Raiderman

On 11/28/2025 at 4:16 AM, chew said:

Out of space for files.

 

Link instead 

 

Delete all of your old screenshots to free up space for the new. 

Nice results!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

11 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

nifty, but my main gripe is still that in many instances i need to manually come up with new profiles whenever i update the bios version. cmon now, how hard can it be to make bios profiles compatible with all new bios versions?!

Agreed! 

16 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

 

Yeah, the best bet might be to hang onto the 7900xtx unless you have a specific need you're targeting for upgrading outside a new fun toy.

 

9070xt, depending on use case, is a side grade at best as is a 5070ti.

 

Anything worth the squeeze is going to be a 5080, 4090, 5090.

 

4090 and 5090 are very expensive.

 

So as you've found it is all about the 5080.

 

I'd still wait and watch sales heading into black friday. I've been tempted to pull the trigger on a few pieces including another 9070xt for my SFF build but I know there will be some decent sales coming up.

 

 

 

Going into winter, I may have some extra time, and was thinking I needed something new to bench 🤷‍♂️ Of course I could always go the route of @Papusan and grab some old cards. That's the problem with hardware geeks, in order to have something new and shiny you have to spend an arm and a leg. Unfortunately this below isn't much of an upgrade. Only a 5090 would be.

7 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

 

LOL, that would be the sane move.

 

I think we should count our blessings we got in on the 5090s when prices were low.

 

Your Zotac Solid OC is out of stock everywhere and the cheapest price atm is $3279.99+ on Amazon. Even open box used is going for $2612....

 

New base price on Newegg when in stock is back up to $2899.99

 

 

 

 

 

It is better but won't give you that massive upgrade uplift you like to experience true.

 

With black friday specials starting to activate earlier and earlier now, keep an eye out for a good 5080 sale which is bound to happen or do as @Papusan suggests and hunt down a used 5080 on the $750-850 range depending on model.

 

Which model(s) did you have in mind for the 5080?

 

I was looking at the zotac solid core oc. $999, or the  zotac amp extreme $1199. Neither has me terribly excited. I've been contemplating waiting a bit longer to see what AMD has in the pipeline. Hoping that it would be comparable to the 4090.

4 hours ago, electrosoft said:

5090 Stock is severely drying up and base prices are up

 

These are all sold and shipped by vs BB and Egg having their "marketplace" BS. BB is new to the game but they need to have an option to tick "Sold and shipped by BB" as you have to now wade through everything to find which models are sold by them.

 

MC has 4 models in stock. Cheapest = $2999.99

Egg has 4 models in stock. Cheapest = $2849.99

BB has 3 models in stock. Cheapest = $2999.99

Amazon is all over the map as always. Cheapest = $2649.99 (Master)

 

I'm sure those Masters will sell out just like they did on BB. If anyone is in the market for a 5090 atm, sooner than later is at hand....

 

---

 

Memory prices are absolutely bonkers stupid right now. So glad I bought that backup set of Kingspec 8400 M die 2x24GB sticks in June on the recommendation of @Mr. Fox for $140. They're actually a hair better than my TG 2x24GB 8200 sticks I picked up in July 2024 for $278.99 which are now $329.99.....

 

The Patriot 8200 sticks I bought and returned because they couldn't even do 8000 without erroring out on TM5 were $189.99 and now are $274.99.

 

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

 

Just placed my order for the WireView Pro II. Only FedEx is available for S&H no DHL so this should be fun when it eventually ships.....

 

I'll switch my wiring up then to bottom run cable versus the top/over style I use now since the Vanguard uses the normal clip (non reverse) WV2

 

 

I wont pay $2k for a gpu let alone those prices. Gpu+waterblock+thermal paste/pads. I have a 5080 in my cart, but I cannot seem to justify it. The 5080 is only marginally better than the 7900xtx.

12 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

You explanation piques my curiosity so I may have to investigate it. Even if it turns out I do not have a need for it, I am still curious. 

I would say at least 1300W. The Lian Li Edge seems like a solid and affordable option. I have one in my 4090 build. I have a Thermaltake GF3 1650W PSU in the 5090 build. I like both of them. The GF3 is hard to find. It has dual 12VHPWR sockets and like 6 PCIe 8-pin sockets in addition. 

