Mr. Fox

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.

It is harder that ever to expect good things from A$$zeus or their competitors. What makes the A$$zeus clown posse particularly corrupt is how they charge significantly more (often 50 to 75% more) for their uniquely-stupid broken trash. That makes it harder than ever to have any respect for them. I'm happy that you got what you wanted, albeit at an astronomical price. I'm sad that the quality and performance are not aligned with the 70% penalty assessed for being a loyal A$$zeus customer. Have you identified any legitimate reason or benefit for paying the loyalty tariff?

Gigabutt released a new BIOS and fixed the contextual help/hint text being the wrong language. It seems to run exactly the same. They didn't provide a menu option for disabling the WiFi7/BT module like I asked them to. So stupid that there is no way to disable the module.

Looks like I am the lone ranger on 9070 XT 3DMark 11 benching at the moment. The fact that the 9070 XT can handle these ray traced benchmarks without it turning into a slide show is a huge step forward for AMD. These scores are beating 3090 and 6900 XT scores soundly, and those were on chilled water. This is just maxed out fans and with the low-budget B850 mobo. https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark11_-_performance/submissions/5813158 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_sky_diver/submissions/5813198 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_fire_strike/submissions/5813197 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_time_spy/submissions/5813195 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_port_royal/submissions/5813193 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_solar_bay/submissions/5813191 https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark_-_steel_nomad_dx12/submissions/5813190 Hmm. I am going to have to re-run some of these on Winduhz 11 because some of the guys beating me are using that crappy OS. @Papusan are you ready to embrace Winduhz OS X for higher benchmark scores now? (I didn't think so. Me neither. Probably some deception and manipulation going on with that as the dangling carrot for the gamer children of the world.)

Here you go, brother. Hope this is helpful. Ooops, @jaybee83 and @electrosoft I forgot this one. I hope the firmware clown posse at A$$zeus puts this where it belongs in the primary memory timings section and not leave it buried in the AMD overclocking for idiots menus. You have to convert to hex for that menu. For now, this is the only way to set tRCDWR.

To me it is not about price as much as the philosophical intelligence (or rather the lack thereof) in allowing the Green Goblin to reward themselves by selling these defective samples instead of taking a financial blood bath on it. I'd rather see them lose their a$$ financially and draw back an infected bloody stump. Even if they sold them for $1200-$1500 I think they would still profit rather than suffer financial losses. They just wouldn't sell for 200~300% of their actual value. The one that stands to profit most should also incur the greatest losses when their failures fly in the face of the hype and chaos their aberrant behavior has both caused and promoted. I'd love to see every company involved in AI development start incurring gigantic and staggeringly severe financial losses that will cause them tremendous pain and suffering.

Um. No. Not even if it were below MSRP.

Sadly, I think most motherboards are made that way now. Too many PCIe lanes are being robbed for silly things that don't matter to most PC enthusiasts and gamers, such as Gen5 NVMe and USB4. The motherboard manufacturers have lost touch with what actually matters to most of us. (They probably also do not care.) Not only do they fail to understand the difference between overclockers and gamers, they fail to identify the difference between a turdbook owner that wants to attempt to mitigate their disaster with the help of an e-GPU (a legit use for USB4/Thunderbolt) versus a person that builds a desktop with all of the right stuff and values having more control over what their money buys (or doesn't buy).

So much for a simple request. Apparently they only make changes to BIOS options when enough people complain that the missing option is a problem. So stupid that the BIOS has no option to disable the onboard WiFi/BT module. I guess that I will just have to disassemble it and remove it since I have no use for either one. It makes matters worse that it is WiFi 7 since there is not W10 driver support for WiFi 7... W11 poop OS is required to use it, which is unacceptable.

I agree with @Papusan and do not think using liquid metal will be very beneficial on the GPU overclocking. This made more sense on laptops that had much weaker cooling systems and run much hotter under the most ideal conditions due to their physical limitations affected by form factor, thermal dissipation capacity, sloppy parts fitment and engineering defects. I think the benefit of liquid metal on a desktop GPU would be negligible in terms of increasing overclocking potential. I am planning to use PTM7950 when I take apart the 9070 XT. That is your best solution to have a one-and-done durable TIM. That may come at a cost of 3-5°C higher temperature with the PTM7950, which is not going to get you very far.

I played a bit of BF 2042 last night and the 9070 XT is boosting to like 3375, most of the time running 3100-3200 MHz. This is with a -0.060 undervolt and +10% power limit. Leaving it on stock defaults it is like 1.100V and rarely boosting to 3000. Definitely need to crack this thing open and see what I can do with the temps. Especially the memory. They've got the wrong pads or something. I haven't seen video memory temps this high since cryptomining with the 3090 KPE. 9070 XT handle BF2042 at 4K with maxed out settings without issue. FPS range from about 70 to 120 with an average of around 90 FPS.

Maybe they are counting on people settling for undesirable models because the ones they really want are not available and they think people will become too impatient and overpay for something they never wanted. It would make me happy to see all of the inexpensive models have dismal sales numbers and the AIB partners just start dumping them for whatever they can get for them and then stop wasting time, money and resources making and selling the garbage models that only the peasant kiddos want. AMD should stop offering 9070 and only sell 9070 XT and NVIDIA should only sell 5090 and 5080.

Brother @Papusan I think they are all scum that are going to screw every customer to the maximum degree customers are willing to tolerate the abuse. They are probably fishing in order to find the price point where the average person pulls their head out and uses their brain to say "Bite me [insert brand name]. Go find an idiot to buy your overpriced trash." and decides to not buy a product because the price is just too ludicrous to accept.

If you have an established account at overclock.net I would first list the items in the marketplace here and at overclock.net so you can bypass the fees from peeBay and PayPal. You can count on losing 10% or charging at least 10% more than what you actually want/need to offset the fees. I haven't needed to sell anything on peeBay since I started selling in forum marketplaces.