Mr. Fox

Weird. I claimed it and completed that but it does not show up in my Epic library. If I go back to the store it says "in library" on the page but doesn't show in the client. I had to refresh the library. Simply logging out and back in did not work. There is a button up at the top next to the word "Library" to refresh. Never noticed that before. Downloading it now.

Thank you for letting us know.

None of the 5090s are worth what people are paying for them at any tier level, and the halo models represent the poorest value of all. It seems insane to me that anyone is paying a lot extra to get almost nothing in return. They do not deliver benefits to scale with price and (as noted in your comments and the video) can even be an inferior product overall. I do not think any GPUs models other than the Intel options and 9070 XT offer anything that somewhat resembles value based on price. The best job is the one you have. At the end of the day, job you used to have is of no value whatsoever. The best that you can hope that it provides is qualification for something that produces a paycheck that makes you a more attractive candidate.

My situation is that the company I was working for has fallen on hard economic times due to lack of business and about 10 of us got booted to keep the lights on. I was the highest paid person (Chief Claims Officer) and was furloughed without pay in the hope that things would improve and I can return. My daughter was also one of the people eliminated and a couple of other higher-paid and very highly talented people. My position in the workforce is also a problem for me on my resume. Lots of "overqualified executive leader" opinions come into play even though I am willing to do the work of an individual contributor and applied for roles like that. I am trying to get back into a gaming mindset to pass the time and having a hard time with that because two of my favorite AAA titles (BF and CoD) have been permanently ruined for me because they now require me to enable stupid cancer $hit in the BIOS and I am not doing it. Screw 'em. There are not that many games that hold my interest anymore and I have played through all of the Crysis title at least a dozen times and got kind of burned out on them for over-familiarity. I really only like FPS with heavy graphics focused on not looking cartoonish and heavily ray-traced environments. I hate RPG, strategy, most indie titles and online multi-player games so my interests are pretty narrow.

They do look pretty awesome. All of them. I miss HEDT platforms. The most fun I ever had with overclocking was X299. CPU and memory overclocking was epic. I won't be doing anything with computer stuff until I find work though. Lots of applications out and a couple of opportunities that look very promising. A lot of email generated rejections without an adequate review of my qualifications, most likely based on my age (even though that is illegal). I may end up redoing my resume and dropping out the first 20 years of my career history to keep my age concealed from AI filtering and biased recruiters. Even when I do something in terms of the next upgrade, my preference would be to go back to Intel. My X870E builds are great, but AMD overclocking is pretty darned lackluster compared with Intel, and I really do not care for how AMD handles memory overclocking. So, I will wait and see what Intel drops before making any purchase decisions.

8000 MT/s compared to 8200 above. Absolutely not worth the extra effort.

The distro plates are nice if you are using a case. If you are not, then just skip it and do a couple of Core 100 unit that include the pump and save your money. Pumps can be horizontal or pump down (toward floor) but never pump toward the ceiling. They can be anywhere in the loop but work best on the radiator output side, or one (or more) on the cold output (high pressure side) and one on the retun side. Generally speaking, you do not want all of the pumps between the PC and radiator on the return (hotter and lower pressure) line. Stop and visualize the layout. Grab a paper and pen and sketch it out to plan how many fittings you will need. You will need at least two compression fittings for each joint: 2 per hose on each pump, 2 for each radiator, 2 for each filter. 2 for the CPU block. 2 for each GPU block. In terms of 90° or 45° fittings, that will depend on how your build is designed. You will probably want 2 90° fittings for the GPU block. You will likely want at least one for each pump. You will probably want a minimum of 4 of these. In a close case you would likely want more because of sharp turns. They are not necessary for anything other that having a tidy build or if you need to make a sharp turn without kinking the tubing. Air will collect in the highest point of the loop. The reservoir at the place with the most pressure in the loop will overflow with the plug removed. More often than not, this high pressure point will be where water first enters the computer, at either the GPU or CPU block. The lowest pressure will usually be on the return (hot) line leaving the PC and returning to the radiator. Watch when you fill the loop and see which one empties and which one fills up first, the disconnect power from the pump that overflows and leave the plug in until the loop is full. Once the loop is full, reconnect power to it. Set everything up on your table or desk before cutting the lines. Place the case/bench where you want it and the radiator where you want it. This can also help you plan how many fittings you need. Make sure it is satisfying and convenient how everything is placed. Only then should you start cutting the tubing. (This would apply to any setup you build.) You can use a razor blade or scissors, but a cheap tubing cutter works best to make quick, straight and clean cuts. It is better to overestimate the length by an inch or two than to make a line too short. You can trim things down but once you cut the line it can never be longer. The old cliché, "measure twice, cut once" applies here as well as carpentry. Building a custom loop for the first time is expensive, but the parts (other than tubing) will generally be very durable and last many years. You only need to buy most of these things once and use them more or less forever. Most of my D5 pumps have lasted me 5 to 10 years. (DDC pumps are not very durable in comparison.) NEVER power up the loop dry. Without water in the loops the pumps will burn up very fast. EPDM tubing will probably last forever as well. Black silicon tubing also works as well as EPDM rubber, but it is softer than rubber and will kink easier if there is a sharp turn. (They use it for brewery equipment.) As long as the dimension are correct and work with the fittings, you can also use automotive heater hose or fuel line tubing, or bulk PVC tubing (from Home Depot or Lowes) if aesthetics are irrelevant. Those generally have writing printed on them for identification purposes and don't look very nice and are usually very stiff, but functionally work the same. You will learn a lot and have fun. Even the thought of using air cooling has become repulsive to me at this point. The only regrets I have ever had in custom loop building are: Purchasing a DDC pump (D5 are much better) Purchasing black fittings (for reasons mentioned before) Failing to use at least one filter in the loop You have my cell. Feel free to call or text if you want any help figuring things out.

