Talon

I just got sent a new BIOS and it shaved off a decent amount of latency! It had a new MCU and ME update, so they are definitely improving and working on things.

My global SP was 80. P 88 and E 74. I guess that is pretty common from what they're seeing even on 285K with some back and forth messages I had with someone else that likely is in the know.

36K at 190w stock.

LOL yes.

About how I'm feeling right now.

Hey sorry, I was trying to prevent the prying eyes from seeing where it came from. It's not the Ultra 9. I have the Ultra 7 265K for testing. I finally have Windows installed but unfortunately I need the updated BIOS for real testing it seems. This BIOS is quite old from August and is missing latest MC and fixes to other things. Other brands all have their new BIOS online except Asus! Maybe it shows up tomorrow. Windows 11 F'd me and I had to reinstall again. I was having issues with my 4090 posting code 10 and then after driver install, would not boot into Windows without crashing the entire system. Could not safe mode to fix or anything. Would continue to crash. Unreal. A clean install fixed it though thankfully. The new GPU lock no longer has a button. You can simply lift the CPU/rock it and it unlocks, it's wild.

I guess for Z890 were back to white again lol. Building now.

Go time boys.

I wonder if you couldn't use some sort of cover or blanket to keep the resistor warmer. It's interesting this was never fixed or found by Asus during validation. I do think this setup and chip were rushed to market though in response to AMD. I remember the memes about it, still watch the video from time to time lol.

So Intel killed overclocking? You are now limited on voltage with DLVR, cannot exceed a predefined limit in the microcode. If you use DLVR bypass mode, you are limited to 400Mhz unless you're below 10 degrees C. WTF. Nice job guys, you killed this hobby, OC is done.

I think he will still go hard on them and the platform if it's deserving IMO. I got the Z890 Apex in today. I also have the OCF that I snagged at $499 on preorder from Newegg before they jacked the price. Will test both I suppose and keep 1. Seeing all these leaks though, I'm sorta not feeling good. I'm trying to remain excited and hope it's still at least fun to tune and tinker with, but man, what a let down it seems to be rumored to be. I've said it before, who the F is in charge over there? Why do we have a useless NPU on a desktop CPU that will be paired with a huge RTX 4090 or 5090? Why do I need an NPU with a useless 13 tops? I mean the 5800X3D came out like 3 years ago? Why the F didn't Intel say dang, lets up the cache and slap it on hard. I know cache has it's drawbacks and penalties, but it seems to really help with latency prone chiplets/tiles. Nope, Intel said give them a totally useless NPU, that will make all the reviewers blush.

Honestly don't doubt it does, the game looks incredible. I played the closed alpha a couple days ago and damn, I was shocked at how good it looked and ran. Also I know ARL is getting a lot of hate, but I'm still going to try it. Why not. If it sucks, I still have my Z790 Apex and 14900KS to tide me over till something good comes along. Honestly still holding out hope we do eventually see an 12P core Bartlett Lake next year. Power pig delight lol.

I was super curious too. I am curious how high you could overclock the cores, if you reduced some of them, say down to 12-16P cores. You'd still have all that cache too which could be super useful for gaming. 6800 in quad channel would also be epic. https://www.provantage.com/intel-bx807132565x~7ITEP9FM.htm -- Provantage has the boxed version in stock for $1423 The "War Box" lol.

I've had a complete build in my cart before, and again recently when they dropped the "refresh" lol. I can't pull the trigger though, it won't be faster for gaming and consumes a hilarious amount of power lol. It would be hella fun, but I don't have any practical need for such a beast. I was looking at the 2595X with this board. https://www.newegg.com/asrock-w790-ws-extended-atx-intel-w790-lga-4677/p/N82E16813162113

And those are just place holders. This is the real deal price of the new Hero X870E https://www.microcenter.com/product/684468/asus-x870e-rog-crosshair-hero-amd-am5-atx-motherboard#tab-reviews-bm Absolutely stupid.

