@Mr. Fox Not sure if you know this but.....

11 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

100%. That's what they do. They do it at the hardware/firmware level and they can do even more with cancer drivers. They've always been that way. I still remember and resent their clock-blocked crap on notebooks about 10 years ago using drivers. If you wanted to play games that required the new driver then you were SOL on overclocking. Very scummy.

Brother TPS wasn't with us back when we use to have conference calls with Dell to make the M18X 1 and 2 better? When they blocked us and locked all back doors? Then asked to chat some more about the A18X2 after they locked the A18X1? Or with Clevo and Sager when Clevo shut down Sager trying to help us get mods implemented?

Just now, tps3443 said:

 @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. 

In the words of everyone here....Form over fashion my friend.

And all air cooler cards do not suck, just because they don't cool a card down to 30C. Not sure how this has become stand practice now. Cards run in the 70's at some people houses. And max is what 88C or something like that?

Yes and no. I ran mine without a chiller and still got better numbers. 17699 to be exact. All I had were fans. I keep trying to tell you, it's Nvidia blocking the performance.

My Astral is on chiller now. And I gained about 450 points with block and chiller. So nothing fancy there, but then I know why it's not higher.

Everyone on planet earth knew the FE was always cheaper, I thought that was a given? 

I sure hope so, because right now, that card does not look promising when it comes to benching numbers, but gaming... it's great. If that card can't crack 17k shunted on stock cooler then there is a problem. And I don't think it's the user. Just my opinion. Still hoping you crack to code so we can see it move into the 17k range.🙂

3 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Yes, I am sure he does know. He has to know he is our buddy and we think very highly of him. But even so, sometimes a guy feels like an underdog if everyone has a different opinion. The important thing is that a person doesn't change his opinion based only on what others think in order to have their approval or feel accepted in the echo chamber, but it is OK to change it because you have changed your mind as an exercise of your own volition. 

@tps3443 is making want to go buy another Astral right now and run it at stock just to see what it gets today. LOL I would do an FE, but that card is like a 4 leaf clover at our Micro Center.😂 

2 hours ago, tps3443 said:

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

But that is what everyone says about everything? If I didn't like it I wouldn't keep it.

If that is the case, I would expect far more for my 2000, for as heavy and premium as you say the card is, but then say the cooling is crap. So i'm kind of at a lost on that part.

I'm not here to convince you my friend, that your GPU sucks. As I have been down this road with many other ideas I have had over there years and people have said worse. (AC on laptop or pointing in case at GPU or using a water chiller before that was even a thing) And boy did people have nonsense to say. You either buy what you want or you buy what you can afford and that's it. All the rationalizing in the world just means a person can't really afford it. Example: And this went for something as cheap as 50 cent cheeseburgers at McDonalds. Those things are like 3 bucks now.

Astral + Alphacool Block + 2 year Accidental Warranty cost me 3,771.36. Potential loss at the end of the day? About $600. That's why I look at it differently. Now if I sell the block then that 600 drops lower. If I give it to @Mr. Fox then the price stays about the same.

The astral is not faster at stock for stock for the very obvious reason that the Pro 6000 has more Cuda cores automatically makes it faster at stock. Over clockers are not getting the card to bench it stock. So if that card can not get past the 600W max, then it's just a 10,000 dollar "Hey look at me I spent 10K so I can say I have better stock numbers" card is just foolish. If you bought it to just game/Ai/work and the occasional benchmarks and said nothing, then it's your money and buy what you want. Why? Because that person is not bragging about it. So until that card is unlocked/shunted/modded and cooled, it's just another GPU in the world of over clocking for numbers. And at this point I'm pretty sure no one wants to be represented by Nvidia in the world of over clocking because Nvidia would just take what the people showed them to make it better....A way to lock it down further. Just like Dell/Alienware did. 

Unfortunately those scores are not acceptable in my book, but that is my opinion, but they are acceptable for gaming. A shunted card doing 16,6K in Steel Nomad is crazy to me. Again, only my opinion. If I'm gaming I would not even bother shunting it. And in reality, this is like the 2nd card I have shunted in 17 years. I would rather not have to do that. 

That last line is debatable as that is based on user.

But I will keep hope alive in that they figure out why the shunt is not working as intended, but I would recommend them not sharing that in the open forums or the next FE will be locked down even further. These are facts and not opinions.

Edit:

It's not Nvidia as a whole, it's mainly these old timers at the top that do not want to go outside there're comfort zone. Like any company their are a bunch of bright minds that get stifled because of that BS seniority rule. So new ideas do not get seen or past on to the customer. I saw this first hand with Clevo. Not everyone at Nvidia wants to follow Jensen and senior staff, but when it comes to running your mouth or keeping your job....Those people would rather keep their jobs.

4 hours ago, tps3443 said:

 

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. 
 

