Mr. Fox

Everything remained the same with my SP rating after the firmware update. I was even able to import my saved BIOS profile with all of the old settings without error, so that was a real time-saver. I flashed from 1504 to 2103. I totally skipped 2004 and had no issues.

That is what I am praying happens. Seems like the right thing to happen. Yes, I have. I have spent hours trying different things, including that. It is definitely something with the mobo. Even my custom 4500 XMP profile that ran as smooth as silk on the Z490 Prime, Z490 Strix, Z590 Dark, Z490 Dark is unbootable. It never trains and dumps me back on the boot screen with the F1 option to try something else.

He would not do that to me, or anyone else, without full disclosure and letting them decided if that is OK. Looking forward to getting it. Crossing my fingers. I already flashed the 13th Gen update to the Strix D4 to check the SP rating before moving it to the Z690 Dark. Now I am wishing I had not purchased a DDR4 mobo, but can't cry over spilled milk. It is what it is. It's actually a good mobo, just limited on RAM clocking. It can't overclock DDR4 as well as the Z490 mobos I used these same modules in. They were stable at 4500 on Z490 Strix and Dark. Now they are only bootable at 4200, stable at 4000 on the D4 for some weird reason.

Same place that @johnksssand @Talon purchased theirs with the same 2-year Micro Center warranty. @tps3443 - this is what I was referring to before about correcting the high PCH temperatures. I showed this to you once a long time ago, but in case you did not remember. See this post and change from "disabled" to "auto" and they should dramatically drop. If MSI changed the defaults to "auto" in the new BIOS you may not need to do that. https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/crazy-pch-temperature-on-z690-carbon.370039/post-2096947

Yes, I use those as well. They are very handy, and I always keep spares in case I ever need them. I also use these. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0975XH3JS (new and improved design)

It is brand new from Chicago Micro Center. If the binning is no good it will get exchanged for a better one or I will get my money back. Once that is settled, I will move the 12900KS to my work computer and sell the golden 12900K in the work computer to offset the cost of the 13900K. That is very much a no-no. Good way to kill a mobo, or burn up a fan controller. A single Delta fan is enough to kill it. @tps3443don't risk it. It's not worth it when $10 is enough insurance. It will get power from SATA and only use the speed control from the mobo. https://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Case-Fan-Hub-Distributor/dp/B0887VG14J/ref=sr_1_3?crid=IBF6J65W1NOV (This can handle a maximum of 1.0A per fan port. Most fans are less than 0.5A each.)

It's going to vary some based on a variety of conditions. The higher you clock the memory and the tighter you make the primary timings the more tREFI has potential to cause instability. Higher tREFI also takes more voltage Luumi has a couple of good DDR5 videos that touch on this. Even if you can't get it to pass memory tests without errors, I have generally found it stable enough for benching when it is maxed out. I've seen some difference from one memory set to the next.

I do, but naked DDR5 sticks run cool enough with a fan blowing on them. I think the errors occur at lower temperatures as clock speed increases. It seems that way based on my own experience.

If it does truly lock it then it absolutely will help. Samsung B-die, SK Hynix and Micron all overclock higher with added voltage. You know this already because you're used to spending lots of time overclocking Samsung B-die on DDR4 sticks and you have seen how things don't work if you don't give the RAM enough voltage. Be sure to monitor the temperatures because those high clock speeds will actually fry your memory. DDR5 gets much hotter than DDR4 did. You'll also start to see errors running memory tests before the RAM gets hot enough to damage it. Errors begin to surface around 45-50°C and an unstable overclock can often become stable below 40°C. A fan blowing on them helps tremendously. Good question. If I had to guess I would say probably so, but that's just speculation.

It's actually very simple. It's only a matter of turning it on. When you enable it, that unlocks the industry standard 1.435V cap on DDR5 voltage. For some idiotic reason MSI removed that menu option and it meant that certain brands of PMIC chips could not exceed 1.435V.

That was missing in the previous BIOS. It was there in an earlier one and MSI removed it. Awesome to see they brought it back and now you can really get everything that memory is good for. You might even be able to return the Hynix RAM if this performs as well now that it is unlocked.

