Mr. Fox

That's correct. Brother @ryananother pre-built brand that Hardware Unboxed is sponsoring is https://skytechgaming.com/product/eclipseb-0533-13900k-4090-32grgb/

As usual, Tommy's shill-mill makes no mention of their having missed the mark with disappointing performance results based on overstated expectations, misleading marketing hype, reliability and QC issues that have surfaced during Q4 of last year and Q1 of this year. After all, none of those things would have an effect on revenue, now would they?

No worries. I usually take the high road, so you could have been talking to me,too. I didn't this time because it really rubbed me the wrong way and I stooped to his level. At least (assuming the post remains) maybe my superficially kind/subtly sarcastic response to his snarky public reply may save someone else from wasting their time with that clown. Looks like he is also slow to respond to others that expressed interest. He must be a really "special" fella. I mean, what kind is nutty weirdo sells all of the heat sinks off of a severely overpriced motherboard for their scrap metal weight value and then expects to get anything halfway decent as a used resale price for it when they are done using it? And, on top of being used and not eligible for warranty, I suspect it has be rag-dolled pretty hard on LN2, so even that makes my offer pretty generous. Well, I sold the EK Velocity2 direct die block and redesigned die frame to a fellow Arizona resident that hangs out at overclock.net. I used the money from that to order another IceMan block.

Nah, I did it on purpose, since he thought it would be cute to insult me as a low-baller in public the least I could do it put his stupidity in context for anyone else that might be interested later. I thought $250 for a parted out motherboard that nobody can use in a normal PC was pretty dog-gone generous. I wouldn't want it even for free if I did not have all of the parts that are missing on his naked PCB. It's worthless the way it is, unless you need a spare part for LN2 destruction.

Dad gum. What a bung-hole this smart-alecky fool is. Not sure I would even buy this from him if he changed his mind. I PM'd him Friday of last week. https://community.hwbot.org/topic/223937-fs-z690-apex-dark-ddr4-igame-4000c14/#comment-641215 @johnksss @tps3443

On a GPU that is both power and voltage limited, overclocking can and does cause it to be unstable if you push it too hard, but it does not damage the GPU because it has been castrated to such a degree that there is no mechanism for the damage to occur. It remains within the range of acceptable specs for power and voltage (which you have no meaningful control over without performing hardware modifications) and you simply end up with an unstable pile of garbage if you push it too hard. Think of it like you would a motor vehicle that misfires and malfunctions if you attempt to overrev the engine. You're not going to blow it up, it's just going to run like crap because you are attempting to do something it is incapable of doing because it is malfunctioning. If you overheat your GPU, just like your car, that can cause damage and shorten its lifespan in a measurable way. If that is happening, then chances are also fairly good that running it stock is also causing thermally-induced damage. Especially so if it is a laptop. I have never experienced the death of the GPU due to overclocking. I've had some dead GPUs before--almost entirely MXM--but nothing to suggest overclocking had anything to do with it. My shunt modded GPUs were never adversely impacted as far as I could tell, and none of them ever stopped working. I attribute the MXM cards that died as having died due to heat fatigue and compromised engineering. They're just not durable products and never have been. I have not personally owned or seen an Intel CPU that was damaged from overclocking. It can happen and I have heard stories about it, but cannot validate them. It is uncommon. More likely due to overheating. While they are not power and voltage limited like modern day castrated GPUs and could theoretically be damaged, it would not happen in a vacuum and you would have to be deliberately trying to tear it up acting like a bull in a china cabinet. Here again, overheating it (due to overclocking or poor thermal management otherwise, without an overclock) can damage it or shorten its lifespan. Although, a whole lot less likely than a GPU due to more effective thermal protections and tripping mechanisms. If you're running an AMD CPU or GPU, then a lot more can go wrong. It seems that both historically, and as recently as a few days ago with their latest CPUs, we have seen issues with goofed up voltage and thermals that can kill the AMD component. Overclocking isn't required for this tragedy. And, these malfunctions are engineering defects that are extreme in nature, not a result of overclocking. Remember when Jay tried to kill his 9900K ES CPU on purpose? That didn't work out like he hoped it would. It was too tough to kill. Laptops in general tend to be unreliable and their GPUs are the most common point of failure, even in the absence of overclocking. They are not made to be durable. The manufacturers cut corners on design and they tend to slowly cook themselves to death. They are made to last only as long as the warranty. BGA isn't less reliable, per se. BGA makes it easier for them to sell you a new laptop because you cannot fix the soldered turd they sold you that wasn't very durable in the first place. The inability to upgrade is collateral damage.

