Mr. Fox

That is an awesome-looking waterblock. I'd like to know where to buy those rubber gaskets for the liquid metal.

Only the most selfish and short-sighted Americans will have a problem with this. Things didn't get screwed up overnight. It took time and the deliberate bad behavior of many people that held positions of power that they were unworthy of holding has led us to where we are now. It's going to take some time to fix it, but in the end it will be worth it. Prices of domestic goods are already showing improvement. In particular, fuel and grocery prices have improved. And, we can see all of the emo-tards having their psychotic meltdowns as DOGE is taking out the trash and exposing nonsense and corruption, ending inappropriate use of taxpayer money, etc. Trump's tariffs are already having the intended outcome. Many large foreign companies are already putting things in motion to move manufacturing to the United States so that tariffs can be avoided. American companies that have played the game of using Chinese slave labor to maximize profits are also pulling back operations to the United States. This will have an added benefit of being able to have more control over what our enemies (like China) can do. This could even have the benefit of totally depriving them access to things that we decide that we don't want them to have access to. Yeah, there are going to be some things that don't feel good while they run their course. If not now, then when? Why wait and let matters worsen? It's not going to get better by itself. Yes, there are going to be some losers, but primarily those that never should have been allowed to participate in the first place. Justice is difficult for the unjust. Not unlike a very calculated and deliberate medical procedure, it's going to hurt for a bit. When it stops hurting its going to be better than it would have been if left untreated.

I wonder if other brands not having anything for sale is because they knew the cost was more than most are willing to pay? If they were smart, that could explain it. There would be little point from a business perspective in producing a grossly overpriced product that would move slowly and have lower demand because of unacceptable pricing.

It looks as though my X870E Apex pre-order with NewEgg is moving. The release date was changed from 4/4/2025 to 3/28/2025 and it now shows as an order with an invoice (no longer a pre-order). Tracking number not issued yet. And, now the Apex is no longer available for pre-order. I take that to mean that it is no longer a pending release but an officially released product now. That really needs to happen, although I would like to see prices implode even further than that. I think NVIDIA and all of the AIB partners need to suffer catastrophic financial losses for their predatory and nefarious behaviors. What we have seen is very carefully executed extortion and probably some serious anti-trust law violations and other crimes would be discovered if anyone decided to start digging deeper. I wonder how many people took the route that I did, said effyew stupid morons and now NVIDIA is experiencing consumer backlash? When I saw 5090 prices I was like "oh hell no... not now, not ever" and decided I would reward AMD for being less blantantly predatory, even though I had every reason to believe I wouldn't like the 9070 XT. The only way the price gouging is ever going to get fixed is by people telling them to stuff it up their tailpipe and leave them holding the bag with product that nobody buys until it gets sold at a price equal to or less than what they need to break even. What is the sudden preoccupation with FE cards? I've always hated FE cards and have never had any desire whatsoever to buy one, at least since the Kepler or Maxwell era. The design of the 3090/Ti 4090 FE cards sucked and the 5090 takes the cake for being a morphodite engineering abortion. It's made like a stinking turdbook with the stupid cards and cables, and a very anti-enthusiast design concept. I hope none of the AIB partners ever do something equally tragic with board design.

https://unikoshardware.com/2025/03/intel-new-microcode-0x12c.html Yeah, no thanks. Stupidity has become the new normal. The incessant chasing of firmware and driver updates is a fool's errand. We don't have to worry about degrading chips because we tune our systems to behave properly and do not allow wild swings in voltage or opportunistic core boosting. We do not need security mitigations nearly as much as people need to stop behaving in a stupid and haphazard manner that places them in harm's way. When things operate on the assumption that everyone is stupid it ruins things for those that are not. It is the tail wagging the dog and being ruled based on the defects and incompetencies of society's lowest common denominators.