Yes. With 2 year warranty from MC it was cheaper than from NewEgg without a warranty and an icky "no refund - exchange only" policy. That is great news about the memory. Amazing how different CPU generation can be using the same mobo and memory. That is wonderful. Samsung B-die goes another round with the Titans! And, as a friendly reminder that the leaders of our industry are crooked, lying, worthless bastards, here is a screenshot to bring us back to a correct understand of who these losers are. (Some of you have already seen this before.) Windows 7 is installed in UEFI mode and no CSM enabled (which is supposedly "impossible" - even EVGA Precision X1 assumes it's not because "it can't be" LOL) and the "Windows 10 only" Adjustable Bar feature is enabled in the BIOS and in Windows. So much for the nonsense and fake compatibility baloney. Join me in offering up another nasty finger salute to the Redmond Retards and the Green Goblin.

I agree with that. What is useful while maintaining value is often NOT what we want. But, it is exactly what most gamerboys want. They don't buy flagship CPUs and GPUs because they don't need to. Speaking of that. 3080, 3080 Ti, 3090, 3090 Ti, 4090... 6900 XT, 6950XT, AMD 7XXX... all totally unwarranted for 1080p and (and 1440p minus extreme settings) gaming with very high/Ultra settings. This 3060 Ti FTW3 provides a truly respectable gaming experience without spending a lot of money. Now, I certainly don't like that it is a downgrade from 2080 Ti FTW3, BUT, it would be silly to deliberately spend more on the system I use for work, and spending more is a waste of money for playing games. It is good enough that I might just sell the 2080 Ti FTW3 after I fix it. I can use the money for something else. Here are some samples... Quake 2 RTX Shadow of the Tomb Raider (with and without DLSS) Metro Exodus Enhanced (Extreme and Ultra - RTX On) Gears 4 @ Ultra Gears 5 @ Ultra Bright Memory Infinite (RTX High) And, here's why a waterblock is appropriate "just for gaming" LOL. Look at these LUDICROUS thermals. Totally asinine! And, that's all stock clocks. This little critter is clearly putting its best foot forward. Not bad for a sub-$400 purchase.

Thank you.

WOW, that really is the proof in the pudding as @johnkssssaid about the jump in memory. What is the BIOS showing for memory voltage. With 12900K that was limited to 1.435V and 6400 was the max with that voltage. It is running 6800 with that voltage or did 13900K BIOS unlock the PMIC on that kit?

This will help with annoying distractions and screenshot artifacts. Unless something has recently changed, he will need a ROG board. Prime motherboards do not show the SP rating unless they added that with Z590 or Z690. It would be nice if the nitwits at ASUS actually listed this in their product specifications and features. It's definitely nice to know for the sake of conversation or resale value, but it's not a need to know and it doesn't change anything whatsoever. You either got lucky or you got screwed. All you need to know is shown to you in the way your system behaves and it is obvious @tps3443has an excellent CPU sample. As @Clamibotknows, SP-rating can be misleading if you place too much stock in it for the same reason ASIC rating was often misleading on GeFarts GPUs when it was popular for gamer kids to obsess over it.

imgur is your friend... it also helps maintain image quality

Spoiler Alert: I decided to do something constructive. When the 3060 Ti block and other parts arrive and I have time to tinker, I am going to be moving Banshee to an external cooling solution like Wraith. Both of the high quality internal radiators will be offered for sale in the forum marketplace. Having radiators inside of the chassis traps too much heat. This became glaringly evident with an air-cooled GPU, which is kind of an engineering abortion in its own way... does exactly the same thing as the radiators do, only worse. (I didn't realize having air cooling on a GPU sucks so much.) Under load it gets 20°C hotter with the side panel on that it does with no side panel, and blowing hot air onto everything is kind of stupid when you stop and think about it. "Hey computer parts! Enjoy this hot air. Love you guys." LOL

