tps3443

So I may go with this setup below. CPU: 9850X3D (Might change for 9950X3D or 9950X3D2 still considering) RAM: Dominator Titanium 6000c30 2x16GB Board: ASUS Crosshair X870e Apex (May swap to something more basic) Lately I find my self less and less interested in extreme overclocking, so the Apex may get replaced with something less extravagant like a cheaper ROG board or maybe even a Strix/TUF/MSI etc.

@electrosoft Thanks for sharing the memory kit. Crazy that $699.99 is considered cheap these days for an enthusiast ram kit. Lol. @Mr. Fox If you did not already own a 9950 class chip, would you consider buying a 9950X3D2? Are these generally be better bins than a regular 9950X3D1? Money wise, the value doesn’t seem crazy to me. My thought process is, the 9850X3D is $499.99 8/16, and the 9950X3D2 is 16/32 for $899.99. So in my mind, it doesn’t seem all that crazy. I might just grab CPU+Board for now, and wait a bit longer on memory. I suppose the X870 Apex is probably the one I’ll get with a x3D2 on top lol. 😂 The Dark Hero looks good too though. Decisions, decisions. This may seem silly, but the ROG Crosshair 20th anniversary edition is the only thing holding me back. I love the way it looks. It’s that retro blue/white/copper. Not going to lie, this board alone lured me in to this whole idea. I was in the hobby running an overclocking AMD Athlon XP 3200 and AMD 64 3000 systems in 2006 😂

Im really curious to test that and see the gains in 4K compared to my current setup. I feel like my current setup performs well. But, I’m considering moving away from the 4K/120hz. It’s pretty big. I still run my 48” OLED Aorus panel. Thing has like 4,500+ “panel on time hours now” lol. 😂 Probably gonna run maybe a 27” 1440P. I didn’t hang on to any DDR5, I would only run one set at a time back then anyways. Other than the set that’s in my son’s rig, he has some nice 2x16GB Gskill 6400 Mdie sticks. I’m sure those can crank 8000+ If I made the switch, I do have a lot of DDR4 Bdie to offload and maybe recoup from. I have a 16x16GB set of Gskill Bdie 3200c14. The 9950X3D may not make sense, so maybe just a 9850X3D would be fine. Is there a significant different with the X870 Apex, and just a regular X870 Crosshair black? I’m not going to run a delid setup. Probably just pretty mild OC. Setup, grab a block, and swap it in to my current case with 3x480MM GTX, 4x D5.

I’m thinking about trying an AMD system, I’m going through BestBuy only for my parts for easy return/exchange options if needed. I’m looking at a 9950X3D2, and a X870 Crosshair Dark Hero, I am struggling on which ram to get. Any tips?

That’s why the 5080 astral is really worth the money in my opinion. Especially if you can get one for like $1,500 bucks. The cooling and build quality is top notch. Mine is a lottery loser. But getting the 5090 Astral made me only appreciate it even more, because they are literally indistinguishable from one another in weight/size/feel. I discovered that the 5080 with 2x FG on performed identically to the 5090 with FG off in many titles. BTW I’m keeping the 5090 Astral. 😂 Amazing GPU. Gaming on this thing is where it’s at. Brute force FPS! Epic power!

Congratulations to you on getting healthier @Papusan! That's always a good feeling. I remember picking on people about the per pin monitoring. I knew if I had that, it would become a new thing to focus on (And it has). What we do not know, does not hurt us. This 5090 Astral is giving me a special kind of feeling though lol. The feeling that the 5080 Astral is not giving me.

So when I installed a brand new cable, and my balancing sill just wasn’t good at all. And I’m thinking what the heck, the Astral was throwing alarms to let me know balancing was pretty bad. Nothing I could do to fix it. So I followed the 12vhpwr from GPU plug back to PSU plug, and I had it tucked in tightly to hide it with wire management and even pinched or pressed bent in a few places in my case to make things look neater. I pulled the cable out in one spot near the PSU side, and tried to make it as straight as a run as possible everywhere else. And balancing is completely fixed. These cables are crazy sensitive. I’ve never been able to monitor per pin amperage before. And a bend anywhere on the cable even towards the PSU side can completely throw things off. I’m wondering how unbalanced my 5090 FE might have been. This is what I learned, on the PSU side and GPU side you want the cable to be coming straight out to about 50mm length of wire. Then it can start to bend.

Just a update since having an Astral, I was able to see the per pin amperage using my Lian Li 12v2x6 cable. And it was really bad. That cable was toast. I swapped to a fresh Corsair cable which has it balanced pretty well. I noticed even just how the cable is routed or tucked in somewhere in your case has a huge impact on good per pin balancing of the cable.

Hard to believe the 5090 Astral OC is $4,329 at best buy and sold by Best Buy then 5% sales tax on top of that. +60% more than launch MSRP. It’s insanity. Also I really thought the RTX Pro 6000 would not increase, but I guess it did. It’s so expensive.

