tps3443

Definitely good enough for what it is! When did you buy that? I love the MacBook premium feel! No other laptop can match the feel of a MacBook and their marketing reels in even the best of us when we get bored and wanna try something different! Battery life is killer good, and OS long term fluidity is also another strong point. I another thing with MacBooks is their unplugged performance will be faster than probably even 5090 laptops on battery. They have some strong advantages either way. I like them, they last years and years and do well on holding value. We still have a M1 MacBook Air with 16GB/1TB I gave it to my daughter for Christmas last year. Never have to worry about OS cleanups or typical slowdowns on Windows machines. If Apple can keep focusing on the gamer genre for Mac they will have a future market! They already have a store front for games “Apple Arcade” and also “The App Store” they need to get these Devs to works and port these AAA titles properly! That machine you have there is probably something you can actually play games on sitting in your lap casually, unlike most 4090/5090 laptops that would be like wielding a microwave oven on your lap.

I know right, the FE’s are just fancy feeling and premium looking even though they have their other short comings and stuff. It’s a very industrial looking design. No silly RGB anywhere. Just white LED that can be brightness adjusted or turned off all together with EVGA Precision X. That’s right up @Mr. Fox alley, I know he loves his white LED’s 🤣 But I’m not gonna lie, It’s gonna be tough taking it apart though because I’ve come to appreciate the GPU exactly how it is now that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it. Crazy good deal! But yeah we are brain washed. I felt blessed getting my FE for normal MSRP which is insane if you think about it. It’s amazing how companies can completely confuse our minds and trick us in to thinking something bad is now suddenly good..It’s like getting a baseball bat in the rear end with barbed wire for 3 months, then suddenly big Bruno in the jail cell isn’t nearly as bad. 🥴 Probably not a very good analogy, but good comparison for Nvidia. 😂

Yes confirmed 100% the RTX 5090 FE can be shunted just like any other 5090 and it works. Waiting on my block still. Hoping EK is faster than the 6+ weeks I have been waiting already with Aquatuning. If I would have originally ordered with EK, I’d already have one. I’m merely after a 17K Steel Nomad results that are stable for gaming with my ambient custom loop with no more than $2,350ish total (GPU+Block) which is great. This was all I wanted from the beginning. 😄

Yes, Asus and MSI and PNY are chasing profit hard! So, original 4090 Strix= $2,000. And now the Astral is $3,359. It does seem just a little overkill. At least the Astral is the best 5090 though, unlike the Strix 4090 was, they were pretty lackluster. And Asus is pumping them out too everyone is buying an Astral it seems like. But Nvidia is no better lol. 😂 think about the RTX PRO 6000. That GPU cost roughly the same to make as 5090FE, but they can wholesale crates of them for 5-6K each and Nvidia is still making so much more money than 5090FE could ever dream of, and it’s really the same money to make one, same die. Only slightly different bios. So I think that’s why the 5090FE is a rare bird, the 5090FE sales are like Nvidias charity work on the side, (We can’t give it all away) Much easier to get a RTX Pro 6000@MSRP too. No one can scalp these 🤣 We can’t exactly scalp a $8,000 dollar GPU. Which is kinda smart I suppose. Resellers are motivated to move these units at like $7K-8K range. Which makes me think lots of profit and wiggle room on these. AIB’s need to cool it down though. They are following Nvidia foot steps too hard.

I think FE pricing was similar to AIB pricing though. 4090FE= $1600 4090 Gaming Trio $1650 I don’t know what happen to AIB pricing scale. MSI Gaming Trio was +$50 more than FE. And now MSI Gaming Trio is +$1350 more than FE. ^ This is all whacked out. I really wonder how they go from +50 dollars to +1350 dollars more. That cannot be tariffs. I think it’s BS. I think AIB’s are really thirsty like Nvidia has been for years.. I know Nvidia is slinging the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB GPU at insane profit levels. It’s a 5090 die through and through. But, it cost $8,200 dollars. That is a big profit for Nvidia. They even had an artificial limit at 5090 launch day. And that’s where all the dies went to (Into RTX Pro 6000 lol)

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.

I wonder how the 5070FE with MFG compares to 9070XT though. This seems like a feature I’d want. People pick on it, but It is a great feature. Going from 60 real frames to 240 fake frames looks and feels so much smoother.