It is unfortunate that it is white, that Colorful GPUs are seldom found for sale in the US, only the GPU core is actively cooled (RAM and power rely on passive cooling) and the pump is located inside of the block rather than on the radiator. I suspect it is overpriced on top of having some fairly glaring bad design decisions. Latency is too high. XMP profiles always suck at performance. I am not sure why they exist. (Actually I do know, but it is very condescending toward a particular demographic, so I will keep that opinion to myself even though it is accurate.) Read my review on the product and try some of the settings I show there. https://extremehw.net/all-reviews/corsair-vengeance-rgb-ddr5-6000-32gb-memory-review/ You can also try the motherboards custom memory overclocking profiles. Chances are good they will perform better than an XMP profile. When you get SK Hynix RAM, this review and the associated video might make it easier to jump in without a lot of trial and error. Every SK Hynix kit I have owned has behaved nearly identical with only minor variances in the max overclock limit based on silicon lottery. https://extremehw.net/all-reviews/sabrent-rocket-ddr5-16gb-u-dimm-review/ Yeah, I had no idea either. When I received that kit from Corsair for review I was like "huh? what?" It performed well enough until the voltage cap whas exhausted. I really don't like RGB memory and would deliberately go out of my way to avoid it, and pay a little extra for RAM that is not downgraded by RGB (even though you usually pay more for that fancy stupid gamerboy disadvantage). That being said, it is the most attactive RGB kit I have seen before. I think it looks better than the Dominator modules.

Yeah, those temps are great. Seeing what they are, I would not delid that CPU. It runs cooler than my 12900K and 12900KS (both delidded) despite running much higher clocks. Maybe Intel figured out how to do the soldering right to eliminate the need to delid. Corsair Vengeance 6000 kits can come with B-die or Hynix M-die. I included that kit with the mobo and he has it overclocked to 6400. The PMIC is locked to 1.435V, so 6400 is the highest I could get that kit to run. If the PMIC were not capped I suspect they would run 6800. Performance at 6400 was basically identical to Hynix at 6400.

Looking good. Do you have 5 NVMe drives to fill up all of the slots on that mobo? Remember to change those options in the BIOS for PCH power management to keep the PCH nice and cool. They are set to "disabled" by default and the PCH runs hot unless you change the settings to "auto" and then it drops about 18-20°C.

I have been to that Micro Center more than any other, and one in Houston almost as often. Any time I am in Dallas overnight I go into your store. I used to spend about a week in Richardson about a dozen weeks out of the year for work. I would go there and to Hard 8, Spring Creek and Salt Grass religiously, LOL.

I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Am I jealous that I don't have one where I live? You betcha. But I don't think fairness applies, at least in my mind, because that carries a sense of entitlement. It's not unfair that I don't have one here because I haven't done anything to deserve one and there was no promise made that was broken. I think it's fine for private businesses to make decisions that don't allow for equal opportunity for all employees or all customers. If it's privately owned then I think it's up to the owners to make decisions on their own without any concern for outside influence, opinion or input. It's their business to own and run however they deem appropriate, or at least it should be. The government really screws things up by trying to make a level playing field and everything turns out much better in the absence of regulatory Nazi influence and control. But yeah... I'm jealous, LoL. All that said, there are things that I can identify about some of the places that do have a Micro Center that would make me extremely unhappy about living there (high crime, high cost of living, the dominant mindset of the society residing there, higher taxes, objectionable and overbearing government policies, etc.) and having a Micro Center available wouldn't come anywhere close to making it a good enough reason to consider living in those places. I do find it a little bit puzzling that, on the surface, it kind of seems like the ownership of Micro Center are frequently tolerant and forgiving of those conditions. Otherwise they wouldn't open shop in places like some of those cities. I think they would be a lot more profitable in a lot of places other than where they have certain stores because the cost of operation would be dramatically reduced and less regulated, and sales would be equally robust. This might be a reflection of the opinions held by Micro Center ownership... but, that is speculation.

Being in the US doesn't do you any more good than being from somewhere else unless you live within driving distance from a Micro Center, and the one you are close to has this sort of customer-centric policy. For everyone else in the world it doesn't matter because there is no way to buy from them unless you have a friend or relative that lives there and can ship the products to you. They have a web site, but that is also totally useless for anything unless you want to check prices before you go to the store. I recommend that against visiting their web site because all it will do is create anger and/or sadness about the stock availability and prices that you cannot benefit from.

Macrium Reflect, even the free version, is one of the most useful software tools I know if. It has never let me down. It works to image and clone Linux drives as well (when using bootable USB media).