Mr. Fox

It's kind of like the old saying, "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach." Popularity is relative. It's probably more accurate to say "gaming is more common" because it's not more popular with those who enjoy benching more than gaming. You can certain enjoy both, as you do. Some people don't enjoy benching because it is just not their thing. If they are not very good at it, or their anemic hardware sucks, or they don't know how to tune it properly, chances are they will never like benching. I know I don't enjoy doing things that I don't know how to do, or things that I suck at doing.

@Papusanis suggesting limiting your memory capacity to 32GB to test the game to see if any different than 64GB. After test run the second command to make all 64GB available again.

Pretty much everything in the tech industry is moving to the point that it boils down to "How much are you willing to put up with and at what price tipping point are you willing to tolerate that much crap?" I am having to re-evaluate a lot of things, including whether or not being a PC enthusiast is even a thing worth pursuing any more. It is starting to feel like the term "PC enthusiast" is an oxymoron. At some point I could see PC ownership being reduced to the equivalent of owning a hammer or a set of screwdrivers. You use them when you need to drive a nail or a screw. The rest of the time they are in your toolbox. You don't think about them. You don't upgrade them. You don't show them to your friends, make YouTube videos about them, or feel a sense of accomplishment or pleasure from owning them. You might derive some level of satisfaction from what you use them to fix or create, but they are not an object of focus. If awesome doesn't matter any more, then the only questions that remain relate to purpose and adequacy. Can I make do with something from Harbor Freight, Walmart, maybe even the Dollar Store? Or, do I need to spend an absurd amount for a tool made by Snap-On that only gets used occasionally? Can I use a nail instead of a screw? If yes, then why do I need a screwdriver? A hammer is good enough. How many nails do I need to set? One or two? I think I can use that rock in my backyard for that. Why waste money on a hammer?

And, you know what is REALLY stupid about that is the fact there are actually people that prefer having an overheating, throttling piece of garbage that is a tiny bit thinner and a few ounces less weight. As long as there are people that think that way and laptop manufacturers cater to cuckoo-nuts that do, laptops are universally predestined to be a broken piece of trash before they reach the end of the assembly line. We have idiots like that to thank, and the retarded people that manufacture trash, for the degradation of all mobile computing options available for purchase. There is not one single laptop available now that I would be excited about purchasing or enthusiastic even if I were receiving it as a free gift.

I would be happy with just static bright white LED. That's all I care about in terms of lighting. It's unfortunate that I have to waste my money on animated RGB garbage to get that. It's almost impossible to find anything now with a static single color like white LED. It would also be much easier to deal with because it could draw its power for the LEDs from the same device power source and not need any extra wiring to control colors, or nasty filth software to change it from rainbow puke to white. I think the crime bosses have figured that out though. They know they can charge me, and everyone like me, more for something I/we don't want in order to get something that I/we do want that should be super inexpensive. That is just so special. They have the art of extortion down to a science.

It is also scary what some people think looks nice. Not surprising, considering some of the freaky, creepy and downright repulsive things some of them do to their own bodies that they find attractive or cool-looking. Crazy world we're living in, and getting crazier by the day.

I have seen that video. It's pretty funny. Some of the garbage from China is so sad it is comical. What is more sad is the thought that some people would be interested in what looks like trash on face value. Not only do most of the "solutions" not work well, they are hideous-looking atrocities that should not be used even if they did work well.

Yes, I saw them but that's more than I want to spend. I pinged the guy again about the $500 13900K SP108 and will grab that one if it is still available. We're too close to them being obsolete to spend that much even on the better binned CPUs. It's just not worth the extra money for something I make no money doing. Those $600+ golden samples will be obsolete and worth a lot less in few months. The one I might buy is from a longtime OC.net forum member that has a good rep and lives in the US. This arrived a few minutes ago.

Nope. It was too good to be true. They waited until the expected delivery date to let me know I could buy one at the correct price. I didn't and don't plan to. Item Canceled Hello, Due to a lack of availability, we will not be able to obtain the following item from your order. We've canceled the item and apologize for the inconvenience. If you see a charge for the canceled item, we will refund you within 1-2 business days. If you are still interested in purchasing this item, it may be available from other sellers. Please visit the detail page for this item below. Yup. I have one that will be here tonight and I am going to do exactly that. I have the highly-rated 250W Deep Cool AK620 incoming for that three-way comparison. The AIO is still out for DHL delivery, but this got dropped a bit earlier today.

