tps3443

This AMD 9950X3D2 is madness! Excellent platform. I’m having some board troubles with this open box Dark hero, but I’m happy with the platform overall.

9950X3D2 is insanely fast! Multithreaded is more or less the same as my w3175x probably a little bit faster. But, I play a few games that are not the most optimized like: Oblivion remastered, Ark Ascended, just to name a few.. And what a difference there is! It really has perked things up. I’m seeing double on my 1% lows in these CPU limited titles. Unfortunately I’m having another issue... I cannot get EXPO to boot at all. It worked one time on the very first boot. And do not know what happen. 😭 I cleared the bios after fiddling around with things. And now EXPO fails to post. None of the EXPO’s will work. Tried Expo I, II, Tweaked, etc. I have to run DDR5 4800 to get the system to load windows or work at all.. I have cleared the bios, unplugged everything. EXPO just refuses work. For now DDR5 4800 is working, so I’m running that. I’ll try to update the bios and see if that helps. EDIT: Found the issue. CPU mounting pressure. My waterblock nuts were popping off the threads under tension. I’m going to have to address this block mounting. For now it’s working though. This is a picture of the system. It has a big thick chubba HWlab GTR 480mm cooling the CPU and single D5. 😀 The CPU is really beyond fast in gaming. Words cannot really describe how fast it is lol 😂 I could notice it in Oblivion without a frame counter. 1% lows in Oblivion have doubled. I wasn’t expecting that. AVG fps is about +40% higher in CPU limited games. It is seriously an outstanding gaming CPU. 💀

That doesn’t even make sense! The price is crazy!

Guys! This deal is insane! It really makes it hard to cope with a $899.99 9950X3D2 right now. 🤨 The 270K Plus is $264.99 on Amazon. That is an insane value. This price for essentially a mix of 14900KS gaming performance and 285K multithreaded performance is unheard of.

Coming together. Trying to swap over nothing at all from my main build except for the 5090. In case I don’t really care for the platform. Im hoping it exceeds my expectations though, and if it does it’ll be going in to the big case .

I’m putting it together on the test bench with a 480 and a single D5. My cat thinks so many dimm slots are only good for standing on easier. Also, don’t mind my ghetto waterblock mounting. It works!

I’m shocked about that! My 5090 Astral OC was an open box from BestBuy so I was nervous since it was $3,800+ with tax, I wanted a return policy just in case, I tried the whole local Facebook market place thing, I almost got scammed with a core-less/memory-less 5090 (AKA Fifty-Nundy) , and this worried me. It’s also very hard to see the chips and core on the Astral models when you hold it sideways and try to peak between the PCB and cooler. When I first plugged in my open box 5090 Astral, I had no display at all. And I was like dang! I got a dud! But turns out I just didn’t have the display port seated all the way in to the GPU. I had to loosen and lower the card down like 0.5mm so I could clear the back I/O material on my case. Then it finally came to life! 😀 But it’s very worrisome buying GPU’s these days. You never know what you’re gonna get. Even if we tested a card that seems okay, it could suddenly artifact or be defective in some way that avoided our initial inspection. For the first few days, I just left it running stock and let it ride. I think mine was 100% returned due to buyer remorse though. It has held completely stable, and OCs good enough for me. Crazy they are stripping 5080’s though!! I’m very surprised by that.

Yeah I hope AMD is a smooth transition. I might assemble this thing on the Praxis test bench, run a single D5 pump, and single 480mm GTX, this way I don’t have to take anything out if my V3000+ plus case, and I could do some testing and make sure it runs okay. What exactly would a good or decent bin be? Is this based on SP? Or max ram OC with Gear 1? I want to push the fastest Gear 1 speeds possible. 😁 And I’m not settling for a turd chip. I’ll accept average or slightly above average is fine with me. But $900 for a turd is not acceptable.

I went with the #1= AMD 9950X3D2 (Mouth watering expensive), #2= ASUS X870E Dark Hero (This is the new Hero board with better PCIe release, it was an open box “Excellent” $559. This “Hero Dark” is absolutely NOT worth the regular retail of $699.99 for a Hero board.. 😂 I learned Ryzen is not exactly memory limited from the board with ram, so this swayed me away from the Apex X870 which had a few missing key features that I’d really like to have like 40Gbs USB-c), and finally #3= the (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Titanium Z30 6000c30 kit. I sourced the kit else where at a much much better price though. I wanted to explain my reasoning behind wanting the Dominator Titanium “Z30” kit. I did some research, and these sticks overclock VERY VERY well. So, this had me intrigued and they were like half the price of the normal MSRP on BestBuy. Also, the very main REASON WAS! The cooling is actually good on these Dominator Titanium rams, I was not planning to water cool my dimms right away. And I know what ram temps are like on DDR5 and getting errors due to temps. I remember my Bdie Dom Platz OCed well, and ran very cool! These should run even cooler. So much back and forward wanting a 270KP, then a regular 9950X3D, then a 14900K or KS, then maybe a 9850X3D. I just said F it… Let’s try AMD, I would like heavy lifting power outside of gaming, and X3D capability as well. Since I do not have a 9850X3D or a 9950X/9950X3D etc; the 9950X3D2 made the most sense in my mind. 😀

Im struggling settling on a platform. My goodness. Now I’m looking at 270K Plus! 😂 I could order like (3) of them, and keep the best. And Z890 motherboards are cheaper as well.

Yeah, after the 5090 Astral I’m tapped, and all the other small losses here and there messing around with 5080’s. So I’m putting these up coming parts on the BB 0% for 12 months, then I can slowly sell off my current stuff to help recoup. 😁 Spending $699.99 plus tax on ram is not smart. I know they are amazing sticks. And the “Want” is STRONG. lol I feel like if I go with those rams, I need the Apex. I may go with these! Also, what do you think about the new Strix Neo board? Is the Hero maybe worth the step up? I’m going to skip the Apex. Cutting cost on ram, and motherboard, allows me to go with a 9950X3D2 over a 9850X3D. I think that’s probably a smarter move. I want to stay at like $2,000 for CPU/RAM/Motherboard.

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 😂