Mr. Fox

I believe Brother @Papusan does Yeah, I sent the tools back already. Hopefully @Jor3lBR won't mind letting me borrow them again. If I sell the Apex components I will need to buy another Mycro Pro block as well. If that happens I may buy a GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS Elite Duo X to replace it and see how that fares. Looks like a good 2-DIMM option without having to pay an Apex tax to avoid having a 4-DIMM mess. It looks like Z890M (mATX) options with 2-DIMMs and a debug LED are essentially non-existent, which is very unfortunate. A memory cooling kit will definitely help. Even the legacy type with generic heatsinks and a waterblock bolted on top is a huge improvement and not that far behind a direct touch RAM block.

No worries, brother. Putting the needs and concerns of your family first and the ability to provide for them takes precedent over anything else and you are making a good/right choice in doing that. I would be disappointed if you allowed any kind of hobby or fetish to draw your attention away from that duty. I only offered it in case you were interested and able. Since you are a friend I wanted you to have first crack at the stuff based on our recent communications about the CPU and memory overclocking experience you have had with it. If your main use of the PC for pleasure is gaming there is no point in returning what you have or buying a 270K Plus CPU and Z890 mobo. AM5 is going to live quite a few more generations and what you have right now is way more than adequate for a world-class gaming experience. Superior overclocking capabilities using the highest end parts (like those you already have) is not of any remarkable value in the context of gaming. It would only be worthwhile for eking a little bit more life from an antiquated setup or marginally adequate hardware that stuggles with gaming workloads.

These parts are currently in my daily driver build. I may regret selling, but I could use the cash to fund another project. I am not "parting out" at this point, (so don't bother asking,) but willing to sell it all as a bundle. I really like this build and I am not desperate to sell, but asking a fair price on these super expensive components. Here is what is included: X870E Apex motherboard (includes box and all original accessories) 9950X3D2 CPU - Delidded (will include IHS and retail box) Buyer's Choice of: Thermal Grizzly IHS, Thermal Grizzly Mycro Pro DD block, or IceMan DD block G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 6000 C26 (2x16GB) Memory F5-8400J4052G24G 1.450V Supercool Computer Direct Touch Memory Cooler (will include stock RAM heatsinks) If you do not want a 9950X3D2 CPU for some reason, I have a decent 9950X that is delidded and also runs 8200 stable with tight timings and I will discount the price to reflect the cheaper CPU. (We can discuss that via PM.) Price: Asking $1800 including shipping and insurance to a US buyer in the lower 48. Item Location: San Tan Valley, AZ Shipping: As noted above. International Shipping: I will consider selling internationally but buyer will pay all costs associated with shipping outside the lower 48 states unless a shipping forwarding service is used (with a US address). Handling Time: I will take the system apart upon receipt of payment, so the following business day it will ship. Payment Options: PayPal Friends & Family or regular PayPal plus 5% to cover the fees (regular PayPal will let you use PayPal Credit or Pay-in-4 options) Condition: Used - excellent, near new Warranty: none from seller, mobo still has time left on ASUS warranty Feedback: eBay Profile; OC.net MarketPlace

Listed at oc.net: X870E Apex - 9950X3D2 - G.SKILL 6000 C26 - Plus Extras Bundle Listed here:

I sent him a PM asking for his PayPal. If he has not quietly sold it already I will buy it. Probably not a smart move, but most things we are passionate about produce behaviors that are not very intelligent. Too bad I already sent the delidder tool and heater back. This will drive me to sell the parts I had offered to @tps3443 to pay for it and fund the replacement motherboard, etc. I honestly have not had time to put either the delidded 270K or delidded 9950X3D2 through their paces to say definitive gains in performance were achieved, but the massive thermal improvements alone made it worth the effort in both cases. I've had too many competing interests consuming my time. I'm going to expect decent performance gains on the 270K. I'd not expect as much from AMD simply because things are so limited by design by AMD. But I would delid them both again in a heartbeat just for the thermal gains even if nothing changed on either one in terms of performance. Bare die is the only way to fly. I need you to build a custom loop and stop settling for an AIO, brother. Since he spent more than I am offering to sell him the parts for he could come out ahead moneywise and with a better and stronger system if he were to return what he bought and use the money to pay for it. But, maybe the return window already closed. No matter the situation, I respect the decision to say no for the reasons that he did. Priorities are always God, family, work, play... in that order... and the first two are hard to separate. If the last two get out of order everything falls apart.