I have to figure out how I want to work it. I suppose I could compare it to my custom loop but that probably wouldn't be fair. I'm thinking maybe I should get a popular air cooler that the average gamer boy uses and run tests with that to establish a baseline on thermal atrocity, then switch to the AIO and repeat. Thank goodness I have invested in QDC fittings for everything. Makes something like this so less time consuming and inconvenient. I now have the male half on all the QDC settings installed directly on the CPU and GPU blocks on both systems to make it even more hassle-free. Moving components between systems couldn't be any easier because you don't have to worry about tubing being long enough, or too long, or having to drain and refill anything. Totally play and play. Did you get the RGB version or the Dark version? I'll have to wait until I see it to render a verdict, but I like the fact that they're using the short wire daisy chain approach on the fans now. Should make cable management a whole lot better with the single PMW connection. This approach is fast becoming the new normal and it's a good thing. This is one of the rare examples of where the old way sucked and the new way actually is better.

That makes me very happy for my friends (and one of my sons) that have chosen to take the red pill. I hope it works out really well and can run tight timings with low latency in quad-channel mode. My son that favors AMD is using his new 7700X system with the G.SKILL 6000 EXPO settings at the moment. Trying to push it harder for him was kind of frustrating. While he is content with it like it is, I am eager to see how it pans out. I might stil be able to make a crazy overclocker out of that boy.

I haven't used an AIO for at least 5 years, but it will be interesting to test the EKWB product I am receiving for review (arriving tomorrow). It will be a handy thing to have for available quick testing purposes. The EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 Dark is a performance-focused pitch-black cooler without any RGB. Sounds like a theme, doesn't it? Dark Base case, Dark motherboard, Dark AIO. Dark, dark and more dark, LOL. I'm not smart enough to have planned it that way, it just happened. I like everything dark, including my OS and forum color themes. Funny how sometimes things fall in place the way you like, but other times nothing works the way you want things to work and it is a struggle to have anything turn out right. I like the Z790 Apex, but the white PCB makes me kind of angry. How could ASUS do such a tacky thing? At least it is not as digusting as the Yeston anime and manga GPUs. That just makes me want to barf, LOL.

Seagate appropriately earned a bad reputation for past poor quality control and reliability. They have since corrected their issues and returned to producing good quality products that are durable. I don't remember now what company bought Seagate, but if I recall correctly that was at least partially responsible for making things right. They've had a hard time living down the bad reputation that they once deserved. They're probably the best mechanical hard drive manufacturer at this point. I never experienced any failures with their hard drives even during the time when they were deserving of a bad reputation. I did, however, have multiple Western Digital hard drive failures, several times on brand new drives that were DOA. Anything mechanical is going to tend toward having an abbreviated lifespan compared to something that is digital and has no moving parts. I usually do not pay close attention to brand when purchasing solid state drives. I think the price is more important than the brand. There are a limited number of NAND and controller manufacturers and I think the warranty, and the ease and speed of using it, is probably more important than brand.

Wonder that happened to Brother @tps3443? Too busy with life maybe? Brother @electrosoftI ordered one of those $410 13900K last night. Will be here tomorrow. Hopefully, it will be at least as good as the one that croaked. If so, I will return the 13700K for a refund. It runs too hot and uses too much voltage anyway. Glad I did not already delid it to fix the heat. The 13700K that has not been delidded doesn't seem to run any cooler than a 13900K that has not been delidded at the same vCore level. So, I don't think that running cooler is a legit argument for using the 13700K. It's actually a pretty decent sample from what I can tell, but coming up short on cores is a bad thing. I haven't checked the SP rating and probably won't. Once you get used to more, settling for less is too difficult. It's not satisfying having 8 fewer threads at your beck and call.

