Mr. Fox

It is a meaningless and patronizing gesture. It is certainly not evidence that they are interested in offering value. I find the €40 price drop to be insulting, at best. At worst, it reinforces the thought that the end users that purchase their overpriced products are as dumb as a box of rocks. Many of them are. Some are smart enough to know better, but want what they want and they are willing to get screwed to have what they want. A lot of us fit into that bucket. The Green Goblin knows that both types of end user exist. The price is the same for the stupid as it is the foolish.

Yup. It is only a matter of time. The digital genocide will come. It is everyone's destiny to get screwed if they are happy to keep using the GPU. The Green Goblin will create a way to make them unhappy, and the Red Robinhood will make sure the drivers malfunction. First will come the fake performance degradation, then comes the EOL for driver support and removal of previously released drivers for download. Remember... we are not customers. We are end users. They don't love us and don't care if we love them... as long as the money keeps flowing.

Maybe. I cannot boot Windows 7 in pure UEFI mode on the ASUS mobo. I have tried and it fails. I can with the EVGA mobo. Even resizable bar support works in pure UEFI mode on the EVGA mobo. In both cases that is with NVIDIA GPUs. This is the only AMD GPU tested. The problem may be in reverse. I probably won't know the answer to that question unless I decide to buy the 6900 XT because it will go into the ASUS-powered system when I am done benching it. If I decide I do not want to buy it, then I may not want to invest the effort into finding out. Had I known of this issue with Windows 7 before putting a waterblock on the 6900 XT I would have tested in both desktops to see if the problem is different on one machine versus the other, or the same on both. I am only guessing until I jump through the hoops, but the only thing that has changed is going from an NVIDIA GPU to the 6900 XT. That is when Windows 7 gets broken on the EVGA mobo. I am not sure why they would need to make one. Given the fact that you can buy a cable from Cablemods for $20 USD they probably have no financial incentive to make one. If they did and had to charge more to be profitable, nobody (or many people) would not be willing to pay extra for the cable from EVGA. I know that I would not.

Possibly worth noting, I hold first place for 3DMark 11 running 13900K + 6900 XT and there are only three submissions to UL. Whether or not that is an indication of others running into issues with Windows 7 and Alder Lake + 6900 XT is nothing more than a wild guess, but only three submissions is pretty freaking weird. I'm confident I would see another 2,000 points on Windows 7 due to a massive increase in physics and combined scores. My cynical self believes that this is by design to prevent Windows 7 from exposing what botched up messes Windows 10/11 are. All three of these are Windows 11... https://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/15658326/3dm11/15631505/3dm11/15323702#

I spent several hours again last night/early morning with limited sleep trying to get the 6900 XT to work in Windows 7. I got to the point of eliminating the code 12 error in Device Manager using a very old driver. It appear to function, but does not. Aero does not work and there is no 3D graphic acceleration in Windows even though Device Manager reports the device is functioning normally. If I try to open Radeon Settings I get an error that the drivers are not installed even though they are. I am wondering now if the issue is a conflict the GPU firmware has with the Alder Lake system BIOS and/or ACPI. It may be chipset or motherboard/vendor specific. Windows 7 still refuses to boot with the BIOS in Legacy mode with the 6900 XT. It freezes in Legacy mode in the same manner that one would normally expect it to freeze in UEFI mode without CSM enabled. It is very bizarre behavior and the exact opposite of what I would normally expect to see booting Windows 7 without CSM.

I often agree with him. He has random good content and often useful technical info. When he is acting like a normal person he is very tolerable, but his obnoxious and crude personality exacerbated by vulgar arrogance often makes it difficult for me to appreciate his videos. It is rare that I can watch one from start to finish. I cringe at the thought of how he might have behaved as a teenager.

I have actually thought of that. The acrylic is also the hinges and latch striker posts so it would be kind of a complex mod, if you could even get a glass shop to go for it. I could also reach out to EVGA and see if they have a new door available, or just cut out the acrylic and have it open. I will probably first try harder to buff it out. It's already way better. I can wet sand it with 800 and 1200 and buff it again, and also use a torch to make it shine. I've never done that before, so I will practice on a piece of acrylic from Home Depot first. I hear it is easy to do, but testing on something I can throw away first is probably still the better idea. I do have its back against the wall. I thought about putting it on my desk horizontally (back against the wall). It takes less space than the Level 20 XT case did. It is a lot taller, yet the footprint is smaller (about the same length, but about half the width). The Level 20 XT needs an entire desk dedicated to it alone, LOL... literally... not joking. I have room for it on my desk, but I think I like having it on the cart better. It's just so much more convenient that way and it gives me more desk space.