I think it is totally safe. I think the notion that it is unsafe is totally wrong and reflects lack of understanding on the people that believe it is unsafe. You can't really say that because someone has overclocked a component that it is the reason it failed unless you have a crystal ball. Stuff wears out and things fail even when they live a pampered life. Lots of people that never overclock have motherboards and GPUs that fail. If anything is done incorrectly, in a foolish or haphazard manner it has potential to be "unsafe" or result in a failure, but I would not classify overclocking as being an unsafe, dangerous or detrimental practice. Like anything else, it's not the product, but the person using the product that is the problem and that is dangerous (you can include guns, fast cars and alcoholic beverages in the same conversation) or an inherent flaw or design defect in the product that results in an undesirable outcome 99.9% of the time.

Even though the presumed intent is to avoid conflict and controversy, preoccupation with political correctness and avoidance of controversial topics can be an impediment to doing what is right and best because you're burning too many calories on not offending a fringe minority view. And, that can be a reflection of the programmer. Balance can be good, but sometimes it's not and you need to call the balls and strikes and not fret over who might get huffy about it.

The AI will automatically reflect the theories and beliefs of the people doing the programming, no matter how sound or absurd those theories and beliefs may be. Undeniably nice to look at, but if they're not real then...

I hope you are wrong, too. That would be a clear line of demarcation identifying the end of my overclocking/benching hobby.

You beat me to it @ryan. I just saw Brother Tom MacDonald's latest genius masterpiece today. I'm surprised the leftist clown posse hasn't ordered a hit on him for his relentless exposure of their evil, filthy nonsense.

Since you're stuck using W10/11 cancer like everyone else with a current gen GPU you should probably enable resizable bar support. I haven't noticed anything with a performance regression having it in enabled. In most things you will not notice any benefit to having it enabled, but turning it on will bring a minor performance improvement in a few benchmarks and games. Apparently, resizable bar support makes a massive difference having it enabled with Intel iGFX or Arc graphics and disabling it tanks performance.

Windows 10/11 do the same stupid thing to my 6900 XT. I thought something was messed up at first, but running the GPU-Z render test showed the PCIe bus speed working correctly when the GPU was being utilized. The power-saving features on newer versions of Windows really suck. They're catering to turdbook owners that stress out over how long they can run their junky notebooks on battery power. If your BIOS has the option to search it works pretty handy. I use that often to locate a setting when I am not sure about what menu to look at to find it.

I have to say I am super-impressed with the IceMan block. I am thinking about buying another and selling the SuperCool block just because the IceMan looks better and is like a bazillion times more convenient to remove and install. I still haven't taken time to mess with the EK block. I've really lost interest in farting around with it at this point. If someone wants to buy it and the new parts EK sent to me send me a PM. The IceMan doesn't look as gorgeous as the EK Velocity2, but even if it works as well as the IceMan block, the convenience of using the IceMan is making me not want to use anything else at this point. I value that more than the superior aesthetics of the Velocity2. I also found out why my temps were a bit high on the system with the IceMan block. The 91°C max temp in CBR23 was because there was air trapped in the block. My PrimoChill D5 pump/res was allowing air to get sucked into the loop and it could never eliminate the bubbles. I replaced it with an Alphacool pump/res and now the temps are much better. One of the things I have always LOVED about my XSPC Photon reservoirs is the tubes are thick glass, not chintzy acrylic tubes. I chose the Alphacool option because the tube is glass. No regrets. I like it a lot. Here is a picture of it in action. This first image is with the same BIOS settings where it was hitting 91°C. Now about 8-10°C better. Now, kicking the clock up to 5.7 from 5.6 on P-cores, the 13900KF (which uses 0.050mV more than my 13900K due to inferior bin quality) essentially matches the temps seen on the SuperCool Computer direct die block. Check it out. IceMan block... SuperCool block

Well, the name on the IHS matches the product if I am understanding correctly. It is, in fact, a 7950X like what is laser-etched on the IHS, right? If the box was factory-sealed it had to have come that way from AMD. At least they didn't have the kind of mess that I got from B&H Photo where I was sold an open-box (paid for new) with a Haswell CPU that some scammer glued a 10900K IHS on top of. For those with an AMD GPU, check out this overclocking tool. Once you have increased your power limits using MPT, this is a whole lot more convenient to use than the Wattman bloatware. I had never heard of it before. It hasn't been updated recently, but it seems to work great on my 6900 XT. I totally like the minimalist Windows 7-style GUI that doesn't waste a ton of screen space on giant text crap with lots of unused space in the UI. (Don't know why that ugly crap look is so popular now, but I think it sucks.) Anyhoo... grab this OverdriveNTool... https://sourceforge.net/projects/overdriventool/ https://phoenixnap.dl.sourceforge.net/project/overdriventool/OverdriveNTool 0.2.9.zip @Rage Set @Raiderman

So did it appear to be factory-sealed and packaged wrong by AMD? It clearly says 7950X on the IHS, but that X3D missing could be easily overlooked by accident if you're buying a new factory-sealed box processor.

