 for each of the nine 4TB NVMe SSDs I got over 2025. I went nuts on the Acer GM7000 SSDs. I did a quick calculation, I have over 100TBs in SSDs (spread across 8TB, 4TB, 2TB and 1TB drives) in operation. If I were to buy them in today's prices, I'd have to spend over 30K. Damn! I guess being a frugal data hoarder has it benefits once in awhile.

I've applied for a lot of jobs I am ideally suited for and could do with my eyes closed that have not worked out. Ageism is illegal, but it is more real than anyone wants to admit. I have one that looks even better that I have my third interview for today that I pray works out and it would probably end up being the best one I have applied for. The one that looked promising that you referred to is not off the table, but the President wanted to see how how the financials looked for 2025 and how January revenue looks before adding a new c-suite resource to staff. On the WireView Pro... when you get around to it, this screenshot might be useful if you run into any complications getting Windows to correctly identify it. I think the key is manually installing the driver in Device Manager, immediately powering off and unplugging the PSU long enough for the board and everything attached to lose power. It appears there was some sort of delivery failure. I replied and it shows to have been sent, but you evidently cannot see the reply on your end. Thanks for checking on me, brother. I really appreciate it.

Happy New Year everyone.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Blessings to all of you.

Merry Xmas and happy holidays to all! It bit funny and ironic we just talked about your adventures with Best Buy.....good luck! Two observations on the yellow tip again: If it were black, you wouldn't be able to see even the mild scorch marks. Companies should start including these in white or yellow for clear visibility of scorching. I still suspect there are plenty of black connectors out there already with scorch marks. You just can't see them. The bottom row strikes again with the weaker, [ ] design which I posit is susceptible to physical stress and speeds up the cycle as they are heated up and in conjunction with the physical stress are pulled ever so slightly open making them even more susceptible. --- These connectors really should not be physically stressed at all and the weaker the design (like MSI's bottom row array) the more the stress can cause meltdowns in conjunction with migrating imbalance of amps over time for various reasons.

Merry Christmas to all my extended family in this thread!!! Now, I am in a bit of a dilemma. Bestbuy has the Prime 5070 TI for $749.99, brand new. I just spent that on the "Like New" card from Amazon. I am going to cancel the card from Amazn and begrudgingly buy from Bestbuy. Here goes nothing....

So I ended up snagging a pair of V-Color 9600 2x24GB DDR5 off of eBay new from a seller I've dealt with before In today's market conditions, couldn't beat the price of $489.99 plus I had two coupons for eBay (basically, "you haven't shopped us in a long time!" coupons) for $15 off and $10 off respectively. I was able to use both of them knocking it down to $464.99 for a total of $495.80 shipped and with ebay rewards, that knocks another $15 off of it making it $480.92 to my door. Am I doing backflips? No, but much better than those G.Skill sticks that would have been $650.40 to my door.....still..... This is *exactly* why I try to avoid new platforms because once I start it gets ugly real fast. 🤣 Remember 11th gen? I was just going to pick up a 11700k and the cheapest Z590 board and use my dirt cheap DDR4 sticks to "give it a whirl." Within 4 months, it is several 11900k's binned, Asus Z590 board and EVGA Z590 along with multiple kits of DDR4.... I'd like to say I won't end up binning some 285k/290k chips, but that would be most likely a big ole fib....🤣

Regarding 5090, still have some telegram bots reporting new drops and prices, yesterday was a founders 5090 drop from nvidia directly on their website for 2099 Euro. Got the notification and went on the site. Got one in the shopping cart but after like 5 minutes of thinking if I need it, I decided to close the website. Every game I play like battlefield 6 or stalker 2 works perfectly on the 4090. So it just a waste of money for me. Also went to the website like almost 40 min later and they were still available, tried to put one again in the cart and it went through, I was against one click to order it and closed again. So it looks like the market is saturated a little. Also got this baby to play with. Nice looking card😃. An oldie but still packing a punch with those 32GB HBM2 memory for larger AI models. Will try some qwen 2.5 and Llama bigger ones on it

Sold my Z890 Apex and 285K to @win32asmguy Paid for and shipped to them this afternoon.