It does a really fantastic job in rasterization. I'd love to see what 3DMark 11 would look like under Windows 7. Windows 10/11 are just ruining the physics and combined scores, which is a real shame. Maybe I will find a solution to that. Somewhat. It's definitely a mixed bag. Drivers are an absolute mess, but that is generally the case with AMD. Getting the stupid Radeon Control Panel (UWP filth) has been a real pain. The More Power Tool (third-party) is probably the best thing about it. It's useful and something similar would be useful for NVIDIA. Some of the settings available are lacking documentation. I've already booted into Linux and got it working. It was kind of messed up at first because Ubuntu was trying to update NVIDIA drivers and failing since there is no NVIDIA GPU, and that would cause the other updates to fail. Finally got all of the NVIDIA stuff removed and it straightened right up. Anything particular you would like to see me run in Linux? Brother @RaidermanI really dig the DG-86. I like it more than I expected to, and I expected to like it. Thank you. I did some polishing on the acrylic and it's not quite as scruffy. I think if I spend more time with a power buffer or flame it that will be resolved. I have it on a wheeled cart, so I can just disconnect audio, video cables, etc. and unplug the water lines with the QD fittings and roll it out into the middle of the room to work on it... spin it 360° to tinker. Super convenient being able to do that. No, just "road testing" a 6900 XT thanks to the kindness of Brother @Rage Set letting me kick the tires. I did not care for the 1usmus Ryzen software. It was pretty convoluted and kind of gamerboy-ish. I got better overclocking results manually settings things in the BIOS. The More Power Tool is pretty nice. I wish it had comprehensive documentation for some of the obscure settings.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/90902010 | https://hwbot.org/submission/5226275_ MrFox`s 3DMark - Fire Strike score: 57492 marks with a Radeon RX 6900 XT HWBOT.ORG The Radeon RX 6900 XT @ 2850/2200MHzscores getScoreFormatted in the 3DMark - Fire Strike benchmark. MrFoxranks #null worldwide and #8 in the hardware class. Find out more at HWBOT.

This is not new information, but this is interesting to look at relating to ray tracing with AMD. These are old screenshots that I had not deleted. It is not a complete set of matching options, just random screenshots taken with no plan to ever put them side-by-side... but still interesting. 6900 XT - 1080p RTX: High 6900 XT - 1440p RTX: High 3060 Ti - 1080p - RTX: High - DLSS: Off 3060 Ti - 1080p - RTX: High 3060 Ti - 1080p - RTX: High - DLSS: Quality 2080 Ti - 1080p - RTX: High 2080 Ti - 1440p - RTX: High 3090 - 1080p - RTX: High - DLSS Off 3090 - 1080p - RTX: High 3090 - 1080p - RTX: Very High 4090 - 1080p - RTX: Very High - DLSS off

Thank you. No idea why. I am thinking a driver bug. I remember seeing the same thing years ago with AMD cards in Alienware laptops. You could not go by the name that appeared. You had to go by shader count. Another bug that has surfaced, and I can replicate, is if I submit a Time Spy score from the URL that says "Submit to HWBOT" the data sent by UL identifies the GPU as a 6800 XT, even though the description seen at the URL correctly identifies it as a 6900 XT.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/90833339 | https://hwbot.org/submission/5225336_ https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/90834107 | https://hwbot.org/submission/5225340_

I will when I have more time. I just have not had enough time to do everything I need to do lately. https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/90833065 | https://hwbot.org/submission/5225335_

No, I have not. Hopefully, at some point I can figure it out. I can boot into Windows 7 but the GPU will not start. It has code 12.

