Talon

I know, my jaw hit the floor when I first got it working. I was like the first person outside of Intel to test this feature? Like WTF. Not a single reviewer looked at it, some specifically mentioned they weren't looking at it on launch day. That is somewhat BS but somewhat on Intel for not explaining that this feature really does work, albeit limited in scope right now with a somewhat annoying installation process. I almost gave up on getting it working myself, but through some persistence I figured it out and got it working. The Verge did some testing about an hour ago and also saw large gains, but not as large as mine. The reasoning for that is they used the Very High preset which isn't as CPU limited, I specifically used the low presets to look for the CPU difference. Additionally I am using stupid fast memory/ram setup which helps extend that lead. Once you remove the governor that has been in place, the high speed ram can now scream it seems. Either way they got pretty decent gains. The hardware scheduler that Microsoft is using is really that bad which is why Intel is fixing it. Then there are some games that don't like the loading of E cores or are inappropriately assigning tasks to them. This driver fixes that issue. It seems Intel is sick of their CPUs under performing and are likely going to go through and test/fix each game, similar to ARC division and their driver improvements. AMD already does this with their 7950x3D driver requirements. This serves 2 fold. First, it fixes the game performance for consumers, and it also shows the Intel CPUs performance properly. Some had made the argument you can simply disable the E cores and see the same uplift. Wrong. I've tested this and in Siege it does help quite a bit, about half actually, but it still does not reach APO performance. In Exodus, performance suffered terribly by disabling E cores. In both cases, APO was the clear winner. So there is more going on under the hood. Moreover, hardware reviewers are not going to go through games and turn On/Off E Cores, they're not going to mess with thread affinity or priorities. So even if gains be had by doing this, they won't do it, they won't report on it, and this can show an Intel CPU in a worse light than what is possible. Again, this APO fixes that issue and some or all of those gains AMD CPUs have enjoyed might now get clawed back. Best of all, APO is a driver. It's listed under the chipset section as Intel DTT. You install that driver and it's automatic. Nothing else needs to be downloaded or done by the end user. The Windows APO OSD app is not necessary and APO is on by default with driver install. The App only serves a purpose to disable APO or ensure it's on, but not installing it would not prevent it from working. This driver setup makes it apart of Intel's motherboard/setup. Meaning reviewers can't simply say they aren't going to use APO, or not install a required diver for the motherboard. That would be like saying they're not going to test a new Nvidia card with the proper driver, or they're going to test a CPU without installing chipset drivers, etc. APO is a default setup for the system after required driver install. It's actually genius. The part that pisses me off is the gate keeping here. This should be for ALL LGA 1700 CPUs. Keeping this for only 4 SKUs is complete and total BS.

Intel now offering DLC FPS upgrades for their CPUs in the form of Intel APO -- Intel Application Optimizer. Only works on 14th gen i7 and i9 K KF CPUs, ain't that nice? Reminds me of the days when you could buy Intel performance cards in stores to get HT on non HT CPUs lol. I've tested it in the 2 games they support so far, more 'profiles' to come. Rainbow Six gained 200~ fps for me at 1080p low settings. Went from 667 to 857. Metro Exodus went from 273 to 339 fps. Like what the heck. Downloadable FPS, Now I've seen it all. 🤨 https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/intel®-application-optimization/9NZ98VNK5X1S?hl=en-us&gl=US

7000MTs on the DDR5 is insane lol. Nice work!

My Microcenter has it in stock, I reserved one. Now I'm sitting here debating driving over before they close to grab it, or waiting and sleeping on it. I hate myself. But I'm sitting here wanting that ENCORE baby. lol. Why, why do I do this to myself. I will torture myself, FOMOing that board, and then do it all again when Arrow Lake drops. I need hardware rehab.

This is fake news. At least from what I found. I updated to latest BIOS for my Z790 Apex and 14900K today after I snagged one. My long term PWL was set to 253w with 14900K. Odd. I of course removed that and went about my business as usual.

These cracks are ridiculous. It's happening on all cards. They're too heavy unless you use the brace. I have a brace under my cards since launch and haven't had an issue. But they need to make it clearer to consumers that the card needs this to be used. To be fair, all of my cards, except for the FE had a brace in the box.

Pretty much the review I expected.

I've been testing one of these with a 280mm AIO on my living room setup. They work pretty dang well! Temps are comparable to the best pastes out there. I ordered the 38x38 sheet and then cut to size. When I cut it down a tad the sheet to slightly crack so that actually could have hurt temps IMO. I have a second one that I'm saving for 14th gen so don't want to retest. But overall I'm impressed with this. Could be good for those that don't need absolute best, don't want the mess while quickly testing a setup, etc. I'll keep using it for that setup since I leave it stock and don't need the best temps possible.

Pretty interesting, I found that Reflex helped latency quite a bit vs not using it. You can feel a significant different in the mouse movement/latency. Either way, definitely a good start for AMD, just wish it wasn't tied to FSR upscaling.

I think I have you address, when I get back from my 4 day I'll drop you a tube in the mail. I bought 3 when I got it and I don't think I'll be using all 3x anytime soon.

Nice! Good to see the temp drop and your gap came down a bit more too. Good stuff. I'd be curious to see how well the temp shakes out using the paste. I personally have not tried it.

See my above comment. That is AMDs FMF or Fluid Motion Frames, only works on their 7000 series RX GPUs. So unless you have one of those, it will not work. It's a driver side toggle. @tps3443Ya, unfortunately more exclusive features lol. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fgdxrp1niy8rb1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1404%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D0eef5d0124a6a02c33762d9a37e790793ef68c99 More beautiful examples of FSR3 Frame Gen 😁

That is AMD FMF or Fluid Motion Frames and it's EXCLUSIVE to AMD 7000 series cards. You can't use that unless you have one of those cards. It's a driver side frame gen thing, but not nearly as good as the game dependent version. The only 2 games you can use the game dependent, hardware agnostic frame gen is Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum, both really shit games lol. Hopefully more games to come soon.

