Rage Set

Only Alphacool has a waterblock, but it is available in multiple shops. While the Red Devil 9700XT is one of the best 9700XT's on the market, I am still debating whether I want to shell out $250 to $300 on the block. For the first time in years, none of my rigs are custom watercooled. They are either cooled by an air or AIO cooler. Mind you, I still have CPU blocks and tons of radiators I could use. The problem is, if I buy the block, I am going to have to get a two-dimm mobo and faster RAM - that is the chain reaction. I don't really want to invest more money into the 1700 platform. With that being said, I may still get the block with how prices of copper are shooting up.

I have the Powercolor Red Devil 9070XT. I am trying to convince myself not to buy a waterblock for it. I am also limited by RAM. So my goal of getting into the top 15 TS (for my CPU/GPU) might be out of reach.

14900KS + 9700XT - 14900KS is in Extreme mode. Yes, my memory sticks are mixed, lol. The PC is located in my basement office - which I keep frozen. Ambient is 20 to 25F. Stock: Timespy - https://www.3dmark.com/spy/61860414 It's okay, middle of the road performance. Graphic Score: 29578 The CPU is all over the place. Stock with only a -100mV offset on the core: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/61860626 Still middle of the road performance, but the GS jumped nearly 1500 points. Graphic Score: 31075 Results: AMD is drunk.

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.

Ideally, I should be a fan of Loyal Moses. Conceptually, he lives my dream. Owning a business and home off the grid. His videos about the incoming laws enacting government spyware in 3D printing applies to all technologies. Unfortunately, it is the case of the messenger killing the message. Moses is known to be a "shill" for certain brands and when certain companies enact anti-consumer policies or reverse course on promised products, he doesn't say anything. This means, a lot of people are wary of him and his messages - in this case, he's right on though. On the subject of the Washington and NY laws, it is simple government overreach. This law applies to CNC and Lathe machines in addition to aforementioned 3D printers. What's next? The government forcing CAD/3D model design software to detect and prevent you from designing a part that looks like it is related to a gun? Welp, there goes the video game industry. How far the slope can go, it is easy to see. Imagine the government pushing Nvidia, AMD and Intel to stop allowing consumer GPUs to be used in certain software, because they can be used to design things that they don't agree with. That means that 2 to 3K GPU becomes less valuable overnight.

I attempted to overclock my laptop twice outside and within minutes, had to scurry back into the house. My fingers man! Early morning (around 4am EST when I awake), the temp is between 2 to 4F (-16C) for the past week, not including wind chill. The kind of cold that just inundates you, but man do I love it. I guess that is why I earned the cheeky nickname, Ice Bear, from my family. I love the first few hours after a snow storm, everything is covered and it is super quiet. I'll have some 3Dmark benches from my laptop and perhaps the 14900KS/9070XT combo later.

I researched all of the "flagship" 9070 XTs. Generally, when it comes to AMD exclusive AIB's, I like Sapphire, but Power Color won me over with the phase design and 8pin connectors on the Red Devil. It was strange to see the Red Devil go under the radar compare to the other AIB "flagships" 9070 XTs. I think it was due to Power Color producing a powerful card but being very conservative in their default OC profile. They chose complete silent over performance. I get it, the general public want cards that are quiet. Then I saw people unleash the Red Devil, seeing the core hit 3400 to 3500Mhz (or even higher when instability be damned) - all the while still running cooler than others. On the other hand, memory overclocking on the Red Devil is where it is make or break. I wonder how this card will perform blocked, but I only see one waterblock available. I am super surprised that Bykski didn't make one for the Red Devil, instead produced blocks for the lower end Powercolor cards. I guess they only produced blocks for "reference" designs this generation. I am interested to know how each of our cards perform.

