Talon

Central Computers 14900KS arrived today. I left it on the desk for a minute, I really didn't want to open it, almost sent it right back. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I cut it open. I hate but also love that feeling. https://imgur.com/ryRty6M https://imgur.com/ouJQb62 https://imgur.com/VOGU05I

That does not look bad at all! I would test it and not worry about the stupid SP personally. Can almost guarantee that chip is going to react far better than any 14900K/KF you've had. I mean really were talking small potatoes mV here. And that doesn't mean it won't clock higher or better. Looks like a good MC score but again has to be truly tested. Edit: Looking over your P V/F curve, honestly they are stupid close. 15mV is nothing. I ordered another chip today and it shipped. Central Computers $699 and no tax is a nice perk. Arriving Monday from CC, good to see you got an USA chip too. I'm hoping I get something in the range of yours/mine again. Better would be nice of course.

Apparently I got decently lucky in the lottery this time. Now I'm kinda curious to go back today and grab another sample and see if those 5 at my local MC are decent bins. Mine was "Manufactured in the United States with Global Content". Made in the US of A. 😀

Grabbed my KS this morning at MC. Had 5 in stock. Better than my SP98 K.

Ya that is 100% not worth. Just a tiny upgrade for such an investment. Turn on the AC instead lol. Later this year we will see the real upgrade for her. 5070 with 16gb and 4090 "perf" with DLSS Time Travel™️. Nvidia making tomorrow's frames, yesterday's news.

Ya on average it looks to be around 18-20% faster than the 3080 with some outliers, but the 3080 consumes about 50% more power for that deficit. Both can be undervolted and overclocked so that becomes a wash IMO. Unless you need the VRAM, can sell the 3080, or just want that cool room, it's just not worth it. Though the 4070S FE is one sexy little beast. Mine is a complete banshee and it's memory OC is incredible. Edit: The one additional catch is the lack of proper frame gen support on the 30 series as well. That isn't nothing when you consider single player games IMO. Although now you can use the DLLS FG to FSR3 mod, and still use DLSS as the upscaler! Which is a complete win for 30 series and extends the life of the card. Also proves Nvidia is a shithead and could provide a frame gen product for sub 40 series.

It's a bug with Cyberpunk (thought they fixed it, guess not?) when using Ray Reconstruction. It causes GPU usage to go from 100% and slowly drop off. If you turn off RR, the GPU usage will shoot back up to 100% and will run smooth. Hopefully they get this fixed soon, I thought I read they did in a recent patch.

Microcenter had the 14900KS listed in stock earlier today. $750. Honestly as expected. They've since removed it, but I guess it's going to be available later next week.

I shall die on the sword for you lol. Being honest with myself I will pick one up, but do I think it's worth it for me? Absolutely 100% not. I don't overclock my 13th or 14th gen chips. They run so stupid fast out of box, I'm not CPU bottlenecked at 4K, and the gains are kinda meh. I just undervolt all of my chips and run the memory OC. I haven't bothered overclocking any of my 14900Ks which is kinda sad. Hopefully Arrow Lake will have some amazing OC again.

Honestly I watched that Jay video a week ago and was like WTF is this, how can he be so wrong and be such a large tech tuber. I'm happy to see FrameChasers dude called out his complete non sense. Who the hell runs PR for a ram benchmark to check for differences?

Wow, just tested the Asus Strix vBIOS on my 4070 Super, and unless there is some other issue, Asus actually limits the memory OC on that vBIOS. The vBIOS will not let you get higher than +1575Mhz on the memory, while all other vBIOS and even my stock FE vBIOS allow for full performance. Since I have a golden 4070 Super with insane memory, I use Asus's tool to push the memory OC to +2600/26.2gbps memory since MSI Afterburner limits you to +2000 for whatever stupid reason. I see no reason to put any limit on it, it's arbitrary it seems and for no good reason. Still the vBIOS seems really good, Asus usually has great vBIOS and this one, even with a PWL of only 295w still performance really well. Had it had no limits on the memory OC and higher PWL like the Aorus vBIOS, I'm sure it would easily be the best performer for my FE card. Anyways, I know not applicable to many or any on here, just ridiculous to find their top tier card has a memory OC limiter in place. How ridiculous, also their PWL is pitiful compared to the competition and the asking price. Unreal. Edit: This of course may not be present on the retail card as I had to search far and wide to find this vBIOS for the Strix 4070 Super. Nobody has published it "officially" and I found a random tech power up link that had it. It's not even on the unverified list though when you search over there. So it's possible this is an engineering or internal version that has the limit in place.