@Reciever - you need a way to distribute power the fans that is not too messy and is electrically sound. I recommend that you get one of these for your 9 radiator fans and you can control speed using the remote. I have several of these and they work fantastic (pun intended). You can use SATA power from the PSU mentioned above. I do not use motherboard fan headers or RGB headers. (Using motherboard RGB headers sucks because you need software garbage to control the lights and motherboard fan headers required farting around with software or BIOS settings. This device solves both of those really crappy problems.) Delta EH10 Fan Hub with Remote Controller for PC Case, Support 10 Ports 5V-3PIN ARGB / 12V 4PIN PWM, Smart Circuit Protection, Magnetic Mount, SATA Powered(12V 4-pin RGB Fans not Supported)

I agree with the suggestion of adding a second pump. You can mount it to the side of the 1080 housing. Either of these are excellent options for that. I own both. The second option includes a pump and you can mount it on the side with fittings, beteen the top and bottom radiator ports. The larger option needs to be mounted to the side of the housing that does not have fittings. Alphacool Eisbecher Aurora 250mm Glass Reservoir with D5 Body (Pump Not Included), Black/Acetal Alphacool Core 100 Aurora reservoir Acetal/Acryl with VPP Pump (I recommend this option and mounting in between the top and bottom radiator ports. That's where I mounted mine.) You can power the external pumps and fans with an ITX PSU. Just use a jumper on the 24-pin motherboard cable. This is what I used and it was good. Apevia ITX-PFC400W Mini ITX/Flex ATX / 1U 400W Fully Modular Power Supply, Full Range Active PFC 90-264V, AC for POS AIO System Desktop Gaming Server Small Form Factor (Flex ITX) Computer PSU You can attach it to the blank side of the radiator housing if you use the Core 100 on the side between the top and bottom fittings. Alternatively, you can use one of these to runs the fans and pumps, but will need to solder a molex connector to the end. I have one on my chiller to run the two pumps and it works great.

Yes, you should be good to go. If you can afford it, buy the EKWB 90° rotary fittings, as they are more durable. I edited my posts above several times so you may have been shopping between edits. I mentioned the disadvantage of black fittings and suggested a filter (with a link). Edit - @Reciever you may already know this, but on the chance you do not, your flat reservoir cannot be used with the D5 pump facing the ceiling. It has to be used either vertically or with the pump facing the floor or it will hold air and burn out the pump.

@Reciever - another tip. Buy yourself a cheap black window screen kit from Home Depot, Lowes or Amazon. You can get a kit with black fiberglass screen and black frame, 90° corner adapters, spline and roller tool. Cut the frame to fit the outer dimension of the radiator housing. Use adhesive magnet strips (from Amazon) on the radiator-facing side of the screen frame to attach it to your radiator as a dust filter. You would be amazed about how much cleaner the radiators and fans will be using the screen as a filter, and it looks perfect... like a factory-made filter. When it gets dirty, you clean it in a matter of seconds with a Swiffer duster or vacuum cleaner. I recommend buying flat magnetic strips. The rolled magnetic strips try to curl and do not stick to the aluminum screen frame nearly as well. Use Gorilla or 3M heavy-duty rubber mounting tape if the sticky stuff on the magnetic strips doesn't hold over time. (It usually ends up coming loose, but the rubber mounting tape is nearly impossible to remove once the magnets are stuck in place if you clean the aluminum frame thoroughly with alcohol.)