You are being wise, and that's what all of us should be. Fantastic score and yes, crazy good silicon I think the 9950X3D2 works best for me on a BIOS released several months before the CPU was released. On one hand it kind of sucks that A$$zeus has burned most of their calories on maximizing performance using the G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 6000 CL26 part numbers but, on the other hand, if you own either of those kits it is awesome and you're happy that they have. This is using the A$$zeus 8000 BIOS profile. Fully tested... very fast and very stable. These are not my best scores, but they are close and I haven't spent any time tuning the memory or the CPU. Just click and run in my crazy hot Arizona home office with a 78°F ambient temperature.

@tps3443 let me know he is not able to obtain these items, so if anyone here is interested in grabbing it for $1600 let me know. If not I may list in the marketplace at oc.net for probably $1800. 9950X3D (delidded) IceMan Bare Die Block (or Thermal Grizzly Performance IHS - buyer choice) X870E Apex G.SKILL Trident Neo 6000 C26 32GB (2x16) 1.450V F5-8400J4052G24G Supercool Computer Direct Touch Memory Cooler kit

If I had not already purchased the 9950X3D2 I might have considered it, but 3x retail is too much even if it is an amazing silicon sample. It will be obsolete too soon to make it a smart buy. Kind of nutty when you think about it. No response from him yet. Crickets. I'm surprised that I didn't hear from him. I offered all of what I mentioned for $1600. You could not even buy the mobo and memory for that, not to mention all of the extras it would be like getting for free. Maybe he did not see my text message. Yeah, there is not much difference in anything except memory benchmarks to be brutally honest about it. A little bit, for sure. Not a lot. And, a little bit doesn't mean very much when it comes to gaming, and it won't mean the difference between winning or losing. A little bit really matters when you've barely got enough to make things work.

I made @tps3443 a crazy low offer on the 9950X3D2, X870E Apex, IceMan Direct Die block, G.SKILL 6000 CL26 RAM and Supercool Direct Touch RAM cooler. That CPU is a WHOLE lot better than the one he has. So is the motherboard and RAM for that matter. If he doesn't want it, if anyone here is interested I will let it go for the same utterly insane low price as a complete package. Ready to use, turnkey. Speaking of 6000 CL26, this is the best that the garbage V-Color dual rank trash kit is capable of doing. I spent about 5 hours yesterday with it installed in the SFF build and it just doesn't have much to offer. As the low clock speeds it is capable of it performs actually quite well, it just can't hit any clock speeds that are worth a darn. It is not even bootable at 6400 in 1:1... debug code 00 on every attempt. Great example why one should never judge a book by its cover. With EXPO specs like this kit has one would think it is a fantastic memory kit, but it really sucks unless you run it close to stock. As sucky as it is, it will be good enough for the SFF build since it is not going to get put through the benching meat grinder. It will have a mundane existence that is limited to the mediocrity of web browsing and 3D gaming.

I am making a little more progress. This dual v-cache CPU doesn't like being rag-dolled like my other CPUs. It is more sensitive. That's not a good thing, but it is good I am starting to better understand what it can tolerate, and when I treat it kinder and gentler it performs better.

@Reciever I don't know if we're experiencing another DDoS attack or what, but the forum has performed miserably all day. Very laggy and sometimes unresponsive and inaccessible.