Tested FSR3 Frame Gen on my 4090 in both games. Unfortunately it's linked to forcing FSR, no DLSS available and looks like garbage because of this. The tech itself does seem to work decently enough, and seems to take a different approach than Nvidia. They are like doubling the frame vs AI generating a frame. This leads to visual issues. See below. It's also odd to me that they didn't do a preview/early sample to tech outlets that usually review this stuff. Then they released it with 2 terrible games. Either way I gave it it try since I have access to both games and ya not terribly impressed. This is at 4K Quality FSR with Frame Gen in motion. Horrible ghosting, fizzles, and halos around objects. Some of the textures are just missing basically.

Yes I grabbed mine on eBuy7. I went with the 7958 version for the paste.

Yes, I use the 7958 on my desktop with 13900K/Apex. It's good stuff. I have the 7950 Pad on my laptop 4090 while the bare die 13900HX is using LM. I also tested the 7950 Pad in the past on a 6750 XT that had a huge delta between core and hotspot. It not only improved core but lowered the delta down to around 10c between core/hotspot. So the pad/sheets work great on GPUs.

I've been preaching PTM 7950 for quite some time. The stuff is nothing short of incredible compared to traditional pastes, and best of all, no pump out. I have both the pad/sheet form and paste 7958. The sheet/pad will not work on a desktop CPU IHS, it will never melt from my experience. The paste though, that stuff is awesome and works like it should. It won't match a delidded LM setup, but it will get great temps and keep a warranty intact with none of the risk.

I'm on vacation from Oct 3 - 23, yissss I will be grabbing one or 2 for testing. Y not lol.

Now to get these stable. They game for hours in BF2042 without issue, pass Geekbench, and haven't had any issues using them this way, but will eventually error out TM5. Hard to keep these dual ranks cool even with air. If I push the cache to 50x gets the latency down to 52ns. Not too shabby for 2x32gb kit. Took that picture hiking with the wife in Yosemite earlier this year. Gotta touch grass every now and then. 😁

https://www.microcenter.com/product/651260/gskill-trident-z5-rgb-series-64gb-(2-x-32gb)-ddr5-6000-pc5-48000-cl30-dual-channel-desktop-memory-kit-f5-6000j3040g32gx2-tz5rk-black This kit as long as 820A (a-dies) are excellent overclockers. They’ve also got the 6400 CL34 kit for same $219 new sale price. Had I aimed for new instead of the $153 open box deal, I would have tried them. But I have a feeling these will OC the exact same as the 6000 CL30 kit.

Starfield seems to absolutely love dual ranked ram. I am seeing about 10fps higher than my single rank ram that is running at higher speed. Microcenter had some of the 2x32gb stuff in stock and open box for $153 this morning, insane deal. I reserved some and ran over and unfortunately when I arrived and checked the package, it was M-Die. They had more open box kits in the back for the same price so I decided to go check those. Sure enough they had some A-Die kits for $153. I grabbed them and swapped them into my Dark Z690 with my crappy 13900K (crap IMC). Running 7400 CL34 dual ranked 64gb for $153. The package had 3x returned stickers all over it, and even a RTV (return to vendor) and RRTV (tested by GSkill and Refused Return To Vendor). They looked sus lol. Sure enough they are rockstars like my other kit I got earlier this year for $270?. https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-14th-gen-core-i9-14900k-i7-14700k-and-i5-14600k-reportedly-launches-october-17th Hoping the IMC is god like. Apparently Asus has stopped production of OG Z790 Apex and a refresh is coming with even higher memory tuning. I saw a product listing for the new Gigabyte boards claiming 8800+ memory OCs.

It actually blows my mind that people are still using those adapters. Seriously, how much more proof do you need they're defective and ticking time bombs. The only cards I see having melting or burning issues today are the ones using those 90 degree adapters. Just use the stock Nvidia crazy fingers or get a custom cable and be done with it. I've been using my CableMod cables in 3x systems since launch, no issues. But @Papusancould write a book on the amount of these adapters that have burned up.

After they've cancelled the 4090 Ti, or at least it's definitely looking this way. I gave up and am swapping the 4080 to a 4090 again lol. My local BB had a couple in stock this morning. I had a $50 coupon from them. Of course it's a 1070mV limited chip. No worries, a quick vBIOS flashed fixed that and now I have a full 1100mV OG version. Boosts to 2715Mhz out of box completely stock. Temps are cold on this beast too, the coolers on the FE are insanely good this gen. That vapor chamber and PTM doing work. With OC at stock 1050mV voltage I can hit 2955mhz. VRAM seems decent but not amazing. Unfortunately it seems it's going to top out around +1600. Have not tried to punch the voltage up though. Will see how far it will go, but honestly even at stock settings these cards are insane enough.

They're busy selling GPUs to AI and letting modders take care of their performance issues in the form of Frame Gen.

I’m loving just landing on random planets and exploring a bit. Taking over random ships that land nearby and killing everyone onboard. Space pirate stuff. The AutoHDR mod/hack looks incredible on OLED. Def have to try that out. DLSS and Frame Gen are a must as well. I don’t usually love this type of game but I’ve def gotten into it. I can see this game lasting a long time and being heavily modded over the years. Worth a look on Gamepass for $5 tomorrow when it drops for those that haven’t tried it out yet.