Yes sir. My first was a Liquid X and that mysteriously quit working just like the 13900K. The screen went black while the system was idling on the desktop while I was using my other computer at work. I saw it happen and assumed that I had somehow forgotten to disable the screen blanking in my Windows power profile, or that the power profile had somehow gotten switched. I jiggled the mouse and nothing happened. I pecked on the keyboard a few times and nothing happened. It never output a picture to the screen again after it went black. No idea what happened or why it died. Amazon refunded it. Suprim is, by far, the best option available to me here in the US (HOF not available and EVGA gone--both sad things). My second 4090 was a Strix. It was a piece of trash and I RMA'd it because it cost more and was grossly inferior to the Suprim. Besides looking kind of gawdy, it really sucked at overclocking. Memory overclock was pathetically unacceptable. I returned it to NewEgg for a refund and waited for the Suprim to come back into stock and bought my second that is currently working fine. I don't find a lot of difference between the 666W or 1000W since the GPU becomes voltage limited before it exhausts the power limit. I think I prefer the 1000W just as a matter of principle. Power should always be unlimited or have caps set way beyond what hardware is physically capable of utilizing. Power limits are just a control freak butthole thing for OEMs to feel important enough to make decisions about things they should butt out of and mind their own business.

Thanks. I may order it first before returning just to be safe. I received a tracking number from UPS for something close to 50 pounds with no information on what it is, so I am assuming it is the be quiet! case. It and an EK 360 AIO are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. Both products have the name "Dark" in them, so using the EVGA Dark motherboard for the review(s) seems logical, LoL As expected, it was hotter today. I burned my right hand on my steering wheel and my left elbow on my door arm rest. Not severely, but it was about 2 hours ago and I can still tell because my skin hasn't returned to its normal state.

Thanks for letting me know. I knew I was forgetting something.

Ah, it must have been the straight-on view that made it hard to identify the Revolt. Yeah, for $67 that Cougar case looks like a real value. The industrial look with the handles is nice. If it is as build-friendly as it seems on the surface it should be real sweet. Sometimes the best products don't get looked at as closely as they deserve to be. Edit: @electrosoftI just noticed the eBay listing on the Cougar case has a hilarious typo "dessert" instead of desert. 🤣

That's pretty cool looking. Would be nice to have something similar in a full tower E-ATX design. What is the black case with the silver handle sitting on your desk next to the GPU box? It looks like a chimney design case, unless it is not in its normal orientation. I wasn't able to zoom in on the photo for a closer look at it.

This ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Apex is in excellent condition. May have a little bit of dust on it, but otherwise look and functions like new. It was used in my work computer for a few months and functions perfectly. Includes original box with accessories, including the DIMM.2 card and PCIe 5.0 NVMe card. Included in the bundle is a TeamGroup Delta DDR5-7200 32GB Hynix A-die kit and an Aquacomputer Cuplex Kryos Next with Vision waterblock. It has a digital water temperature monitor and is phenomenal at cooling a 12th or 13th Gen i9 CPU. Temps are identical to my Optimus CPU block. I ran the memory at 6800 with tighter timings and lower voltage on this motherboard. Would consider a trade for a 13900K or 13900KS depending on the SP ratings. (I have no interest in poor silicon quality - please provide P and E core SP ratings) Price: $550.00 USD Reason for sale: Upgraded to Z790 Apex, bare die and DDR5-8000 (parts no longer needed) Payment: PayPal Friends/Family, or Zelle (if not F&F then buyer pays PayPal fees) Condition: Excellent - minor evidence of use (dust) functionally perfect and no cosmetic damage Shipping: Free - includes cost of shipping to US lower 48 (or actual cost to other destinations - not free outside US lower 48 states) International shipping: Only if buyer is established and trusted in this forum. Actual cost plus any taxes, duties, VAT, etc. I am unable to estimate these costs. Handling time: Next Business Day Feedback: eBay Profile; OC.net MarketPlace

NUC is still available.

Congrats on the GPU little brother. Be sure to investigate performance between OSes. For some reason that affects my 6900 XT a whole lot more, and in a more exaggerated manner, than it did the 3090 or than it does the 4090. GPU benchmarks scores across the board are more than a little bit lower on Windows 11 using the 6900 XT versus Windows 10. I am not sure why it is so different with the AMD GPU, but I wasted way too much time trying to figure it out. My 6900 XT hates Windows 11 as much as I do. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/30399242/fs/30391596/fs/30391578#

I do like some new things though. Sometimes the message matters more than anything else.

Older is better... music, cars... lot's of things. Newer is always better newer.

Man, this Norwegian fellow has a fantastic voice. @Papusanhave you heard of him? Terje Harøy