I haven't uploaded a video in a long time. Now that I finally found stable settings I wanted to save a permanent record for myself and help anyone else that feels like they are spinning their wheels. Moving from Intel to AMD overclocking is more difficult than moving from Windoze to Linux. Maybe (just maybe) there is something in here that would be useful to Brothers @jaybee83 or @Raiderman

A little preview of what I'm building next Sage 621e

Sometimes I feel like I make the worst decisions. Found this card brand new from a small shop in Florida.

So I finally have a formal staycation lined up for christmas time, first time in maybe 6 years...So naturally I have some work lined up lol 2x GTX 690 w/ accelero xtreme 1x ATi HD 5870 w/ accelero xtreme 2x GTX 280's (1x w/ accelero xtreme) 2x 9800 GTX's w/ accelero xtreme (Having to modify, doesnt line up perfectly) 2x ATi HD 5970's (1x accelero xtreme) 1x AMD R9 280X TRI-X 1x AMD R9 390X TRI-X 1x ATi 4870x2 Reference 1x GTX 295 Dual PCB 1x GTX 970 MSi Gaming 1x RTX 3090Ti 1x 7900 XTX Red Devil (Never Finished) 1x GTX 1060 3GB (Reference) I might pick up a few more GPU's if the price is right. Thanks to @Mr. Fox's writeup I'll likely start to pick up some of the water cooling equipment so I can put the 7900 XTX and 10850K (also courtesy of The Fox!) under water and get a bench built around that next to my Daily Driver. Luckily I am still working more than I sleep so picking these parts up should be more than plausible... If you guys have any 3rd party heatsinks for older cards feel free to reach out, I seem to have a fascination with accelero xtremes :)

Hahaha, the PRO 7995wx is good even Overkill for what is needed it but it was an offer i cannot refuse😆😆. Was in holiday and didnt have time for it. Still need to optimize and rearange Cables inside, got a 9100 Pro2 TB for that Pcie gen 5. Need more ram and also gpus. Ignore the gtx1050 , it's only for tests. I will need to get an riser 90 degree to fit the gpu inside. But I love the mainboard, Asrock wrx90 ws evo, went with it because the other wrx90 is from Asus and I despise them. More expensive as the asrock and full of problems .Reddit and forums are full of them. STUPID Asus wants over 1k euro for that mainboard and still cannot make it work. The Asrock is incredible, so many options, bulid like a tank, a lot of connectivity, bmc remote management is superb. And it booted and did the whole diagnostic and memory training in under 3 minutes. That's good for a complicated platform like the threadripper.I love it. Use case it will be my homelab brain. Will run a gazillion VMs because Cores are plenty and I will also start Local AI training. Still need to decide on gpus..maybe I will get some Rtx A series ore Rtx Ada for it.

Mission accomplished! 🤣 (Out to dinner with the wifey tonight for her birthday)....... 5090 for $2054 total in my hand secured...... Foxtrot Tango Whiskey.... (That look when you refused to pay the stupid high prices, returned your Astral, and calmly waited and watch the market to drop and hoping to snag an Open box sub $2k).....

Boo! Ghost from the dead saying hi.

duuuude 😄 but WAIT, no 9995WX? peasant! 🤣 what are ur plans for this beastly setup? post some pics of the hardware and internals 🙂