---

I may have to drop down to 0.001 Ohm shunt resistors to bump my power limit. I backed off my core clock a bit and the scores went up. I ran the benchmark again with GPU-Z and HWiNFO64 running on my second monitor so I could watch and it is still showing power limit perf cap reason, so... hmmm. I'm pulling 1350W from the wall already. HWiNFO64 shows like 959W on GPU power rails. Apparently that's not enough. My core temp is still hitting 41°C with 9°C water, so that's not helping. I guess I am going to have to think about using liquid metal on the GPU. I don't want to, but 41°C is definitely not helping

 

 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/144631382 | https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_steel_nomad_dx12/submissions/5918232

#1 with a 9950X, nice!

This is a serious Rabbit hole.

@Mr. Fox Screenshot

Something about needing Nvidia closed source firmware

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

Happy to help.

 

I have not been able to beat any of my Strix high scores with the Apex using my best 9950X. 

 

https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/cinebench_-_r23_multi_core_with_benchmate/submissions/5898291

 

https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/y-cruncher_-_pi-1b/submissions/5904464

 

I had cutting aluminum and you are right about using a dremel or grinder. It loads up the griding disk with metal and resists the process. Using a hacksaw or a jigsaw is the easiest way to cut aluminum, but you can't use a hacksaw for some things.

 

My MSI X870E Carbon and the Z790i Edge both had the rear I/O heatsink made about 1/16" too long and had contact interference with the GPU backplate. I was able to install the GPU in both motherboards but it was jammed against the backplate hard enough to damage the anodized finish on the GPU backplate. The NVMe heatsink was also touching the backplate on the Z790i Edge, but not jammed against it super hard. I had to install the GPU first, then the NVMe heatsink.

The Taichi is now listed on fleabay along with the 7900xtx. 

31 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

For the GPU, I would say select whichever one costs less, especially if you are putting a waterblock on it. My Zotac 5090 Solid OC was a good buy compared to the other more expensive options that deliver nothing for the extra money. It is an excellent GPU. The air cooler on it was fantastic (unlike some of the other affordable brands/models). It ran freakishly cool for an air cooled GPU.

 

The only 50-series GPU I would recommend avoiding like a plague is an FE model. For overclocking potential probably the best GPU silicon quality most consistently will be an AORUS Master, but the cost vs benefit isn't justified. I love overclocking more than anything else I do with a computer, and really the only reason computers matter to me at this point, but paying a WHOLE LOT more for a very small gain in GPU benchmark scores is just not a very intelligent decision.

 

I have owned the following X870E motherboards and I list them in my order of preference:

1. X870E AORUS Master (best overall - only flaw is no way to disable WiFi/BT in BIOS)
2. X870E-E Strix (replacement for second AORUS Master that arrived with shipping damage)
3. X870E Apex (returned first for refund, second was junk, I am using #3)
4. X870E Carbon (returned for refund - good mobo, but no async BCLK and weird glitches)
5. X879E Taichi (my least favorite out of all AMD motherboards I have owned - hated it)

 

I had a X870E Taichi and hated it. The PCIe bifurcation was garbage and I did not care for the firmware. I have only owned two ASRock motherboards and did not like either one.

 

I had a B850 AORUS Elite that I used in a build for my granddaughters and it was excellent. The only criticism I had was the PCIe slots below the GPU slots were X1, but using them did not drop the GPU to X8. This is unavoidable with anything below X870E dual chipset due to a lack of PCIe lanes with an non "E" AMD dual chipset motherboard. PCIe X1 dramatically reduces NVMe speed... makes NVMe speed like SATA SSD. If you plan to insert anything in other PCIe slots in addition to your GPU in an AMD motherboard the "E" version is an absolute must have.

 

The only complaint I have with the Gigabyte boards is no way to disable WiFi/BT in the BIOS. Super stupid flaw they could fix effortlessly if they cared. If you use WiFi/BT and use Windoze 11 as your main OS (I do not do either one) this truly is a non-issue.

 

It really pissed me off that Gigabyte did not provide that option in the BIOS. I asked twice and both times they said no... "you're the only person complaining about it" (essentially we don't care what you want and you are not worth the minimal effort needed to make a BIOS as good as our competitors). Gigabyte is the only brand I know of that omits this essential basic BIOS option.