This Astral 5090 was an open box from Bestbuy. Not a crazy good deal like your current and previous 5090's though. But much cheaper than new MSRP! I have the card COOKING in a closed case, all (16) case fans are fixed to 20% or 550rpm for complete silence. The card still scored 15,300 without any overclocking or voltage sliders moved up. It has all of the ROP's It likes high clocks It seems to idle at low power 10-13w The cards runs very COOL when pushing normal case fan speeds. No harsh or annoying coil whine. You have to open the case door, get down on your knees, and put your head in the case and listen against the GPU to hear anything and only while (Steel Nomad is running at that it's a very faint buzz) I do not mind that. I am going to be honest about the 5080 Astral, because I was trying to sell it. And I did not want to be just completely ragging on its overclocking abilities too hard ya know lol. Well, if you add even just +270 to its offset, it will lock up in games. Even low power games using only 250 watts or less. It just does not OC well at all. I read the Tech power up review, and they hit 3,312Mhz with their sample, I watched many more YT videos of them cranking out at least 3,240-3,300 in more demanding scenarios with 5080 Astrals. I mean, it's a 5080 Astral running SUB 60c pulling less than 300 watts, and only running 3,165-3,182Mhz. This seemed pretty weak to me. Whereas with this 5090, you can keep adding offset, until you see the core clock just not moving anymore because it's just too warm or out of power, but it's still not crashing on you or locking up by adding more offset even though the clocks are not moving up anymore. That turned me off with the Astral 5080 OC. If it would have clocked good, I would have been fine with it. But I felt like I was double disappointed. #1 I am settling with a 5080. And #2 it does not clock worth a dang. The next issue was it also did not undervolt very well either. So, it seemed weak on both ends of the spectrum.

This 5090 Astral is so much better than the 5080 Astral it’s not even comparable. It’s much better silicon all the way around. I can run the 5090 at nearly the same clocks as the 5080 in games. Except the 5090 is pulling so much more power. Much higher offsets.

Something like that! 😀 This 5090 Astral clocks the same as the 5080 Astral does. That should not happen. Wow!

Time to see a Dr for my sickness. 😂 Yep..One of these is a 5090 the other is a 5080. Dual Astral’s. @electrosoft This 5090 Astral maxes out at 1075MV which I’m perfectly happy with that. My 5080 Astral only maxed out at 1065MV which I’m fine with as well, but it just didn’t clock all that well. Anyways, this 5090 Astral is already showing some good results. The 5080 Astral just wasn’t a strong OCer over my Zotac 5080’s even running 20c + cooler than the Zotac’s.. I was seriously expecting the 5080 Astral OC to hit like SUB 3.3Ghz in games on the factory 450w bios.

Yeah I’m actually pretty content with the 5080 Astral. It looks physically the same as a 5090 Astral, just slower and cheaper 😂

Yep! I sold the Zotac 5080 last night. I had a buyer for the 5080 Astral too, and I was going to buy GTZ’s 5090 Gaming OC for $3,000. But I decided, what the heck am I doing with my life right now lol… Let me just keep the 5080 Astral and be happy with it. It’s so tempting to jump on that 5090 though. But, I just don’t really need it. This hobby can be so unhealthy at times. All for the love of PC hardware. 😀 The 5080 Astral OC is awesome. So, it really started to grow on me. And trying to be responsible has taken over. Im over here twitching man, wanting that 5090 like a crack pipe. 😂 But I know after I get it, I’ll probably feel guilty and irresponsible.

These 5060Ti’s are INSANITY. This one can run +525 on the core and does not give trouble until +550.

The Quiet bios is far superior to the Performance bios in my opinion on the 5080 Astral. And I can appreciate how ASUS set these two bios up. The quiet bios does not cap max TGP like most GPU’s with a dual bios option would. The quiet bios is 360-450w, and the performance bios is 400-450w. The Performance bios only runs a much more aggressive fan curve, so much so that you can hear the GPU just a bit. That rear fan noise everyone talks about on the Astral’s. Well, the quiet bios still has a 450w limit, but runs a much quieter fan curve. And the card has such an overkill cooler, you can’t even notice it temp wise. So the quiet bios is just better. No need to mess with the fan curves, this bios has them set up well. Im starting to like this card. 😭 May sell the Zotac instead. generate image code for forums