 

I'm starting to think @tps3443 is doing a little side work for Nvidia as hard as he is pushing this FE card. The card is the  bottom of the barrel. It always has been, that is why it is the cheapest to buy, but also usually the hardest to mod because Nvidia is in control and after each rendition of cards they take what they have learned from us in the forums and make their cards that much harder to crack. Nvidia does not like to RMA GPU's, they want them to be sold once and not returned for 4 more under sketchy warranties of.... it died while idling, but forgot to mention that a drip of water landed on the PCB while the card was "idling"😂

44 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

4x 8pin any day. And weird AMD cards run so damn hot compared to nvidia. A 600W Radeon card would be a disaster. It would cook itself to death within a month. 

 

 

 

Is this with out any tax? Aka MSRP ? What cost will it be added when you pay? Right below $3000 here home without tax (MSRP).

This has been the current price for a while now. And that is before tax as our stores do not post items including tax as tax can be based off of your zip code in some areas.

I look at that as you guys finally are catching a break after a gazion years of paying more.😂

Been like this since last night. +25 Cards

https://www.microcenter.com/product/690032/asus-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-rog-astral-overclocked-triple-fan-32gb-gddr7-pcie-50-graphics-card

1 minute ago, tps3443 said:

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. 

Test bench.

Was that with the Galax vbios as your FE has not been flashed yet.

@Papusan Well, is it user error or not? I installed my water block and did not have fan on power plug. Ran like 2 benchmarks and my wireview started screaming at me. I check it and the alarm was set for 70C. I then point fan back at it and it drops back down to 30C to 42C. 😂

When I was running air I always had fan because of the Gigabyte vbios only using 2 fans at 1800RPM.

So yes, it does need it's own fan. 😂

On 5/10/2025 at 4:59 PM, Mr. Fox said:

Nah, FE is not the Lexus of the industry. It's just a cult of people that love inferior products, like Alienware fanboys. 🤣

 

Congrats on the open box 9070 XT.

 

UPS has the Apex on the truck. Supposed to be delivered between now and 8PM today.

 

I will have to check out that Delta Mate block to see how she looks. Speaking of GPU blocks, I got the Alphacool CORE installed. It looks really good. Much more refined aesthetically than the Bykski block that has served me really well with the 4090 Suprim. It is much heavier than the Bykski block and brawnier in appearance.

 

@johnksss the WireView does NOT fit with the CORE block. Not even almost. It is about a half inch short of being able to reach the connector socket on the GPU. So, now I have two WireView to sell. I'm going to miss it, but not the end of the world. Another thing I noticed after the fact is the switch to change between vBIOS chips is also covered up. If I were testing different vBIOSes still this would be a problem. I am not so I don't care. At least for the moment.

 

Sorry for the low quality camera phone photos. My 5 year old phone camera does an amazing job of capturing dust and lint in photos, but not the finer details that one would want to capture. Too lazy to break out the DSLR for this, so these will have to do.

 

Looking back at this.... My block is not as long so Wireview fits just fine. So much so that I did not account for the big open space where the EVCSE cable is now showing. I may go back and solder in the L pins so I can use the removable cable.

18K

https://www.3dmark.com/sn/6448799

2 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

Well hello sailor! 😍

 

Why is bitrecover watermarked on every picture?

 

 

Hello.

The program I used.

Edit:

Did not see that part coming with the wire...

So this randomly showed up today...

In far better shape than the box I sent to Brother @Mr. Fox 😂

4 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

I'm surprised nobody at oc.net has jumped on those CPUs and the motherboard combo. The must be scared because of the recent fraud outbreak, but maybe the guy that bought that one part being first to go out on a limb will break the ice. A number of PMs with interest. All of the CPUs are better than average samples, they just were not my best samples. Brother @Clamibot got one of them. The person that bought the white Apex got the other one.

I think the AMD craze drives them at the moment. Speculations of course.

4 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

I was going to message you and see if you wanted me to send you the delid tool to borrow and return after you delid. I can do it for you if you prefer, so either way works for me. Let me know your preference. The nice thing about the Intel Mycro is you don't have to worry about liquid metal going where you don't want it. There is a built-in border around the die.

Right now I'm lazy, so it's going to you. Just text me on what you need from me. Getting ready to break my rig down because I'm also not to happy with the MSI PSU.

2 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Awesome. I saved it for you. I will print a label and let you know how much the postage is, but otherwise it is a gift.

Hold on a sec, I may be shipping to your first my friend. 🙂

On 5/18/2025 at 1:08 PM, Mr. Fox said:

Parts for sale here and at overclock.net

 

 

https://www.overclock.net/threads/strix-z-790-e-gaming-13900ks-combo-14900kf-2-tg-mycro-dd-supercool-dd.1816332

 

Brother @johnksss not in the listing above, I have saved one of these in case you want it. Let me know if you do and it is yours. https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/intel-mycro-direct-die-pro/s-tg-my-dd-p-i

I'll take it

1 hour ago, tps3443 said:

Yep, recording with Shadow Play is at least a 5% loss in frame rate for me. I did hear someone say the latest drive also improves performance by 2%. I was using the older driver. 
 