 

The Strix was an accidental blessing. I purchased a second AORUS Master from Central Computers on sale for less than what I paid for the first. The big and heavy NVMe heatsink under the GPU was not latched. Apparently shipped from the factory without being latched. It flopped around inside of the box and broke several things and scratched up things that did not get broken.  I asked them to open the box and inspect before shipping a replacement. They had quite a few in stock and ended up opening all of the boxes and all were damaged in the same way. They offered the Strix for no difference in price. I accepted. 

 

The Strix is better than the AORUS Master in terms of firmware. A close second only because I could not install both of my Sabrent quad NVMe X4 cards like I could in the Master. It only has one extra PCIe slot. The AORUS had two, both usable at X4 without dropping the GPU from X16 to X8. The AORUS Master allowed me to install 10 NVMe SSDs and 4 SATA drives while maintaining the GPU at X16.

 

The Apex is a great motherboard with a glaring engineering defect entirely due to an idiotic PCIe slot arrangement. I can only use the X4 PCIe slot above the GPU. The Sabrent quad NVMe card's heat sink touches the GPU backplate. The Strix performs as well as the Apex in terms of the CPU overclocking. It has asych BCLK and I can use the Sabrent card in the bottom slots without the GPU dropping to X8 like it does in the Apex.

 

Hope this helps. 

Amazing, and very appreciated reply. Thank you! You've convinced me to sell the Taichi MB. My gigabyte board had a similar problem with the top pcie heatsink/cpu waterblock, and GPU backplate. I had to dremel a 1/4" off the pcie heatsink in order for it all to fit/mesh correctly. Of course the top pcie is needed for the SSD to run at 5.0, and the GPU to run at x16. Cutting aluminum with a dremel cut off wheel was excruciating. Aluminum does not cut well, so it was frictioned off! 🤣

Opinions!?

Zotac rtx 5080 solid oc w/ Alphacool water block....or

Msi suprim rtx 5080

Or none of the above?

Or hang on to my 7900xtx till next gen?

@Mr. Fox Did you have/test the Asrock X870E Taichi mb? I have a brand new one and was considering swapping it out with the Gigabyte Aorus elite x870E thats currently in my rig. What were your impressions of it?

49 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

That is very odd. Does it have dual vBIOS? Maybe it got swtiched? If not, then maybe a driver update did something. I know NVIDIA has pushed out firmware with drivers in the past. I haven't seen them do that in a long time though. If I  remember correctly it was a real hassle that you went through to get that flashed.

Ya, it was a horrible mess getting it done. Im a little confused as to why, and how. It does have a dual bios, the power saving bios has the default aqua bios installed and shows that when clicking the lookup in gpuz. I switch to the performance bios and it takes me to the stock taichi bios via the lookup button. It is supposed to have the stock aqua bios on the power saving, and the aqua extreme bios on the performance side. Yes, I did all kinds of benching after getting it done, and saw some 3+ ghz boosts, so I know it was flashed. Very strange.

I see the device ID has changed in my screenshots. How the F does that happen?

All is good again. Since the extreme bios is an exe file. I flashed it on the power saving bios.

I re read some posts about this process, and many reported not having luck flashing the extreme bios to the power saving bios chip. It is supposed to be flashed on the performance bios chip.

So I finally spent a little time in the computer room, and did a coolant flush and cleaned the PC. I decided to take a peak at the 7900xtx in GPUZ, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out what happened to my vbios. One screenshot from June of 2024 showing the aqua bios successfully flashed, to today showing the default taichi bios "shrug"

Hello everyone, long time no speak. Been super busy with stuff. Today I was pondering windows 7 and was wondering if this was possible? Um not too familiar on the ins and outs of hardware documentation. 

I asked grok A.I. this question.

13 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Well it looks like Safedisk got handed another extraordinary silicon sample, as usual. I wonder how many ASUS had to bin and cull to find this one. Unless you have one this good I don't think it's possible to find much benefit in owning an X870E Apex if you have an average 9950X/X3D sample. $800 is too costly to justify with an average CPU. The Gene gave me no real benefit over the Cabron other than the crappy gamerboy MSI firmware that is missing important settings.