My only issue with Asrock boards is the lack of features in the BIOS. EVGA was the same way, but I found most of EVGAs menu to have exactly what you needed at the same time. Also they leave their BIOS unlocked and you can easily modify and unhide all menus in literally minutes using online tools. But I still think I'm going to go Asrock Taichi OC Formula if I pick up a Z890. The OCF boards are usually always great and if they can manage godlike DDR5 OC like they have with the Z790i Lightning at a reasonable price they'll have a winner. Asus is just getting too expensive for what they have. Will see on launch day or as it gets closer to launch. Maybe Asus will have some killer new feature with the Apex that I want.

Wow I had no idea that board could BCLK OC! They don't advertise the hyperblck engine on that board.

Yes you can use XMP if you have a non-K chip. But Non-K chips on 12th and 13th gen are VCCSA locked. I believe you're limited to .95v on VCCSA which greatly limited DDR4 OC, but not such much DDR5. 14th gen has VCCSA unlocked and full tuning available for non-K. To BCLK a 12th gen chip (only 12th gen can do this) you have to have a board with an external clock gen and it will force an earlier unlocked microcode the moment it detects you want to BCLK OC. It will like boot, then reboot the proper microcode to prevent a non-boot situation that typically happens when you attempt to push BCLK above 103Mhz or so. Honestly 12th gen BCLK is fun, taking that locked down chip to well above 5Ghz all cores is a blast and reminds me of when OC was great. I'm keeping my BCLK boards for this reason. Will eventually be able to get the chips dirt cheap and can punch them hard when they are cheap and don't care if they fry lol.

For the price you paid, it's probably going to be what you expect. Memory OC was unfortunately about what you'd expect from a 4 dimm Z690. I'd say expect to max out 2x16gb around 6400-6800MTs if lucky. If you have some 2x32gb A-Dies around, those will give you the best results easily. Dual Rank 2x32 A-Dies are the way to go with a 4 dimm board. But at the same time, I don't think I ever tested this board with a 13900K or newer with better IMC. I also didn't test with later BIOS revisions that might have improved it a tad. I'd say it probably is about where I said though. The board supported BCLK OC on non-K 12th gen, so it can be a bit of fun. I no longer have the board as I gave it away to a cousin who was still rocking a Z370 and 9900K. He is still using the board with a 13900K and is very happy.

NIce! Where did you pick the 13900KS up from?

Edit: Nevermind found your post. Good to hear they took care of it quickly. I've personally never had an issue with Asus service. Always a quick/painless RMA with them.

Intel is not going to sell their most profitable sector of their company. Qualcomm doesn't have the money to buy it anyways. Intel will sell off their fabs or other sectors long before they sold client CPU. But I do agree Intel will change, I think ultimately they will end up fabless just like AMD and Nvidia. Once that happens, the floodgates will open and silicon prices are going to skyrocket. Samsung, and GF won't be offering leading edge nodes. TSMC will be able to set whatever market price they want.

I think Intel is going to end up going the way of AMD. They're going to be forced to sell their fabs. Taiwan is giving TSMC huge government subsidies, far bigger than the US CHIPS Act that has to my knowledge delivered $0 to Intel thus far. Apparently Intel is asking for the money as they are building fabs, but the government isn't releasing it. In the end, I think Intel will sell their fabs to TSMC or other company. Intel and AMD will be using TSMC for their chips, and just imagine what CPUs will cost us then. But I guess that is what people want, everything I read is negative Intel, and almost cheerleading for their demise. I wonder how they're going to feel when their CPU is 2 or 3x more expensive than it is today.

I knew there was a bug with TimeSpy CPU. Exactly why I've given up on TimeSpy. One run will be good, next run crap. I have noticed that with 1591, the entire OS feels smoother/snappier. It could be totally placebo though.

I won't attempt to compare the two OS and I'm aware you can strip down the OS with custom ISOs to get better performance but I can't bring myself to use them for my daily rig. I tested a stripped down OS on my laptop and saw good gains in some tests. But for me, I can't use that and trust the sources. This new 24H2 does seem to be somewhat lighter weight than 23H2 which did seem to have a lot more going on in the background. Although my install was pretty old and bloated, and had gone through a couple boards (I know, I know..) Task manager shows 0-1% load at idle which is great to see.