This is an interesting new invention from Roman.

Probably starting around $3500 and going up if you get the best CPU and motherboard and PSU and AIO cooling offered.

You can overclock a KF the same as a K CPU. The only difference is the KF does not have Intel integrated graphics. The better pre-built machines are from companies like Origin, DigitalStorm and NZXT. NZXT sells good quality kits with very good instructions for noobs that want to built their first PC from scratch. ibuypower and CyberPower pre-builts are more affordable, but often lack attention to quality. But, they use common off-shelf components, so you can fix their messes. Their cases are often proprietary branded models that give them something unique to sell, but they adhere to common standards, so they are not throw-away components that nothing sold in the PC aftermarket fits. Run away from Dell/Alienware, HP, Lenovo, Acer and mainstream big-box mass production brands. These products are rubbish. They tend to do things that make overclocking and upgrades difficult or even impossible. While build quality is often very good, design decisions are generally horrible and include proprietary features that can ultimately make their products worthless in terms of performance tuning, upgrades and repairs. Anything from this last group of "run away from" options is generally overrated, overpriced, and underwhelming garbage. The cases, motherboards and PSUs are not only proprietary, they are usually small and difficult to add something as simple as a HDD, SSD or extra fans. There is often no place for them. Pre-builts from MSI and ASUS are also kind of sucky and not particularly good options.

It would be logical for a number of reasons. Thermal management is already nearly impossible with pre-DDR5 laptops. The need for increased voltage and access to memory settings, a good CPU sample and superior motherboard design are the reality on desktops. The likelihood of laptop manufacturers getting these extra things right and giving purchasers of their products access to associated BIOS features is like slim to none.

LOL... their excuse doesn't even make sense. But, remember, we're talking about ASUS. If they said or did anything that actually made good sense it would be like the end of the world, if not earth-shattering.

NVIDIA had their totally unnecessary and essentially stupid 12VHPWR cable, now this Dell-backed RAM module morphodite abortion. It's called creating ways to make money and pretending it's better so stupid people will agree/buy it. Necessity is not a component of that, unless you coumt the need of big greedy companies to make more money. They might, but I don't. Dell is the grand master of dreaming up goofball form factors that make them the only source for replacement parts.

Anything that is a proprietary solution should be treated like a pile of dung and avoided like a plague. Even if it is hypothetically "better" by some measurements. I mean, think about it. Does anyone lack the intelligence to truly believe that Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer or any other turdbook manufacturer gives a rat's ass about better? The only thing they care about is controlling the use of the products they sell and controlling what parts can be used to repair or upgrade it. Anyone that believes otherwise should look into the ocean beach property I have for sale on the east side of Phoenix. I am offering it at a really good deal.

It is a flawed belief system to think that being in the competition qualifies one with a mantle of greatness. To actually pursue production of a minimum viable product reveals a character flaw in a value system that is built upon doing only enough to get by, not winning, and only doing enough to keep the hook set in the jaw of consumers that are chuffed by the experience of cheering the underdog. An underlying desire to "stick it to the man" is something most of us can identify with. The idea here being that Intel and Nvidia are "The Man" that deserves being stuck. The unfortunate irony here is that the only man getting "stuck" is the one giving their money to the underdog (aka loser) in the fight. I don't like this. It really bothers me and I wish it were not this way. But I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It is what it is. I'm not interested in using my own money to be part of a social experiment, and I am not keen on the notion of making purchases on the basis that it serves a hypothetical good cause. I opt out of ESG investment opportunities using the same line of reason. I want my retirement money to be used to benefit me exclusively. I am not interested in allowing a diminished return for the furtherance or betterment of someone, or a group of someones, funding their own special agenda using my money. The only worthy cause is me. It's my money. Business is not a charitable endeavor.

They've been a minimum viable company for as long as I know, so it makes sense that they sell a minimum viable product. There's just not any way to slice it that doesn't suck. But no, my surprised look is not on my face. And, it's not an a-ha moment. It's only confirmation of what it felt like all along. It certainly can't be said that I am overly biased or unfair because I've given them more chances than I've given any other brand or company. Ever. Far more than they deserve. I have wanted for them to be successful. Yet, they always leave me with a degree of disappoint about something. They just can't do anything fantastic. Greatness is not in their fabric, and whatever they have a small win with, they offset the winning with screw-ups and blunders. Excuse me for being a skeptic. I'm so mean and hateful, aren't I? Maybe a good place for them to start, if they ever want to be great, is to stop hiring losers to occupy executive positions within the company.