HeHe😄

Well this weekend I installed the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, AM4. Luckily it had flashback as the firmware did not support the 5800X3D when I got it, one flash later and it POSTed. Though the extra memory modules I purchased were no good, seller is attempting to replace but we'll see on that front. I also traded the 3090Ti for a 9070 XT. I just didnt have a use for it and my server needs dont justify it at all. Also added an NVME to 10Gbps Eth adapter. With the 9070 XT sitting in slot 3 under pcie 4 x8, acting as the Frame Gen mule. I am able to sustain 60 FPS at 4K with Monster Hunter Wilds, with Frame Gen via Lossless Scaling carrying it to 120 "fps". I have to say, this method is quite viable. At 2x Fixed with both GPU's I am using less power than when using the 7900 XTX alone. I'll try out some FPS titles eventually to see if the latency is perceivable. Under Monster Hunter Wilds and GoW: Ragnarok I cant perceive the latency. Ideally I would like to use Adaptive so that if the FPS drops under a threshold the Frame Gen could fill the gap but I could feel the delay on the mouse hand. Under this scenario and the "improved" ducting from the A/C, the GPU was running at 22C, with the Ambient temperature being around 16C from the A/C unit. There is still gaps in the ducting but it would make the system less accessible as well. Pretty happy with the results glad I kept chasing down this experiment. Hate that its needed for certain titles to play well but I do appreciate that its there.

Perhaps when Reddit and Discord are going to force everyone to verify their ages that users who do not want to do that are going back to traditional forums. Until that time we have to accept that we're not as large here as the old NotebookReview forums once were.

Well, now this is a nice new feature added to the latest update of Winaero Tweaker. Does the same thing as the script I have been adding to the right-click menu. Just check the box and it's ready to use. Very awesome.

I think the vBIOS has to support it. If it does not that might be why there are no examples of it having been done on numerous other video cards rather than just a select few.

I don't know what's more insulting.... Not sending a replacement set which they do have in stock but it now costs almost 3x as much or having the balls to deduct 15% from the refund for the original cost because of use depreciation when in actuality the items valuation depreciation actually increased over two fold..... In this situation, you either offer a product replacement equal or better than sent in for repair. You don't offer a refund because the replacement set is now worth so much more and you DEFINITELY don't then have the cojones to lop off 15% use depreciation. That is absurdly greedy on a gobsmackingly large scale. Not that Silicon Power was ever really on my list except besides a few freebies tossed my way for evaluation, but they will never be on my list to buy pretty much anything. 😠 Heh heh, what I liked most was him flat out saying he won't be soldering on another connector for him. Makes me think Dufus asked if he could also add another connector with the repair and was told, "nah bruh." 🤣 Ended on a sad note, though. His sister was murdered in Washington State. 😞 It was good to see the large outpouring of support though via his sister's gofundme and messaging. ♥️

Not everyday I see the editors/writers from Pcworld use their brain. If you buy Razer’s insane $1337 mouse, I will be very disappointed in you I remember the first time I bought a Razer mouse. Inside the box was a letter printed on fancy vellum paper. It opened with, “Welcome to the cult of Razer.” It appears that this isn’t just a cheeky marketing slogan, Razer means it genuinely. Because only brainwashed cult members would pay $1337 for a mouse. It is, in a word, repugnant. In a more accessible word, it’s greedy. In a more all-encompassing and entirely appropriate word, the Razer Boomslang 20th Anniversary Edition is bullshit. Razer is taking pre-orders for the mouse in four days. If you buy one, and I want you to imagine this in the most overbearing and judgmental dad voice possible, I will be very disappointed in you.

soooooo i used my last three days of sick leave to get some shit done at home, including computer stuff 🙂 > applied full backplate coverage TG Putty Pro - check! if anyone is interested, you need about 250-300 grams worth of putty to cover the whole backside of an air cooled 5090. > while the gpu was out, i used the opportunity to also install the wireview pro II and replace the gpu power cable (angled back to straight, both seasonic) > good news: both cable and socket were still pristine, not even a whiff of discoloration or burn marks. > good news 2: did a quick max OC test in alan wake at max. settings with the gigachad vbios, max. variance i saw between pins was 1.1 amps (7.5 vs. 8.6) under load, that i can totally live with! > also finally came around to delid my second 9950X3D and put it under the TG high performance heat spreader with LM > while i was at it, did some dusting and cleaned the tempered glass windows, clear views to the RGB rainbow puke once more 😄 still need to do testing with regards to gpu / cpu temps after the changes, as well as check how the RAM OC was impacted. you might remember that i suspected a suboptimal cpu mount for not being able to reach my previously stable 8000 setting. fingers crossed!