Yes, same here. But, Brother @Rage Setwas kind enough to let me borrow this GPU and if I end up liking it, he will sell it to me. NVIDIA and Intel are always my first and best choices. But, there is a chance once I figure out how to make this GPU do what I want it to that it will be a keeper. Right now it is very buggy unless I run it stock. I can tell you that in something with ray tracing, the 3060 Ti FTW3 absolutely brutally rapes this 6900 XT. It's not even remotely close to the 3060 Ti in that scenario. So, I ordered some acrylic polish to see if I can get the window on the DG-86 looking good (lots of scratches, which is common with acrylic, unfortunately). I've seen lots of reports of being able to make scratched acrylic look new or almost new.

Yes. I will get some HWBOT points for sure, though. AMD CPU and GPU overclocking is frustrating and stunted. I think on purpose.

So, RBE does not work with 6900 XT. MPT works, but I cannot mod the firmware. I managed to pick up 1,000 TS points but have a lot of experimenting to do before I understand how it works. https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/90821202 | https://hwbot.org/submission/5225175_

They knew it was wrong and doing so was not a smart idea all along. But they had to do it long enough to brainwash everyone into thinking that BGA feces was the solution for a mobile filth. Now that they've sold most people a bill of goods they can make it thicker again. It's like being fed brownies with dog poop in it. If you put it all in at once everyone will hate it and think it's disgusting. If you add it a little bit at a time they'll never notice. Lots of things in life work this way, unfortunately. Including the way governments are run.

That is only because of how compromised and chintzy they are. There is no longer any such thing as an awesome laptop. There is only a scale of crappy, crappier and crappiest.

Overclocking will never be the same without EVGA setting the bar. Those are probably the latest. One of the other nice things about EVGA is they don't waste their time, or ours, on stupid updates that don't really have any value. A great example of that is seen in the IME firmware on my Z690 Dark. They have never updated it and there have been numerous updates to it from Intel. And, they have an option in the BIOS to totally disable it, which is awesome. If it doesn't make it go any faster then I don't give a rats butt about it, and I hope they continue to look at things the same way.

To the best of my knowledge there is not. I believe the LN2 spot on the switch is a placeholder for an XOC firmware.

Almost done. I will have everything finished tomorrow, in time for work Monday.

My excellent MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X was amazing. It died for no reason I could identify. I was not even using the system when it failed. It was turned on, but only had Outlook open and I was working doing my job on the other computer. The screen went black as if it were in power saving mode. I could not wake it up. After forcing power off and on it was no longer detected and even the BIOS was failing to POST because of no graphics device found. Tested in the other desktop and same. Amazon did not have another for exchange, so they gave me a refund. I ordered a Strix 4090 OC from NewEgg and it was a piece of garbage. The memory overclocking was abysmal. I returned it for exchange. They did not have another, so they gave me a refund (which was my preference, and I was praying they would not have a replacement in stock). 3090 Kingpin is still kicking. It's in my work computer right now while I am playing with the 6800 XT. It's not going anywhere. At this point I am not certain if I will ever buy another 4090. If you get one that doesn't suck at memory overclocking they are impressive, but at the same time not impressive due to overclocking being limited on 40-series. I don't need it for gaming. Overclocking is the only reason I would buy one. To be determined at a later date. I like having my money back more than I liked either 4090 at this point. The cost is beyond the point of diminished returned. Even the cheapest one is $500 too much. At a certain point it becomes not worth it. On the laptop topic, unless they change something (or have already) you could not buy a laptop with the flagship NVIDIA GPU with an AMD CPU. Not sure why. I think I remember grumbling that the 2070 and 3070 were the best you could get paired with AMD. That was super idiotic and hope it has changed. I do not care personally, since I hate laptops, but I hope so for my friends that like them.

Not an option. They are built the way they are built. Both are made the same. All of my pumps are external. I get the air out by connecting the components, removing them and tilting them around to work the air out, while the pumps are running, then putting them back in. Been doing this for years without issues. The problem is the EKWB Velocity2 direct die block is not made correctly. But, that's all about to change. Exactly. Not an issue. People that can't get the air out of the loop are just not knowing what to do. Spoiler alert. Still lots of tedious work to do before I can use it. But, it's getting closer. After I am done playing around with the 6900XT the 3090 KPE will probably go in. Then it will be almost entirely EVGA. Case, PSU, mobo and GPU. Although it is not necessarily larger than my Level 20 XT, this sucker is gigantic. Much larger than it seems in videos and pictures. Don't know what I am going to do with the Level 20 XT now, LOL. Might make a good miniature greenhouse, LOL.