 

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29442873/

 

About 2,000 points higher than my best.

 

Speaking of bin quality, I need to do more testing to confirm it, but I think my second 9950X might be a lot better than the first one installed in the Gene.

Slightly better than my 9950X pos I sent back to AMD @~43000 cb23 🙄

7 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

 

 

I come from the generation of carrying around Compaq luggables that weighed 18-20lbs easily and I loved 'em!

 

 

 

 

I come from the generation of lugging a viewsonic 19" CRT to Lan parties that weighed in excess of 40lbs, full tower with 4 HDD's striped etc. Oh what fun it was though!

On 2/12/2025 at 5:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

If I were the god of eBay and Mercari I would ban the sale of anything computer-related that was released to market less than 180 days ago and make it to where nobody could sell anything new within 180 days of launch day, and beyond that only allow selling one GPU per year, per account. Also block prices above MSRP for anything new and sealed, open box capped at MSRP -10%. Kill the  scalpers where they stand. Turn the tables and let them find out what it is like to get screwed. Ruin their ability to profit and basically only allow them to sell at a loss. They do not deserve to experience how a free market economy functions because they are exploiting stupid people. Should treat them them same as people that take advantage of mentally handicapped people.

 

I appreciate you guys. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. I'm home now, a little bit bruised and bloody in a place where you don't want that but otherwise doing pretty good. Super tired feeling right now. I am glad I took tomorrow and Friday off LOL. I am the kind of guy that goes from the hospital straight back to work without missing a beating but I don't think so this time. According to the doctors and nurses present for the procedure I missed my calling and should be a stand-up comic because I was making them all laugh with the things I was saying when under anesthesia. The surgeon said that he would have to find out what it was and get some for himself for later. Of course I have no idea what it was because I was anesthetized. And I don't feel like I was having a good time right now. 

 

Sorry I posted twice in a row. I'm laying in bed using my phone and I don't have the ability to merge or cut and paste the entire content from one post another using a smartphone. I'm actually surprised that the Redmond Reprobates allow Winduhz 11 24H2 users to have more functionality than Android and iOS users since they are trying so hard to emulate smartphones.

Been praying for you brother!

8 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

In my arsenal atm:

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

(These are all 15.6" laptops)

 

Dell G15 13650HX w/ 4050

Asus Vivobook OLED Core Ultra 7 w/ 3050

Asus Vivobook OLED Core Ultra 9 w/ 3050

Acer Nitro AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS w/ 4050

NH55 golden 12900k w/ 3070ti

 

Incoming:

 

MSI Raider 18" 7950HX3D w/ 4090

 

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

 

I'm going to need to downsize the top list sooner than later.

Even after my great laptop selloff in late 2023 (Sold 4 of them), I have the above.

 

 

@electrosoft I knew you were a hardware slut, but I did not have a clue of how dirty, and nasty of one you are! 🤣🤣

On 2/1/2025 at 3:47 PM, Mr. Fox said:

You have to lower your 14900KS to 5.0GHz or COD won't load?

 

Even though I don't think 5090 is worth buying at the current price, I probably wouldn't be buying one if it was priced at the same MSRP as the 5080. I still have about $4K worth of medical bills from 2024 (deductible and co-pays) and will be racking up another $3800 in deductible and co-pays when I start my cancer treatment on 2/12.

  

The combination of random lousy DDR5 memory samples and fussy/finicky nature of Ryzen CPUs can be very frustrating. The only memory that works excellent for me with the 9950X are the 2x16GB G.SKILL Neo 8000 sticks. The G.SKILL 2x24GB 8000 XMP kit is crazy flaky with it. The 2x24GB TG Xtreme 8200 kit works OK with the 9950X but doesn't work as well as the 8000 Neo. The XMP and EXPO profiles universally suck. The 9950X doesn't even want to POST with the G.SKILL XMP 8000 profile. It easily boots the TG 8200 XMP profile, but seems laggy with the 2x24GB modules. Manual timings are the only thing that I can say actually works well. What's interesting is that any of them work fine and perform about the same installed in the Z790 Apex.