The 5070FE working well? I like FE’s always have since owning GTX 1080FE /2080 Super FE/ 2080Ti FE etc. They give off that new premium vibe. Does the 5070 overclock really well? I saw a VFcurve on one of these from a guy on overclock.net and they are like hand picked to be low voltage queens and low power chips, unless they are just naturally like that due to only a fraction of cuda cores intact. Maybe you can share its VFcurve. But this one 5070FE I saw ran about +1,000Mhz more than my 5090FE does at 0.800-875mv. I’m guessing it is because fewer cuda cores changes the curve, but It’s still incredible though.

You have what you have, and I’m working with what I’ve got to work with. In my situation it’s not the fastest 5090 in the world, I have a msrp 5090FE, and a waterblock on the way for it! But I’m going to break 17K+ Steel Nomad with this card. It’s going to be really fun to try. Seems doable to me though.

@johnksss That FE cooler is a 2 slot cooler, so while it is nice, 2 slot doesn’t cool as well as 3+ slots (You know this). But I think all air coolers are gonna suck at the end of the day when trying to bench right? So that dudes shunted FE would need to be on a chiller for some better scores. Is your Astral on a chiller right? I am merely saying, I think someone with a 5090FE chilled can squeeze some nice scores. Not saying it’s the fastest in the world. But it’s cheaper.

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

If I drove the 2hr 31 minutes to Charlotte, North Carolina at a Microcenter and wanted to buy one, (assuming they had any) this would cost me $3,603.58 USD. This includes the 5090 Astral+ 7.25% retail sales tax. No additional warranty or replacement. For this money I would want to build an entire PC with a custom watercooled 5090FE, or save $1,500 and build an entire PC with a 5080FE. Of course it would take some effort to secure one of these GPU’s. But it could be done.

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

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? 😎

Are you in a case with fans? Or using test bench? My 4090 ran warmer on my open test bench, than my 5090fe does inside a closed case.

They pretty much are, they have 390w bios.

Was your 5080FE normal $999 MSRP?

I’d test that 5080FE and not worry too much about this at all, it may be really efficient with power, from what I read they are efficient. They have a 400w max power limit. My 5090FE is extremely efficient with its 600w cap, and it under-volts insanely well and sips power. I have no problems keeping up or beating other AIB 5090’s because they just aren’t as efficient, so even though my card is hotter it’s still able to get it done. This happens with 5080’s too. I have learned a lot about the RTX 5000 generation, and it’s really all over the place. So I’d still definitely test that 5080FE, it may very well surprise you. Also, the price is cheaper than all the others.

I’m kinda surprised you’re entertaining another 5090. I don’t think you’re gonna like the Gigabyte though, you’re probably already spoiled at this point is all lol. It’s going to feel plastic-E and light weight/cheaper in comparison to your Astral. But you may very well love it! If it’s a good card that’s all that matters. My 4090 Gaming OC was fantastic for the price of $1350 shipped, and I loved it. But, it felt like a toy GPU lol, It had the “Outdoor Bug Zapper light” coil whine tone in any load scenario, the core maxed out at 2,895Mhz reliably, even 2,920Mhz on the desktop with no load or games open would lock-up windows. With all that being said, I still really enjoyed it, I had a loud system at the time with a 59dB chiller anyways so it didn’t matter too much how noisy it was. It was amazing for the money and fast no doubt and that’s why I loved it! I think that’s honestly why I’m happy with my FE being total opposite of what I had, it doesn’t feel like a toy, it feels like a solid heavy high quality GPU, the silicon is soo much better than what I had before. In my current build the loudest item in my case when gaming is when my Lian Li Gold Edge 1200 PSU fan cycles on/off, the only thing I can hear is my PSU fans. Definitely a new problem for me and what I’m use to.

Are you planning to watercool your 5090?

It’s very possible that the majority of PC gamers, install a game and simply play it. They won’t even change their default graphic settings. And they don’t even care. I was the one to teach my own son. But I remember when he’d install a brand-new game. He couldn’t care less about his graphics, or his frame rate. He would just be so excited to play the game that it didn’t matter. The 9060XT 8GB is the “On/Off Switch for PC gamers” Option A: No graphics card, (Cannot play games at all) Option B: I have a 9060XT, I can actually play games now. 🙂 They wanna force an upgrade out of em down the road too! 😂

Oh my goodness!

Why does it look so bad? For some reason when I zoom in, it looks like a 8 year old spray painted this thing.

How are you cooling the card?

If you swap from a glass panel to a mesh panel this is what happens. Sound travels with the air. Every 5090 has some level coil whine. That’s just what it is. Astrals, FE’s, the list goes on.