Honestly, I kept looking at the 9950HX3D Lenovo 7 Pro, but it was limited to a 5080. It started at 3K and then I saw the 7i Pro with a 5090 around the same price. It snowballed from there. It is a really nice laptop and it handles my 8K footage from my Canon R5 like butter. Yes, this is the time. I am not sure if I want to attempt to put some rigs together to sell or just simply sell the components individually. I only have a couple DDR5 mobos from AMD/Intel and only three sets of DDR5 that are working, two sets currently in use. Probably best I sell the components. We got 20'' inches thus far where I live in CT. I spent the past several hours, going out every few hours to attack with my shovel. I still relatively young compared to my neighbors, so whereas all of my neighbors will be using their snow blowers, I am out there strong arming the snow. Good cardio as well! I was having some serious buyer's remorse, even though I got both cards for their MSRP. I am happy now, seeing that the Red Devil jumped up $110 and the Prime is $250 more, excluding the scalper pricing. Both cards are great. I can't really choose. The only thing the 5070Ti has over the 9070XT is better video editing performance. Welcome to the Red Devil family, lol.

It's funny. Some states shut down when they get 8 to 12 inches of snow. We, on the other hand, require 24 inches or more. My job (IT school system) & Mayor are still contemplating if we will or not. Now if the governor shuts down the state (they rarely ever do), that's one thing, but if the Mayor shuts down the city, he will have to pay us all. Otherwise, you have to use personal or vacation time if you don't want to venture out in the snow. I make it a point to go, because there is no one there and I can use the time to learn/study or repair broken desktops/laptops. I usually work on my soldering skills and/or create troubleshooting guides for the entry level techs. Or I can do some overclocking in my office, which I might do!

It is definitely overclocking season - I am about to take my new purchase (yes, I went the dumb BGA route and got a 275HX/5090 Lenovo 7i Pro laptop) into the snow. I got a great deal on it with 64GB of 6400MT RAM. I kept haggling with the seller and he kept coming back - 64GB of laptop RAM cost around 500 to $600. However, I got it for the price of 2800 (before taxes), my max budget. I am hoping I can sell my old 7i (11980HK/3080 (16GB VRAM) 32GB of DDR4 RAM) for around 800 to $1000 to offset the cost. February is the best time to sell things, because people are going to be spending their returns. My area is projected to get around 21 inches of snow - at 5F (-15C), with a wind chill of -10F (-23.33C). @Papusan I know this snowy weather is tame compare to what you have, but us people (well most) in the Northeast are celebrating. We haven't had snow like this in years, normally our max is 12 inches of snow.

Happy New Year brothers!

I am more incline to keep both, as I go through the benching process to see which will work best for gaming and the other for productivity. One will go into my 3960X build for my video editing needs and the other will go into the 14900KS gaming rig. The new cards will be replacing the 4070 TI and 6900XT. In terms of spare parts, all of my spare motherboards, RAM kits and CPUs are on the higher end of things. I know I won't be able to recoup most of my costs - unless the used market really does turn to a wasteland. For example, my DDR4 RAM sets are nuts. I have the four sticks of CL19 4000MTs I got from @Mr. Fox , four sticks of G.Skill non-RGB CL15 3600, and four of the super overpriced Trident Z Royal Gold (non-Elite) CL18 4800MT DDR4 RAM sticks. I never got these sticks to run at that speed with any of my CPUs, lol. Of course I have the G.Skill NEO sets I previously shown to you all. I really had a tech addiction it seems, lol.

That sucks, but I trust that TG is producing a good product. I know if I ever go down the path of securing a 5090, I would definitely be picking up a WireView. In other news, the 9070XT Red Devil arrived last week and the PRIME 5070 TI will come today. It doesn't escape my mind that I essentially spent nearly $1500 for two GPUs, when I could have put down another 500 for a 5090 at "MSRP". We all know they don't cost that, so I am fine for now. If anyone needs a 4070 TI (Gigabyte Windforce), let me know. I might just build a PC out of spare parts and sell it.

All of my 32GB ECC DDR4 are in use, unfortunately. I do have one W-1290 server that I only turn on once per month with 128GB of 2933MT/s RAM (32GB x4) that doesn't particularly need that much RAM. I only purchased that much RAM to max out the server. They are UDIMMs though. The crazy part is the price for them didn't change. I paid around $850 for the two kits around three to four years ago. They cost the same now. I am starting to realize I only buy RAM during shortages...LOL.

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....