Brand new clear tubing looks fantastic. The problem is it doesn't stay looking brand new. EPDM is definitely the way to go. I think brand new clear tubing looks nicer but EPDM looks good and looks exactly the same whether it is new or old and I think it is considerably more durable. Plasticizers and degradation are a non-issue. I can tell you right now the silicon sample on the core side of things is better than my 4585PX and 9950X. The cores need less voltage for a manual overclock at any given core ratio. The memory controller is weaker than both of them. It requires looser timings to run 8000. Cinebench scores are lower and some things actually feel like they are slower at equivalent clock speeds. There is a small latency penalty with 3D v-cached CPUs and I think these flaws are all inherent to 3D v-cached Ryzen CPUs. I haven't done any gaming with it yet but I think I'm going to find that I gained nothing and probably lost a little ground in terms of overclocking capabilities. As far 9950X3D2 samples are concerned, I think this one is probably better than average. I may find my opinion will change after I spend more time with it and find out what it likes and what it doesn't. I may not be doing what it likes yet. I absolutely do not like the 200 MHz lower PBO boost clock but if I can get the thing to do a substantially better manual overclock I might forgive that because I don't really like PBO anyway. I have already decided that the Core Ultra 270K Plus is better than anything AMD has for sale. It performs better than anything AMD sells right now and costs substantially less than AMD's closest equivalent product. I had to loosen tCL, tRCDWR/RD, tRP, tRAS and tRC to get it stable at 8000. It might do better with GDM enabled, but I don't really want to do that if I can help it.

So, I used the Thermal Grizzly Intel socket 1851 Delid Die Mate heater that I used to delid my 270K Plus to delid my 9950X3D2. It worked flawlessly and effortlessly. It was more work threading dental floss behind the IHS "legs" to cut through the rubber glue pads than it was to delid. As soon as the heater hit 165°C and flashed ready I simply lifted the CPU off the IHS as if it were never attached. As an added bonus, most of the factory solder stays on the IHS so cleaning up the dies after delid is way lots easier. (Same was true for the 270K Plus. Very little solder left to clean off the dies.) I am going to do all delids this way from now on. Much better than working up a case of carpal tunnel moving the AM5 IHS back and forth 100 times until it falls off. Major thermal improvement (about 15-18°C) in Cinebench, exactly as expected.

Amazon. Mayhems clear tubing is the best. They offer several different types with a good explanation of the differences. Alphacool clear tubing is also decent. All of the Corsair clear tubing I have used was not good. It kinked more easily in a sharp radius, was too soft and easily collapsed. The XSPC tubing I have purchased always had kind of a haze or cloudiness and blue tint to it. I would avoid the "UV" reactive type of clear tubing. Sometimes the off-brand Chinese offerings you see on Amazon are OK, but the dimensions can be off a bit and make the tubing too tight or too loose for the fittings, so I would avoid them since it is hit or miss on that. Performance-PCs is also a good source for Mayhems tubing when they have it in stock. I usually get it from Amazon faster and with free shipping. When I order from Performance-PCs it usually takes at least a week to get here. You are closer to them than I am. I can even the some logic in "if you see a great deal, SNAG IT NOW" even if you don't need it now. You might need it tomorrow and find it not available or so absurdly overpriced that you can't justify buying it even if you need it. If the prices keep going up and you don't need it you can sell it for a profit. Computer parts never used to be an "investment" and they should not be. But, it seems that they have worked out to be an appreciable commodity, at least during this time of extreme over-the-top retardedness in the tech space.

AIOs have their place in budget builds and space-restricted builds like my A3 SFF, but nothing beats a custom loop. Just do it, bro. If you have everything there is no reason to settle for an AIO. Order a bottle of PrimoChill Liquid Utopia additive on Amazon and grab a gallon jug of distilled water from Walmart dirt cheap and you'll be set. I found a place to buy EPDM tubing in bulk. The stuff sold for PCs is grossly overpriced and a horrible value, not to mention that it is hard to find in the size that I prefer to run. You can get whatever size you need for about 50-60% less than the stuff sold for PC builds. (They probably buy it from suppliers like this and mark it up 300%.) This place also ships fast. I received my order the next day using their cheapest shipping option. (They are in CA.) You can literally buy 30 feet of it for the same or less than 10 feet of the stuff sold for PCs and it is virtually the identical product. (But, you only need to buy 10 feet and save 2/3 of the cost.) https://www.mcmaster.com/products/tubing/tubing-2~/?s=epdm+tubing Don't waste money on grossly overpriced "PC coolants" that are garbage. You're better off using automotive antifreeze (which works flawlessly and is superior to anything else, with the only downsize being the unattractive colors) rather than falling for the PC coolant gimmick. I used it for years and the only reason I am not still using today it is the color. I do not think it would look nice with an acrylic distro block and I prefer having it clear. There is never any corrosion, algae or loss of effectiveness with antifreeze, plus it is a pump lubricant and o-ring protectant. If you like blue or green colored coolant, then use antifreeze if you have it on hand already. EPDM can be difficult to tighten the compression collar on compared to clear tubing. Use two pairs of slip-joint pliers and wrap the jaws with three or four layers of cloth electrical tape or masking tape to avoid scratching the fittings if you run into that issue and it will make it easy to tighten (or remove) the compression fitting collar.