Honestly, monitors just aren't the same basic plug n play anymore. Features are constantly being added to hardware and it seems to be changing at a rapid pace at times. New GPUs and consoles can come out and cause issues or not able to support resolutions/refresh rates without an update. Most modern monitors support firmware updates and I've regularly had updates for my LG monitors. I just recently got a brand new MINI LED 4K HDR1000 27GR95UM from LG that came out of box with horrible issues in HDR mode. The monitor exhibited weird pre/delayed bloom and some flicker as scenes transitioned. I will agree it should have never shipped in this state, but LG provided a firmware update within a couple weeks of launch and now it's perfect. Other times it's been small menu bugs, or features/options they did not think of to include. Dell has been rapidly updating their new Alienware 4K OLED version, fixing issues with HDMI and now soon to provide an OSD option to allow for Dolby Vision to be toggled On/Off instead of being on 100%. Asus is doing a post launch Dolby Vision update. And sometimes things just slip through or are discovered by 10000s of consumers who test far more variables than possible at the factory. Having the ability to fix those issues post launch is critical IMO. So personally for me, segmenting a products by allowing one to firmware updates and the $50 cheaper version to not is a shit move and super anti consumer.

Wife got a pretty expensive fitness ring a few weeks ago. The company used USPS for shipment and it got "delivered" in/at our mailbox. LOL. Nothing there. Luckily the next morning a neighbor that got the package walked it over. I was just about to head over to the PO and start the claim when she showed up at my front door. Honestly though, usually they are pretty decent for me. I hope it shows up tomorrow for you!

My only guess is they are running behind thanks to chocolate chip ice cream day.

@Mr. Fox I just checked the tracking #. USPS is failing us again, WTF. Last update still showing Chicago with a supposed delivery date of today. I'm not saying it won't magically update soon since you're 1 hour behind me, but ugh. Somehow whenever I send you stuff, it shows up late. Only you lol.

Ya, 0 difference from my testing over the years. Maybe early on there was an actual hit to performance, but any hit today has to be near immeasurable. I never truly understood the hate, login aside. But even a login? Really? How many apps, websites, and programs do we all login into daily. What exactly does Nvidia know about your online browsing that every other company doesn't already know? Either way, glad they are finally shutting those people up with a no login option.

The app is eating up 0% of CPU usage in the background. I get for benchmarking, but for using the card for it's intended purpose, the app is pretty great so far. It's fast, smooth transitions and no more login which is HUGE. Login is optional. We can record at 4K 120hz at 250mbps with the new app! This is unreal!

New Nvidia Control Panel! It finally happened! https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/software/nvidia-app/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/nvidia-app-beta-download/ No login required and you get all the features of GeForce Experience. It's a in place replacement for both the Control Panel and GFE. And they officially added the new RTX HDR and RTX Vibrancy. I've been using RTX HDR (modded) version that leaked since last driver in my old games and it's incredible. You can just drop in HDR into almost any game and it looks far superior to Windows Auto HDR which only works in DX11/12.

That cooler is unreal. Tops air cooler for sure.

Looks like a good sample. That is +1300 on the VRAM? That seems pretty spot on average for VRAM OC on 4080 Supers. Seems they begin to really run out of memory OC ability around there. Still a great memory OC. Still blows my mind that I'm able to overclock my 4070 Super 21gbps memory all the way to 26.4gbps max. I wish I had that memory on my 4090. Honestly if I had 2 4070 Super cards with good memory I would consider getting the vram chips removed and put on my 4090. Create my own 4090 Super lol.

LOL I run on coffee. Luckily my wife also loves coffee too. I can drink it black or with some coffee mate. If we do iced, were all about heavy cream and no sweeteners. The full fat in heavy cream cuts down the bitterness of iced coffee, gives it a great creamy flavor and some calories for the lizard brain.

I'll be home tomorrow night. Can get back to you by Monday morning with the actual scores.

Dang that is a shame about the CPUs. I've had a few 14900Ks. I currently run 2 SP98s in my rigs. My first chip was SP94 and was actually a very good chip with a great IMC. My second was SP98, then I got an SP96, and my last chip was another SP98. I still have the SP96 in my closet lol.

Hey I also use the Ubisoft subscription! I like being able to try out new games, and no have to buy an entire game. If I end up loving a game I buy it on Steam. That game looks great when you mod in DLSS and use the FSR3 Frame Gen. FSR does look pretty good in that game, but DLSS is still just so much cleaner. Have you tried the hidden "Unobtanium" settings? That brings even my 4090 to it's knees. https://overclock3d.net/news/software/how-to-enable-avatar-frontiers-of-pandoras-secret-unobtanium-graphics-preset/#:~:text=How to enable “Unobtanium” settings,without quotes) and hit save.

Nice! Good to know you have a lot less to worry about even if you're using a brace. The reinforced PCB should fix it, and with proper brace use, no worries at all.