Talon

ThrottleStop with laptops is unfortunately or fortunately the way to go still. Luckily the DEV still provides updates and I also used it with my 13900HX to really unlock that beast. It sort of lets you bypass the cancer that is X-Load limits on gaming laptops. It also lets you have really fine control over power limits when you want them, which is ideal for tuning for each game/load scenario. Luckily some laptop OEMs provide some pretty great tuning, while others are pure trash. Lenovo actually provides a pretty great gaming laptop product, with really good tuning. Unfortunately they don't have fully unlocked BIOS, and the latest version apparently patched out the backdoor to get into the unlocked BIOS. So if I do consider a new laptop again in the future, it will have to be MSI again. They still provide their unlocked/hidden BIOS, the tuning is all recoverable within reason and their BIOS is more desktop like with it's menu options actually working and not bricking the machine.

https://videocardz.com/newz/cinebench-2026-released-with-support-for-amd-rdna4-and-nvidia-blackwell-gpus Cinebench 2026 has been released. New software to punish our chips with. https://www.maxon.net/en/downloads/cinebench-downloads

MSI finished my RMA and got the FedEx package today. To my complete shock, they gave me a brand new unit and the new ATX 3.1 version. Honestly a great RMA experience with MSI.

Absolute banger card. My local MC sold out of all 25+ they had over the weekend. $749 beast with high power limit, good cooling and compact size. I sold mine recently, but honestly such a great card.

Haven't bothered updating to latest Asus Apex BIOS yet, but this has been my daily Arrow Lake tune for around 6 months. I just laugh when I see 80+ns as "fast" Arrow Lake memory setups. This is on a clean install with shitty virtualization/hypervisor running on the system which hurts latency a tad. It absolutely wrecks gaming performance on Arrow Lake. In Cyberpunk 2077, it's almost a 17% penalty at 1080p high settings in the benchmark.

290K only most likely, even if I already know that all Intel has likely done is set D2D and NGU to 32x on both, and slightly binned or overvolted the cores a bit to push clocks. Very likely some sort of Intel APO fluff with new titles as well. If they've somehow fix latency a tad I'd be really shocked but I don't expect it. Still, if I can eek out a couple hundred Mhz on the P/E cores over a 285K, it will be worth it for fun. I imagine we will get a CES launch/announcement with a late Jan street date on the refresh. It sorta blows my mind Intel has waited this long, but it is what it is. I'm also hoping they launch the Sapphire Rapids HEDT at CES. The cache on those chips looks insane, and honestly it might make for a very expensive gaming CPU if it can be clocked. HEDT was always more fun.

APEX.

It’s disgusting lol. I picked up 2 sets of 2x32gb 6000 CL30 Gskill A-Die kits from Microcenter over the last couple years for $160 open box lol. Both run 6000 CL28 on my 9800X3D when tested. Both overclock to around 7400 CL34 on Intel rigs which is insane for dual ranked kits. I have so many DDR5 kits I don’t need to worry lol.

It’s because he’s using the Intel 200S Boost profile which is official and warranties for 8000MTs. AMD has no such official warrantied profile. While I do agree it’s not fair, it’s a fair call in that one offers that profile fully covered by warranty and one does not. Also he’s not Intel biased IMO. His channel just focuses on more workstation and creator tasks and not shilling 1080p low gaming benchmarks as if it’s the only task that matters. Those Intel excel at given they aren’t selling 8 cores as mainstream like AMD has been for years now. 8 core is the Intel quad core of years past. At one time those other outlets shit on 1080p gaming, called 1440p mainstream in 2017 when Ryzen arrived and focused heavily on creator and workstation tasks in reviews. Today it’s all about low settings 1080p gaming for them.

75ns latency on 265K LMAO. GTFO. Garbage. 60-63ns is a tuned Arrow Lake 265K. Below that is amazing tuning with lottery IMC. But 75ns and that terrible bandwidth, LMAO, straight garbage. Literally tuned the TREFI to 65535 and left the 265K stupid low. Why the F would you do that other than attempting to misrepresent performance? Also heavily agree on the RTX 5090 voltages. It's amazing how good my Surpim SOC clocks with it's default 1.15-1.12v.

MSI issued an RMA for that PSU that is having the low voltage issue. Hopefully I get a working unit back.