So, I finally received the Supercool RAM kit and have the TeamGroup Xtreem 8800 CUDIMMs on water. Things are as they should be.

Under communist leadership, including the extreme left goofball Mayor of NYC, New York is the official rectum of America. Even a little bit worse than California now, which is pretty hard to believe. Even harder to believe that, with the assistance of election fraud, there are actually idiots dumb enough to elect and re-elect trash into public office. Smarter people are leaving both places in droves. It is no longer the financial capitol of America, and all of the money-making businesses are fleeing the reign of unbridled insanity. Same is happening to California.

OK, I have the EVC 2.0 working again. Between the python scripts and helpful suggestions @Day/drifter provided and using AI/search I am back in business on Windoze 10 and Winduhz 11. In case it saves anyone else the heartache, the instructions are posted below. Since it fixed the software not detecting the device in both OSes, it seems to be the remedy. I think the WireView Pro 2 installation and firmware updates to it may have been what triggered the malfunction because it is also an I2C programmer. Ensure the device is running the latest firmware (0009 or later), as older versions like L4 may require specific driver configurations. The WinUSB driver is not installed correctly. To resolve this, manually configure the Windows registry: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\048357400200. Set the osvc value to 01 50. Create a new DWORD named NewInterfaceUsage. Do not change the values. Create a new BINARY named SkipContainerIDQuery with value 01 00. Uninstall the device in Device Manager, but do not scan for hardware changes. Unplug the EVC 2.0 USB cable, and plug it back in. Launch the EVC2 Software in Admin Mode. EVC 2.0 Fix.zip

Sounds like you've got some good things going on for projects. I think that my problem is mental disorder. I love projects, too. But, I do not like working on multiple things simultaneously and when I start something I want to work it through to the end without stopping. I do not like projects that I do over a series of days or pick up on weekends. That's why I am exhausted. A normal person would have taken their time and not get stressed out about the idea of going to bed and finishing something tomorrow. I didn't stop for anything except to go to the bathroom. This is one reason why my young adult hobby of building street rods and modified muscle cars will never be part of my life again. I was like this as a teen/young adult as well, but it has grown worse with age. There were numerous times that I got off work on Friday and worked through the night, all of Saturday and into Sunday evening without stopping to finish one of my car projects. If I didn't finish my entire week was hell because I couldn't live with the fact that I started something that wasn't finished.

I will soon. Too many projects at once. Spent the entire weekend doing computer stuff and still not done. Thoroughly exhausted. Built the A3 mini Installed the 9950X3D2 for testing... seems kind of meh, but haven't given it enough attention. It does need less core voltage than my other CPUs, but I didn't realize I would be losing 200 MHz on the AMD fused max boost on PBO. Completely gutted the O11 XL EVO for cleaning, flushed all of the parts, disassembled the disto block and cleaned the inside manually to remove all of the white chalky residue on the acrylic from something, (no idea what,) and now running a batch of PrimoChill System Reboot. (So another system flush and refill will be needed in 24-48 hours.) I redid the loop and removed the distribution manifold, forcing everything to flow in series rather than parallel. My flow rate is now 310-315 L/H (up from ~215-225 L/H). The EVC 2.0 is no longer being detected by the EVC software for some reason, so now I have to figure that out. Supercool memory block should be arriving tomorrow for the CUDIMMs in the Z890 Apex. (I already have Supercool memory cooling on the G.SKILL 8400 DIMMs but I don't what to have to swap things around, so I ordered the new kit so I could leave the other kit as-is.) So, I will be doing that next. Everything is a mess. I'll have to clear a spot in my office for work tomorrow and finish cleaning up and putting things away.