I’m just not as impressed with the 5080 Astral. I was expecting better. It’s a very nice looking GPU, and the dang card weighs a ton. I bought the Astral from a private party sealed/brand new. So no return policy with this one though unfortunately. It has proven to be very stable, I like the GPU software leveling feature, and per pin monitoring is. It doesn’t overclock all that much better than my Zotac’s maybe +50 more MHz, although it does send more voltage at 1075mv. My 5090FE would out clock all three 5080’s I have tested. I was expecting the 5080 to be the king of clocks over 5090. But it just hasn’t been this way. All three 5080’s landed around 3,142-3,187 at 4K using the 450w bios. Now, that’s not exactly a fair comparison. The 5090 was on water cooling, and it was shunted so it thought it was always pulling half power. My 5090 FE stock on air before shunt would run like 3,030-3,060Mhz depending on how demanding the 4K game was. so technically the 5080’s do clock well past that. 5080’s are all hitting PWR limits at 380’s watt range though. So they really need a shunt mod. They will pull more power but you have a heart monitor looking graph on the “PWR” area in MSI Afterburner, and that can cause latency spikes. The Astral definitely seems to be the best of the three overclocking wise. But it’s also running the coolest so that naturally will happen. I’m leaning towards keeping the Astral, unless someone buys it. I might go ahead and list the Zotac 5080 as well. And let fate decide! Whichever one sells I can keep the opposite lol. Also, one way to test your stock air cooled 5090 for max clocks to see how it would run “IF” shunted and on water. Go run Unigine Heaven at 1080P windowed auto fan speed, and start adding clocks in MSI AB, with HWinfo open, check the max reported clock speed during this period. Then subtract -70Mhz from that max. That clock speed is where it will land. I’m going to guess and say your MSI is probably a really good sample. I think your Astral probably was too. This method is nearly fool proof though.

I bought this Astral from a Reseller on Marketplace who is local to me. It was sealed in the box. After I handed them the money, I opened it right in the spot to just confirm it was legit. And it definitely was, so I grabbed it. It’s a very nice 5080 though! It’s actually starting to grow on me. 😬 uh oh. 😂 I do like the cooler on it. Man, it runs like 58c full tilt overclock with its default 450w bios. And auto fans. My Zotac 5080’s are pretty good but horribly inefficient idling on the desktop. As a matter of fact, both Zotac 5080’s I tested idled at 30-40 watts. This Astral idles at 10-13 watts. That 5090 cooler on this thing is the real deal.

I picked up a brand new 5080 Astral to play with. It’s pretty nice, and it was a good deal for a new Astral. It doesn’t do much over my Zotac Solid Core 5080 though. Other than running 20c cooler. I remember when I bought a MSI 4080 Super Expert and I didn’t really like it, and I swapped to a MSI 4080 Super Suprim OC. The difference was astronomical. It felt so much better, it overclocked better and even performed much better. I just loved the 4080S Suprim OC so much. Coming from the Zotac 5080, and popping in the Astral 5080, it feels like I have committed a sin and I almost feel guilty or nauseous. 😂 We’ll be seeing a like new Astral 5080 on marketplace here shortly. It’s a nice GPU. But I do not feel or notice a difference other than super low temps. And yes it’s freaking massive! I had to add (2) 45 degree fittings, and remove the flow meter for my CPU inlet tube to clear the width of the card. I’m not really digging the 5080 Astral OC as much as I thought I would.

Yeah it’s very tough these days. 5080‘s are taking over lol. Too many of THEM! I did think about grabbing a PREMO 5080 to play with. Maybe an Astral or Master. Newegg has a $240 off promo on the Aorus Master ICE 5080. But that Astral looks great! Would like to try a 1.125v card, and see how that performs. Was thinking if I’m going to ride out on 5080, let’s make it a premium 5080. If you do sell your 5090 that’s it. These prices are insanity trying to grab another. I scour the internet everyday. Microcenter for $3,499+ Tax is probably the best bet for a Gaming OC 5090. That is an insane price you paid! It really is. The AI community has just hammered the 5090’s. It would be great if some sort of forced update crippled the 5090’s performance in AI. Maybe where if an AI workload is detected it only sees 8GB VRAM or something. 😂 I’m looking at eBay flooded with coreless cards and I’m shocked how GPU’s even got here. Could someone tell me what they think about this motherboard? I really like it!

I almost got scammed on a 5090 tonight!! I drove 65 miles to buy a ASUS RTX 5090 TUF which was listed for $2,800 USD. After meeting him, I inspected the card, no core, no memory chips, fans unplugged etc, stripped screws pure junk, I turned him down right away and explained the situation (He played dumb of course) , then I quickly left feedback to try and help any other potential buyers, let’s just say I didn’t buy it! See my review below. (He had like (5) 5090’s apparently) Here is the Facebook ads attached as well. It’s still up! What a scammer!! This was not a FIFTY-NINETY but it was a FIFTY-NONE-dee lol. https://www.facebook.com/share/1EQULuMgY3/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Dang! Ya’ll I got fired today. Been with the company 6 years now. I’m kind of relieved. 😌 PS: I ordered a Alphacool block for my 5080! 😎

I do think I’m probably going to shunt mod and waterblock this Zotac 5080. I been holding out hoping some magical 5090 deal comes along. But, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Yeah the Astral 5080 is a joke money wise. These cards are $1,950 USD BEFORE TAX lol. 😂 Well in NC if it’s 10 years old or older, we don’t need a title to sell as junk or sell for parts, I’d only want a title if I’m reselling the vehicle to a person as a running car, which rarely happens. Checking the vin is easy to do, but if it’s not marked stolen when you buy it, and then suddenly reported stolen right after you buy it, then no checking can help avoid that situation. Which is apparently what happen with the Jeep.