I can smell it, too. This gal lets a Jensen in the car. Or, is it a Nadella? They smell the same. And, I can feel it.

Record setting Precision 7550 with a 7750's 110W Quadro rtx 5000 shoved into it https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/151229648

Process Lasso is definitely the way to go if you have a dual CCD processor with 3D V-Cache. No need for Micro$lop XBOX feces bloatware and the extra chipset driver crap. Just select the EXE and choose the affinity and BOOM, every time you launch that game it uses the CCD with the cache. When you close the game it is back to using all cores and threads. Easy, peasy... no hokey pokey nonsense with flakey rubbish from the Redmond Reprobates.

For the GPU, I would say select whichever one costs less, especially if you are putting a waterblock on it. My Zotac 5090 Solid OC was a good buy compared to the other more expensive options that deliver nothing for the extra money. It is an excellent GPU. The air cooler on it was fantastic (unlike some of the other affordable brands/models). It ran freakishly cool for an air cooled GPU. The only 50-series GPU I would recommend avoiding like a plague is an FE model. For overclocking potential probably the best GPU silicon quality most consistently will be an AORUS Master, but the cost vs benefit isn't justified. I love overclocking more than anything else I do with a computer, and really the only reason computers matter to me at this point, but paying a WHOLE LOT more for a very small gain in GPU benchmark scores is just not a very intelligent decision. I have owned the following X870E motherboards and I list them in my order of preference: X870E AORUS Master (best overall - only flaw is no way to disable WiFi/BT in BIOS) X870E-E Strix (replacement for second AORUS Master that arrived with shipping damage) X870E Apex (returned first for refund, second was junk, I am using #3) X870E Carbon (returned for refund - good mobo, but no async BCLK and weird glitches) X879E Taichi (my least favorite out of all AMD motherboards I have owned - hated it) I had a X870E Taichi and hated it. The PCIe bifurcation was garbage and I did not care for the firmware. I have only owned two ASRock motherboards and did not like either one. I had a B850 AORUS Elite that I used in a build for my granddaughters and it was excellent. The only criticism I had was the PCIe slots below the GPU slots were X1, but using them did not drop the GPU to X8. This is unavoidable with anything below X870E dual chipset due to a lack of PCIe lanes with an non "E" AMD dual chipset motherboard. PCIe X1 dramatically reduces NVMe speed... makes NVMe speed like SATA SSD. If you plan to insert anything in other PCIe slots in addition to your GPU in an AMD motherboard the "E" version is an absolute must have. The only complaint I have with the Gigabyte boards is no way to disable WiFi/BT in the BIOS. Super stupid flaw they could fix effortlessly if they cared. If you use WiFi/BT and use Windoze 11 as your main OS (I do not do either one) this truly is a non-issue. It really pissed me off that Gigabyte did not provide that option in the BIOS. I asked twice and both times they said no... "you're the only person complaining about it" (essentially we don't care what you want and you are not worth the minimal effort needed to make a BIOS as good as our competitors). Gigabyte is the only brand I know of that omits this essential basic BIOS option. The Strix was an accidental blessing. I purchased a second AORUS Master from Central Computers on sale for less than what I paid for the first. The big and heavy NVMe heatsink under the GPU was not latched. Apparently shipped from the factory without being latched. It flopped around inside of the box and broke several things and scratched up things that did not get broken. I asked them to open the box and inspect before shipping a replacement. They had quite a few in stock and ended up opening all of the boxes and all were damaged in the same way. They offered the Strix for no difference in price. I accepted. The Strix is better than the AORUS Master in terms of firmware. A close second only because I could not install both of my Sabrent quad NVMe X4 cards like I could in the Master. It only has one extra PCIe slot. The AORUS had two, both usable at X4 without dropping the GPU from X16 to X8. The AORUS Master allowed me to install 10 NVMe SSDs and 4 SATA drives while maintaining the GPU at X16. The Apex is a great motherboard with a glaring engineering defect entirely due to an idiotic PCIe slot arrangement. I can only use the X4 PCIe slot above the GPU. The Sabrent quad NVMe card's heat sink touches the GPU backplate. The Strix performs as well as the Apex in terms of the CPU overclocking. It has asych BCLK and I can use the Sabrent card in the bottom slots without the GPU dropping to X8 like it does in the Apex. If I knew everything I know now before buying my first I probably would have purchased two X870E-E Strix Gaming WiFI. If I were going to recommend one, it would be the X870E-E Strix as the best all-around X870E motherboard with the fewest flaws and compromises. Hope this helps. https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-strix-x870e-e-gaming-wifi-atx-motherboard-amd-x870e-am5/p/N82E16813119682