I recommend ordering this for your radiator. You can attached a second D5 pump/res to the side of it. I had one and it was awesome. Alphacool NexXxoS Nova 1080mm Fan Housing - Black (24832) You can get good compression fittings on Amazon. I have bought tons of them there. Paying extra for big-name compression fittings is silly. I would recommend using tubing that is 3/8" (10mm) ID, 5/8" (16mm) OD. For years I used 1/2" (13mm) ID, 3/4" (19mm) OD but in the last year or two moved down in size and see no drawbacks in terms of cooling or flow rate. The fittings and tubing are much easier to source and usually cheaper for the slightly smaller size. Clear tubing looks fantastic when it is new and that is what I used for years. After a year or so it starts to get cloudy. It is cheap to replace. However, I recently started using the black EPDM tubing and like it. It looks nice and you don't have to worry about it getting cloudy. I never purchased it before because it was almost never in stock and when it was available it always twice to three times the cost of clear PVC tubing for the same length. I recently discovered that it is much easier to source in the 10/16 size and almost never available in 13/19 size. That is ultimately why I decided to go with 10/16 size tubing in EPDM. Fair warning... EPDM tubing can be very difficult to source at times, and it is usually double the cost of clear PVC. When you can find it at a fair price and in stock, buy twice as much as you need so you don't have to try to find more later. As you can see, it is much cheaper to buy the 3 meter package than 3 x 1 meter. Alphacool EPDM Tubing, 10/16mm, 1 Meter, Black Alphacool EPDM Tubing, 10/16mm, 3 Meter, Black Black Compression Fittings Silver Compression Fittings Don't forget an inline filter (on the pump output side) and male/female fittings you may need for your loop, along with any 90° rotary fittings you may need. I use these filters and they are awesome. You can take them apart to clean the filter screens. You can screw a compression fitting into each end of the filter. Here are some miscellaneous fittings you may or may not need, depending on how you build things. Male-to-female extenders (available in wide variety of lengths) example Male-to-male extenders (available in wide variety of lengths) example Female-to-female extenders (available in wide variety of lengths) example The only exception I make on fittings is the EK Torque rotary fittings are the best. They do not leak and many of the cheap ones do not hold up. They cost more but you can use them for years without any leakage issue. The reason being is the rotary surfaces are huge and do not get loose. They are worth the extra money because of quality and long-term durability. EKWB EK-Torque 90 Degree Angled Rotary Fitting, Nickel, 2-pack (They are available in 90° and 45° versions.) These sell out often. Buy extras if you can, like the EPDM tubing. If you need more later you might find them unavailable or grossly overpriced. For years I have used automotive antifreeze in my systems. It lubricates and does not allow organic growth. If you used distilled water, buy some Mayhems Hades Plus and Mayhems Inhibitor. The cost is about the same if you purchase inexpensive antifreeze from Walmart. I prefer the blue Asian type. The normal green type is OK if you prefer green over blue. The yellow/gold antifreeze does not look good to me in a loop. It looks like urine, LOL. My advice is, do not waste money on premixed bottles of coolant. They work fine, but cost way too much and provide no tangible benefit. Since you are using a distro plate with the pump, I recommend going with the distilled water and both Mayhems additives so it does not stain the acrylic distro block. You can clean it up, but who wants to disassemble a distro block for that if you can avoid having to. You can buy this in a pack that includes one bottle of each. It seems expensive, but it is not. You use about 9 drops of each in a one gallon jug of distilled water. There is enough for about 4 or 5 gallons. Mayhems - Water Cooling PC Coolant Additive - Hades Plus and Inhibitor Plus - Complete System Protection, 15 ml (This is actually cheaper than antifreeze because distilled water is around $1.00 per gallon at Walmart and 5 gallons of the cheapest antifreeze will cost more than distilled water plus the Mayhems additives.) Last comment... buy silver/nickel fittings versus black. You will thank me. Ask me how I know. The black fittings scratch easier and also slowly deteriorate internally and add flecks of black crap to your loop. Black fittings looks great, but the aesthetic is not a good trade-off for the benefits of the silver fittings. You don't want your filters or waterblock jet plates collecting the black particles from the fittings.

Nice! That's going to really be awesome. You're much safer going that route than ordering it from a vendor outside of the US because of how incompetent the shippers are (or dishonest creeps) when it comes to grossly overcalculating tariffs. So many horror stories of victims being charged 2 or 3 times more than the actual tariff. There will be a special place in hell for the folks that do that. I believe it is intentional. but it could just be incompetence. You know they are not giving the "extra" money collected to the government, they are just padding their wallets with the excess collected "by accident" from consumers victims. This is pretty dang impressive.

If you purchase the housing it does but the radiator itself does not. Be sure you buy the right housing. The UT60 radiator will not fit a UT45 housing. Sorry I did not see the posted question earlier. It is interesting how little difference there is between 8000/8200/8400 on Ryzen. Very close to none. And, only minor improvements from tighter timings. Again, very close to nothing. The value of the more expensive Apex motherboard starts to grow very dim.