 

Moving from the 4-DIMM Cabron (yes I meant to type that) to the 2-DIMM Gene didn't really change anything in terms of performance but the memory overclock got easier and requires less memory voltage. I haven't tested the G.SKILL XMP 8000 48GB kit or the TG Xtreem 8200 48GB kits on the Gene mobo but there's probably nothing to be gained since the EXPO 8000 32GB kit works great and I don't have to waste time re-tuning everything if I just leave it alone. I don't really know what is different about the EXPO kit because I am using custom manual timings, but the EXPO kit seems to always cooperate.

Right now I am running 8100mhz with xmp profile on my gskill 2x24gb modules. I haven't tried to tune any timings yet, but I've never been able to use xmp on the X670 board, I had to manually set everything.

Found an old image from a few years back Ryzen 3900X and 1080ti.

I skipped some pages, too far behind). Was anyone able to snag a 5090 at msrp? Or did scalpers clean everyone out? I see the egg is out of stock on everything, so I'm assuming the latter is true?

Well, got a new board, gigabyte aorus elite x870E, and no Windows 10 drivers for the realtek wifi module. I absolutely loathe windows 11 nearly as much as I loathed windows 10 from 7. After a few years of hacking, tweaking, and creating a personal theme via windows style builder, I could use windows 10 without constantly having the taste of vomit in my mouth. Now microshaft is pulling the same crap they did in 2015, and it's pathetic. I remember the days when I was running Windows XP Alpha's as daily drivers, because I couldn't wait to try the next gen OS coming from Redmond. Now I do everything I can to stay away from the Filth they release now days. Linux has had decades to put something worthwhile out to compete, but I've yet to find anything worth my time or effort to make the switch completely.....sigh.

Hardware addictions aren't nearly as fun as it used to be!

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

What needs to happen is NVIDIA (and any other company) that cooperates with China in any way gets all of their patents revoked and everything they produce is automatically gifted to the world as open source and free for the taking.

 

Also needs to happen with Micro$lop, Intel and AMD. Need to make it a law that they have to provide newly released hardware driver support back to the initial RTM release version of every OS produced for the greater of 3 OS generations or 15 years. If they do not, patents are denied or revoked and their products (hardware and software) are gifted to the world as open source. If they try using their lies that the old OS doesn't "support" certain feature they want to implement they can choose between not implemented or being forced to provide an update for the OSes they (falsely) claim lack support.  Windows 2000 and Windows 7 will support any and all hardware features introduced in 2025 and beyond except for the deliberate actions taken to prevent support.

It's stupid and deliberate manipulation. I'm getting fed up with it!

56 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

I don't remember which cooling component vendor mentioned it, maybe it was Alphacool, but it's going to be enough of a pain in the butt that it would not surprise me at all if nobody makes a block for it. If the AIB cards use a conventional PCB layout instead of that cobbled together abortion they might just say no to the idea of making one for the FE card. If I were a manufacturer of GPU waterblocks I'd say no to that one. Not worth the hassle. They would have to build some kind of frame to hold the pieces rather than just attaching everything to a brittle piece of acrylic.

 

The cynical part of me believe that the Green Goblin did this deliberately to impair any kind of aftermarket modification and to make repairing (versus buying a new GPU) more difficult.

 

Yes, Roman brought that out in his video. I can't help but think seeing a @der8auer video highlighting that historically below average performance bump is going to not set well with some people entertaining the idea of dropping a ton of money on a 5090 if they already own a 4090. I hope that sales falter hard at launch and NVIDIA has to lower the price to 4090 MSRP to move inventory. That would be awesome.

 

Not that I care much, but I am eager to learn what the deal is with the radio silence on Radeon 9070 XT. I don't recall whose YouTube video it was, but I heard that retailers have had them in stock for over a month but can't put them up for sale yet. AMD has not given them a green light to sell or given any guidance on pricing. Maybe AMD are waiting on NVIDIA products to launch in order to see where the 9070 XT falls into the performance stack with NVIDIA's cards so they can decide how much they can charge for it. It would be hard to price and market something accurately if you don't have a clue what it compares to with the competitor's product or the price of that product.

I'm hoping AMD has a higher end card in the waiting, the 9070 does not peak my interest in the slightest. Nor does the 5090 with it's gold plated price tag.