Too graphically demanding for a Doom game though. 🤣

Have not upgraded to newer driver either and running onscreen display as well, but with that 4x help none of that really matters. About to turn it all off and see how it fairs.

5 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

It’s a crusher on native 4K! My 4090 Laptop will probably run it good, but it’s 2560x1600P, and Frame Gen will be its savior. But I think something like a RTX 3090 would really struggle. Frame Gen is excellent feature. 

Running FG$ i get 400+ frames at times. Right now average is 350fps with no over clock.

But you are right, i was at like 70 to 90 with it turned off.

13 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

That’s excellent! I almost bought a copy from another guy who received a free copy as well. But then I discovered it’s free for Game Pass users, This new Doom game well, It’s not the typical Doom which are usually “Amazingly optimized on Vulkan” game, prior Doom mentality is = (run it maxed out on any GPU ya got) lol. 4K native pushes the 5090 ridiculously hard and actually uses it! Makes no sense though. Of course, DLSS+Frame Gen make it run really really easy. But, I don’t understand why they did this. It should not be this hard to run.. My 5090FE smacks it down hard, especially when I’m not recording gameplay, but not everyone has a 5090 lol. This game would whoop something like a RTX 5080 during 4K Native 🫠

Well load up the 4090 laptop and get to testing. I'll load it up on my laptop and see what it can do at 2k/5070ti

2 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

DOOM Dark Ages is very fun! It is on Game Pass for free with subscription! 
 

 

It also came with my Astral and my laptop. Plus a few other games I need to get installed.

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

Thanks for the suggestions, Brother John.

 

Still trying to decide if I am going to keep it or return it within the 30-day window. It's nice in some ways, but not worth the sacrifices it requires in some aspects of functionality or the added cost. I cancelled the pre-order three times, but the allure of an Apex was too great. But, it is falling short of my expectations as a former Intel Apex owner. If I return it I will probably replace it with another AORUS Master and be done. It leaves more to be desired than I expected.

If it's passable on benching and able to hold all my drives, then I would just give the Apex back and wait on next gen in that respect and grab another AORUS Master and call it a day. If I have no plans on a 5090, then the Master would be the final answer.

PS, I already gave mine back and went back to my Z790 Apex. I loved the options the new board had, but could not get past those crappy CPU's. In some respects, they did pretty well, but I felt that it was going backward because we were used to at least 32 threads, and 24 just wasn't doing it for me.

On 5/11/2025 at 1:17 PM, Mr. Fox said:

Maybe my excitement about using the top X4 slot not ruining the motherboard caused me to speak too soon on bifurcation issues. Using the bottom PCIe slot with a PCIe card is definitely a no-go. GPU gets castrated to X8 if I do. It's fortunate that the top X4 slot allows me to use it or the Apex would be flat-out rejected as an unacceptable product. The AORUS Master still has it beat here. Gigabyte did it right. All three of the PCIe X16 slots can be populated without effing up the GPU lanes. So I have 9 NVMe installed in the Master without affecting the GPU and it looks like the Apex is going to limit me to 7. Same as the Gene except for the Gene runs the Sabrent card at X1.

I'm going to try disabling USB4 in the BIOS and see if that changes anything with the PCIe bifurcation and lane distribution since I have no use for USB4. I am also going to test an X1 PCIe card in the bottom slot and see if it still kicks the GPU in the gonads. C'mon ASUS, pull your head out. If none of those tweaks works, then I'm going to put a dust plug in the bottom PCIe slot since will be viewed as worthless waste of motherboard space to me. Not sure why the idiots included it if it can't be used without pooping on the GPU.

The other alternative is abit more costly, but you can add a 4 nvme drive enclosure using those USB4 ports. 

The con to this is that the enclosure would need to be kept cool enough to keep maximum write speeds. I could be routed inside the case near the fans as an option. Read and write speeds up to 3.5K, but using TB5 it's 6K or so.

I use this as an option when running other drives, because taking out the GPU over and over gets annoying.

Not sure what this means for you...

Edit: From their site.

AMD Ryzen™ 8700 & 8600 & 8400 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x8, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD Ryzen™ 8500 & 8300 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x4, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD X870E Chipset
1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 slot
1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot
* Please check the PCIe bifurcation table on the support site (https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1037507/).

Just an option to think about.

Question, now that you guys have had a chance to play around with your cards.

What is your stock and top overclocked scores for Steel Nomad today?

@electrosoft @jaybee83

@tps3443 Were you able to run and keep your memory overclock speeds at 2125 average the whole run?

19 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

Once you block it and give it a little chiller love it will perk right up! That's what I'm waiting for. 🙂

 

--------------------

 

MSI 18 9950X3D/5090 Raider getting trashed for several reasons (display, price, trackpad, other) but remember, this is LTT:

 

 

 

I have the MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XWHG-061US. I7 255HX/512GB/16GB/240Hz 1600P/5070TI.

Already changed the memory to 32GB and about to change the 512GB to 4TB of storage.

It replaces an older MSI laptop I had for work.