I wish I could say that I had a surprised look on my face, but they have always been a very dishonest company when it comes to standing behind the overpriced products that they sell. Sadly, there are other brands that are similarly dishonest and unworthy of any respect. Very few PC component manufacturers have been honorable and trustworthy companies, and that is one of the main reasons it was so sad when EVGA decided they were done. https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/cinebench_-_2024/submissions/5935696

A$$zeus truly EXCELS at that. Molesters of their own natural-born maternal units.

The Matrix vBIOS with the EVC2 is a more sane approach. I do not think anyone is getting better results with the XOC firmware. I think it causes a loss of efficiency that ends in diminished results. It could be the CPU mount or even the CPU having a weak IMC. The 9950X3D that I returned for a refund could not even train or POST using memory overclock settings that work with both of my systems with other CPUs.

For those that are in it for PC gaming, it can always be taken for granted that whatever the most powerful GPU is there will not be any games that require something more powerful. System requirements are almost always very far below top tier GPUs, otherwise not enough people would purchase the games. So, if 5090 remained the most powerful option for something crazy, like 10 years, it would still play any and all games better than anything else. The pursuit of new purely for the sake of its newness is extremely stupid and needed to stop before either of us were born. I'd be totally OK with that. GPUs are priced so idiotically that new SKUs and refreshes with microscopic improvements should no longer be welcomed or embraced by anyone. It would also ultimately benefit AMD, NVIDIA and Intel. They would not need to spend nearly as much money on marketing or product development. Just keep churning out the same thing for 5 or 10 years and laugh all the way to the bank. If they released new products on a 5-year or 10-year cycle that offered a 100%+ performance improvement they would not be able to produce enough to satisfy demand.

I would be happy to see them not release any new GPUs for another 2+ years. If we pay $2000+ for a halo product it needs to remain on top of everything else for at least 3 or 4 years to be worth it. [Insert vomiting emoji here]

Good. That protects our poor "investment" in 50-series and makes our demonstrations of poor judgment seem somewhat less egregious. It also helps to lessen the impact of being willing victims of predatory business practices.

I suspect the PSU is the problem. I would get a Lian Li Edge, ASRock, Seasonic, NZXT, be quiet! or Corsair PSU. Just don't get one that boasts about "silent" or zero-RPM fans because they run very hot. I think that alone could compromise the 12V-2x6 cable integrity at the PSU side. I would steer clear of ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and Cooler Master PSUs. Definitely go with native ATX 3.1, not 3.0 or "compatible" PSU. This rating relates to the 12V-2x6 cable specifically. This list is very useful (from the video) SPL's PSU Tier List | Google Sheet These are very good fans. They are the only ones I buy now. Best bang for the buck by far. I recommend them based on price and specs. They are very heavy. They make them in white also, for those that care. The three-pack includes a fan/ARGB hub. I have 12 in one build and 9 in the other one. MONTECH Metal PRO 12 ARGB 120mm PWM - High Static Pressure, Quiet RGB Fan with Fluid Dynamic Bearing, 3 in 1 Pack with 6X6 Fan Hub - Black

If you use Koolance QD2 or QD3 fittings you don't need a drain. Just unplug the lines and remove the parts and drain them in the sink or the back yard. Give the size of the "AIO" you are building and the pump, you can probably get by with QD2 fittings (smaller size) without any worries about flow/volume. Buy directly from Koolance.com (they are in the Seattle area) rather than elsewhere. I never buy them from third-party distributors any more. Buy silver. The black look nice but the anodize finish allows them to stick open sometimes and it gets black flakes of crap in your waterblock. Trust me on this. I ended up replacing several hundred dollars worth of the black fittings to stop this problem. I love how CachyOS looks and feels. It is beautify, but I strongly dislike that it (and Bazzite) are immutable distros. I find it too restrictive dealing with that. I want to do whatever I want to do and it makes it more difficult with an immutable distro. I have tried both and after a few days of dealing with restrictions I said "no thanks" and went back to using distros that let me do whatever I want.

Unless they do something really dumb, like they did with Core Ultra (more silly focus E-cores and no hyper-threading) my next build will be Intel again. Hoping to hear something on the new job this week. I hate being unemployed, even when it was a RIF to stay solvent. God has a plan. Nothing happening on the computer front until that is taken care of.

Very close to the same performance as Windoze in spite of the emulation overhead. So close, in fact, that my scores are significantly higher than most people see in Windoze. Unfortunately, HWBOT is behind the times. They support stupid crap like smartphone and tablet benchmarks, but not Linux. Dummies. Cinebench R23 on Kubuntu Cinebench R20 on Kubuntu