Pushing NGU and D2D have almost no affect on temps or power. Air cooler will be fine if you keep the power limits in check like always.

Despite my gut feelings or fears of a bad unit, I pulled the trigger on that Asrock 1650w Titanium PSU. Grabbed it on Amazon before the price hike this afternoon. I figure if it doesn't work, back it goes. Hoping I don't get a bad batch lol. The price is just too good for a 1650w Titanium unit with dual 12V2x6. It's times like this that I truly miss EVGA, their PSUs were bullet proof. I've been using this 1600w T2 in my rig for years now and it's not showing any issues yet. Hoping EVGA is still around should I ever need warranty support as I think it's still covered for a few more years yet.

265K is best value chip of Arrow Lake, mine tuned the same as my 285K chips on P/E cores.. My 265K had no issues running 40x D2D, 34x NGU, 8600 CL38 Gear 2. I ran the P core at 5.6Ghz locked and E at 50x locked for a daily. Unfortunately mine had that stupid bug where if you go above 1.2v it would log WHEA Cache L2 Errors. They didn't cause any instability or corrupt anything, but it was concerning. So I backed my E cores OC down to prevent the errors. My 285Ks have never had this issue though.

Torn between these PSUs. https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Warranty-Japanese-Capacitor-Cybenetics/dp/B0DNNZ9G46/ref=sr_1_1?crid=OOLPXBUQPTMA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pBmkATu6jq8mTeFHC0sFB6DptC0lfjWcuKxj1t0dWcrAo_0ohxOxSP5BKJoMAsb_b6P-d3RW68EOKt3yvIfF1R-RD8HImRsmxQWTD4ij6-YifJ8r25m02hxnpY2BvW41hpQGV_qe_X27LC42LKxQKaSViw4qVOIuy1s08aKfgDwpiKCAmonH6SNYU6uc0_DqmPvbq5pstwqjgSO4NM0_HhR-hydCHarYU8b7IChoREY.eTpIgbjCxrEElKZRPxqPSNQhhijfBCy6TUEoGLA-6ZY&dib_tag=se&keywords=asrock%2B1600w%2Batx%2B3.1&qid=1764867203&sprefix=%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Warranty-Japanese-Capacitor-Cybenetics/dp/B0DNLP39SR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=OOLPXBUQPTMA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pBmkATu6jq8mTeFHC0sFB6DptC0lfjWcuKxj1t0dWcrAo_0ohxOxSP5BKJoMAsb_b6P-d3RW68EOKt3yvIfF1R-RD8HImRsmxQWTD4ij6-YifJ8r25m02hxnpY2BvW41hpQGV_qe_X27LC42LKxQKaSViw4qVOIuy1s08aKfgDwpiKCAmonH6SNYU6uc0_DqmPvbq5pstwqjgSO4NM0_HhR-hydCHarYU8b7IChoREY.eTpIgbjCxrEElKZRPxqPSNQhhijfBCy6TUEoGLA-6ZY&dib_tag=se&keywords=asrock%2B1600w%2Batx%2B3.1&qid=1764867203&sprefix=%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-TX-1600-Noctua-Ultra-Quiet-Efficiency/dp/B0DMW5F3GG/ref=sr_1_2?crid=OOLPXBUQPTMA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pBmkATu6jq8mTeFHC0sFB6DptC0lfjWcuKxj1t0dWcrAo_0ohxOxSP5BKJoMAsb_b6P-d3RW68EOKt3yvIfF1R-RD8HImRsmxQWTD4ij6-YifJ8r25m02hxnpY2BvW41hpQGV_qe_X27LC42LKxQKaSViw4qVOIuy1s08aKfgDwpiKCAmonH6SNYU6uc0_DqmPvbq5pstwqjgSO4NM0_HhR-hydCHarYU8b7IChoREY.eTpIgbjCxrEElKZRPxqPSNQhhijfBCy6TUEoGLA-6ZY&dib_tag=se&keywords=asrock+1600w+atx+3.1&qid=1764867203&sprefix=%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-2 Honestly the Gold Asrock seems decent, and DUAL 12v2x6 is a nice addition for what will likely be future requirement IMO. The Seasonic Noctua is likely S tier but debating if that's worth the price. Edit: After reading some of these reviews for the Asrock 1650w Taichi, the Caps are failing within weeks. Asrock is out, I'm not risking my hardware with their first go at PSUs.