Here are the photos. Everything is working well. If the 9950X3D2 is a keeper I will move the 4585PX from the Apex to this system and keep the 9950X as a backup/spare CPU. Or, I may just leave it with the 9950X, put the crappy VColor 6000 C26 dual rank kit on this board and put the Kingbank 8400 kit back into my surplus stash along with the 9950X. Everything was tight, but nothing had to be forced or modified to fit. I even found a spot for the remote debug LED, power/reset panel. (I love that feature and it was a deciding factor in purchasing it. I do not like motherboard that are missing debug LED, power and reset buttons.) When I say "tight" there is about 3-5mm of clearance between the PSU AC power connector and the front AIO fan above it. Lian Li/Dan clearly put a lot of effort into designing something where things that are supposed to fit actually do. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I could still fit a 5080 or 5090 in place of the 3070 FTW3 if I needed to. I remembered that I had a couple of old Scythe low profile 120mm fans, so I managed to fit one of them in the floor at the rear to help cool the dual NVMe PCIe card I have in the bottom 4X slout under the GPU.

I just finished the build at 02:00 AM. Started about 7:00 PM. I am very glad I went with SFX. It would have been super difficult with ATX and the 3070 would have been a tight squeeze. The side fan/radiator bracket is the perfect place to install a 120mm RAM fan, and I did. I'm pretty pleased with the wire management. I did not have enough room between the GPU and floor to install 3 bottom fans and I saw one video where the GPU temps were higher with 120mm fans under the GPU. I did manage to get one on the floor at the front and put another intake fan on the rear I/O panel, so I am hoping it has a least a little bit of positive pressure. Everything is ventilated. It looks nice. I will take some photos tomorrow. Hopefully congrats will be in order rather than condolences. Will find out when it gets here. It is more than I wanted to spend as well. If it is better than what I have it will definitely be delidded. It won't float my boat no matter how good the silicon is with the stock solder/IHS. Temps are just too much better a delid, even if you're just running it at stock clocks. At this point I consider a delid to be SOP for AMD and Intel. Every system I have built since 2015 has been delidded and bare die. Yeah, crazy. Yes, nothing changed other than delid and installing the Mycro Pro Direct Die block. I am going to remove the crossflow radiator and install the Alphacool 240 D5 distro that I replaced with the Radikult Customs 240 distro in the O11D Mini V2 and flush the system and then I will see how far I can push it. Maybe Sunday if I can get everything done tomorrow. I am waiting for a Supercool direct-touch memory block to get here and then I will replace the stock TeamGroup Xtreem 8800 CUDIMM heat sinks. Too many projects.

Wow, by far the easiest delid I have ever done using the Thermal Grizzly Delid Die Mate and the Die Mate heater. Removing the residual solder from the die after delid was also much easier because there was less of it. Most of it stayed on the IHS and hardly any left on the CPU die. And, as always massive thermal benefit to bare die. The temps are fantastic. Cooler temps = less voltage and power, higher clocks... profit by every measurement. I am pretty sure I could use the heater to delid a Ryzen CPU with 75% less time and effort if I were to use dental floss to cut the glued spots.

So, I bought a 9950X3D2 on overclock.net that has what appears to be a stronger IMC and better V/F curve than either my 4585PX or 9950X. I will find out if it was a stupid waste of money after it arrives on Saturday. I hope not, but this CPU has gotten a lot of hate. I think it is because most are lousy silicon samples that need too much voltage and have a crappy IMC. We shall see soon enough. Before I start playing with that I need to delid my 270K Plus and install the Mycro Pro block. I will be doing that tomorrow.

Speaking of PSUs, the Super Flower Combat 1000W SFX unit was delivered. I have never owned or even seen an SFX PSU except in pictures and videos. It is incredibly small, but unbelievably heavy. It seems like it weighs as much as an ATX PSU. Pictures and videos are usually lacking where perspective is concerned. But, yeah... it's soooo little. It is going to make building a SFF much easier.