Love Steve's opening comment... 🤣 ...and who doesn't that isn't a Kool-Aid drinker? But it is always nice to hear it spoken out loud by an "influencer" on the biggest technology shill platform known to man.

Mission accomplished. 100% working. My UPS is screaming bloody murder now and a quick MSI Kombustor run is now showing nearly 1200W getting pulled from the wall, whereas before it was between 850-900W doing the same thing. It was not possible to do the Jufes incognito shunt mod because this new style of resistor has the solder points lower than the black plastic part of the resistor. Older resistors were the opposite, with the solder points on each end being flush or taller than the plastic. The resistors don't make contact as the solder points unless you use solder to bridge the air gap with this newer design. The dimensions are also smaller, so even if I had the right resistors in terms of resistance they would have been too long to work. So, she is soldered. I figured out on the second resistor that it worked easier to flip it over with the labeled side facing the original resistor. It was easier to hold in place for soldering with them face-to-face instead of labeled side up due to the shape of them. I have to leave for a doctor's appointment in a few minutes but I will do more testing tonight and this weekend. Will most likely hook up the chiller tomorrow. Here are the PCB photos. Very well-made GPU. Shunted resistors... Looks like Kombustor was drawing around 800-900W. @tps3443

Morning all. Lot's has happened over the past 4 years. To put this in perspective, the 9000 AMD cards are the polaris cards. That year, they did not bring the high end. And Moore's law is dead already mentioned and commented on leaks of a giant card in the next round of RDNA cards. Which is sorely needed. The real deal is we need MORE RAM. But I'm getting into local AI, so I am biased. Yes, part of the enemy. lol.

Our worst power users are central A/C, and now the dehumidifier under the home. We had loads of condensation underneath the house in crawl space from the A/C. So we had to get a dehumidifier hooked up. Fortunately it keeps the home cooler as well. What’s funny is, this means technically I managed to overclock my RTX 5090, and I squeezed more than a whole RTX 5050 out of it. RTX 5050 Steel Nomad FPS=22-23 STOCK 5090FE Steel Nomad FPS= 142 XOC 5090FE Steel Nomad FPS= 173

I said it before and I'll say it again. It makes no difference. Prices keep dropping because no one is buying. Prices can creep up and a large margin of buyers will still not buy. Nvidia can cut supply and again no one is still buying at these prices. Those who had the deep pockets and/or early adopters have bought already. The first 2-4 months were always going to be shortage based and AIBs sure took advantage of it. Supply and demand needs the demand side to cooperate at that certain price point and clearly many are not buying at the several rounds of price cuts we've already had. Eventually prices will drop to a point where those who are interested enough at a certain price point will decide to pick one up but we're not quite there yet for many of the cards. I tend to monitor which cards sell out pretty quick versus those which languish. Top tier brands are holding somewhat strong with their top end models, but the mid and lower tier brands or top tier brands with their mid and lower tier models are dropping prices on the regular. It's like somebody offering that proverbial sports car for $500k and slashing it over and over on the regular. Eventually someone will deem the price acceptable and buy it. Kind of like a Dutch auction.