So, I think my next project will be to sell the Z790 Apex build before I change my mind and decide against it. I wish I could just sell the entire package preassembled with the MO-RA 360 and chiller. I'd probably keep the 4090 though. I'll probably end up having to sell it in pieces though, because there are no people that I know of locally that can appreciate the sheer wickedness such an insane beast can offer. I wish Brother @Rage Set did not live so far away. This morning I fired it up for the first time in a long time. I think 60 days or so since I turned on the three electrical outlets that power all of it. I ran an AIDA64 memory benchmark and 8600 with tight timings this monster still stomps the life out of everything else I own. I am going to have to turn everything back off before I start questioning why I built two Ryzen machines and have been ignoring this one. If I start using this again I will like the AMD builds less. Just web browsing and launching applications, everything feels so much snappier and lively than I remembered. It makes the Ryzen builds seem laggy and sluggish in comparison. The CPU is running crazy hot, so I am guessing the liquid metal has dried up or run off the die from it sitting idle and turned off for such a long time. (One of the unfortunate down-sides of having the motherboard vertical rather than horizontal is that gravity eventually wins. Horizontal orientation allows the die to perpetually bathe itself in a puddle of liquid metal.) What's funny is it never seemed loud when it was my main rig. Now having 27 fans and 5 D5 pumps purring away seems noisy even though it's not obnoxious and it is running at a very low decibel level. It just seems loud compared to the other more pedestrian Ryzen builds that have fewer moving parts. I also forgot how much cooler the 14900KS runs at an idle. Both of my 9950X CPUs idle about 12°C hotter and run hotter under load even though the 14900KS pulls a whole lot more watts than the 9950X CPUs do. Congrats to your mom on the new laptop. That's quite an upgrade for her. The leap in performance has to be nothing short of astronomical coming from such a tired and relatively slow 10-year old machine. I agree with you on OLED. I'm kind of a weirdo sometimes when it comes to paying high prices for things that don't make a computer run faster, but OLED just doesn't impress me. Too expensive with too little to offer in return, and I'm not into having to pamper a monitor to keep it from getting screen burn. Utter nonsense IMHO. Paying a lot of money for something comparatively fragile and destined to destroy itself is illogical to me. Even if that wasn't an issue, it's not worth the extra cost. Big bucks with little bang seems to be the new world we live in now. Brother @jaybee83 - this one is the one I would recommend. Both of mine are solid AMD kits. https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb-ddr5-8000/p/N82E16820374624?Item=N82E16820374624

It seems like most all AM5 owners (including me) that have them are having the best success with G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo EXPO F5-8000J3848H16G kits. The G.Skill Trident 8000 and TeamGroup Extreme 8200 48GB XMP kits that I have are super stable on Intel but they are not totally stable on the Gene or the AORUS boards. The 16GB G.Skill 8000 Neo kits are very stable in comparison. So far I haven't seen anyone on AM5 that is getting great results with the 24GB sticks. I am hoping the Apex changes that because I have a TeamGroup Xtreem 8200 48GB kit I would love to be able to use in it.

I agree. I do not like that. There are actually a lot of video cards in 30- and 40-series with that kind of backplate. I do not like it because it is ugly and because there is no reason for that part of the GPU to be exposed. It creates a point of weakness and vulnerability. I do not understand why any were ever designed that way. I am glad that my 9070 XT has a solid backplate. The only part that is not solid is the place for the third fan to blow through.

Well, that is the driver I have installed already. But, your point is no less valid regardless. I seldom ever use current drivers because most of the time there is an older one that is better. This is how the PC tech landscape looks now. And, we're supposed to somehow be happy about it. They're full of what you see in this photo. It's what they sell and it's what they're doing to us all.

The 9070 XT beat the 4090 in this benchmark.

Very strong possibility the issue is your sticks are crappy rather than the CPU. Out of more than a dozen returned memory kits I usually find one kit worth keeping. Also, be careful with 24GB sticks. The Apex might change things in this respect, but so far none of my Ryzen systems have played nice with 24GB modules and stability for more than RAM benchmark was never achieved. Intel eats the 24GB sticks like candy, but Ryzen chokes on them.

We live in troubled times, with the sheeple guided by troubled people that are unfit as guides. I just thought of a brand new smartass comment today. I may start using it when the opportunity arises. "The maggots are hatching." 🤣 (aka - the idiots are coming out of the woodwork, and there are lots of them) ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870E APEX Overclocking & Discussion Thread

I think what we are seeing is a normalization of extreme corruption and severe stupidity. That has been the status quo for years with government, but it is becoming normal in the private sector now.