Mr. Fox

ASUS should focus more on what actually matters and stop burning calories on unnecessary fluff like going nuts putting RGB crap on everything, garbage like Armory Crate and "gaming smartphones" and other silly things. It seems like some of the biggest brands are becoming the "trashmasters" of the industry. FE teardown... 90°C memory temperatures... SMH

I chuckled as I posted it as well. 🤣 We have all contributed to the lunacy and unless the price is even more off the rails more than the Intel versions I will again be contributing to the problem when I purchase an X870E Apex. But, there has to be a point where the line gets drawn into the sand and we say no to insanity. It seems like with GPUs it is going from a tolerated level of insanity to the point of an intolerable degree of criminal insanity and on an unacceptable and steep trajectory. If they keep tacking on an extra 20 to 25% scalper premium for video cards every year, including the crappy brands and models, that kind of predatory behavior deserves to end in abject failure. We should not be paying Galax HOF and K|NGP|N prices for Ventus, Trinity and Trio gamer garbage SKUs. Just like we shouldn't pay Apex, Tachyon or Godlike prices for Prime, Tomahawk and Eagle tier motherboards.

My response is: wish in one hand, poop in another... see which one gets full first. The problem is there are way too many sheeple that will pay the extra $800 A$$zeus fanboy tax as though it was normal and OK. They wouldn't be raping people with asinine prices if they didn't voluntarily drop their drawers. Seems many others posting in the thread feel the same. No. Just... No A$$zeus. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/asus-geforce-rtx-5090-astral-oc.331516/page-2

Yes, it is made like a "normal" GPU now, not Gigabyte's previously flawed/weak design that was easier than normal to break.

I honestly do not believe NVIDIA cares if anything less than 5090 is popular or sells well as long as they can't keep any 5090 FE cards in stock. I think they stopped caring what performance enthusiasts and gamers want a few years ago, and until AMD or Intel can launch an assault that threatens their flagship model they don't care about anything else except for maximizing profit on their most expensive product that they have shrewdly made the only product too many people want by simply dumbing down everything else.

My wife would be like "So, you want to spend $3000 on a GPU? What do you think I should buy with my half of the $6000?"

I bought another IceMan Cooling direct touch RAM block. Delivery this time was fast... like one week. I decided to leave the magnetic black trim off this time so that accessing the screws did not require removing the fittings. The black trim looks nice, but not worth the extra effort needed. RAM temps are 1°C higher than the water in the loop.

My Gigabyte 4090 Gaming OC was $1500 and my MSI 4090 Suprim (air) was like $1700. My K|NGP|N 3090 was $1999. My EVGA refurbished 3090 Ti FTW3 was $800 on NewEgg. TL;DR - way too much money for a used 4090 FE. He is trying to sell it for as much or more than NVIDIA or Best Buy sold it for (depending on when you bought it). I bet if he sticks to his guns someone very foolish and fiscally irresponsible will pay that for it. Once prices go up they seldom ever come down, even when the circumstances that stimulated the price increase to avoid losses no longer exist. Instead of correcting, profits are maximized. The only thing that allows that to happen is the existence and cooperation of foolish purchasers that are willing to overpay and exacerbate the problem rather than do without something they want. It seems like the prices of refurbished, used and new obsolete GPUs (4090 and older) just recently saw a bit of a price jump, maybe based on the 5090 pricing so ludicrous. The only appropriately priced to value GPUs are the mid-range models and a lot of us have no desire to purchase mid-range price-conscious (budget) gamer trash.

I've had so many I can't keep them straight and sometimes my brain thinks one thing and my fingers type something different. Those 5090 prices are WAY beyond reasonable. People paying prices like that help ruin everything for the people not willing to. Those prices are really $hi**y. We are talking K|NGP|N and Galax HOF prices for crappy, emasculated, mass-production gamer-grade trash. $1,000 more than they would be if NVIDIA wasn't deliberately screwing everyone. Somebody needs to get Jensen in a dark alley and just beat the snot out of him.

My 13900KS is SP112. The 14900KS I bought from @tps3443is SP108. Their voltage requirements and MC are very similar. 14900KS SP108 (current install in my Z790 Apex) 13900KS SP112 (currently installed in my Z790i Edge)

I don't remember which cooling component vendor mentioned it, maybe it was Alphacool, but it's going to be enough of a pain in the butt that it would not surprise me at all if nobody makes a block for it. If the AIB cards use a conventional PCB layout instead of that cobbled together abortion they might just say no to the idea of making one for the FE card. If I were a manufacturer of GPU waterblocks I'd say no to that one. Not worth the hassle. They would have to build some kind of frame to hold the pieces rather than just attaching everything to a brittle piece of acrylic. The cynical part of me believe that the Green Goblin did this deliberately to impair any kind of aftermarket modification and to make repairing (versus buying a new GPU) more difficult. Yes, Roman brought that out in his video. I can't help but think seeing a @der8auer video highlighting that historically below average performance bump is going to not set well with some people entertaining the idea of dropping a ton of money on a 5090 if they already own a 4090. I hope that sales falter hard at launch and NVIDIA has to lower the price to 4090 MSRP to move inventory. That would be awesome. Not that I care much, but I am eager to learn what the deal is with the radio silence on Radeon 9070 XT. I don't recall whose YouTube video it was, but I heard that retailers have had them in stock for over a month but can't put them up for sale yet. AMD has not given them a green light to sell or given any guidance on pricing. Maybe AMD are waiting on NVIDIA products to launch in order to see where the 9070 XT falls into the performance stack with NVIDIA's cards so they can decide how much they can charge for it. It would be hard to price and market something accurately if you don't have a clue what it compares to with the competitor's product or the price of that product.

Newer is always better newer. This guy is spot on. (Channel does not allow video embedding.) I love seeing any PC tech ranting about the absolute trash we are being sold. (Software and hardware trash.) https://youtu.be/JgDZF5Aiums?si=dPXzMO1B9QgVDO41

Enthusiast Gamer PC = Console = everyone gets a trophy for participation = every enthusiast gamer experience is the same ...but PC costs more. Because they can, and PC enthusiasts gamers continue saying yes to getting screwed.

Not Gen 5. Not enough time. Family first (as appropriate). MSI blew their chance to go from good to great.

Nice to see Roman starting off with a pragmatic view out of the gate. What would make the disappointment even greater is if they do not offer W10 driver support or they end support when the Redmond Retards do. That would really blow on top of the huge price increase and smaller than historically normal performance gain over the prior generation. Maybe the goal is for consumers to pay for all of the design changes that nobody asked for and don't make it better. They must have missed how that plan worked out for Intel.

Scummy people that do scummy things. Like this... https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/01/the-great-google-ads-heist-criminals-ransack-advertiser-accounts-via-fake-google-ads

The X670E Gene is easy to get used to. Other than its mATX size handicap, it is a great AM5 motherboard. Probably the best one made to date. This makes me eager to snag an X870E Apex.

It's probably difficult to get an accurate SP rating because of how much more erratic the behavior is with Ryzen CPUs. Temperature does not affect SP rating on Intel, but the prediction in the lower right corner is 100% tied to temperature. The higher the cooler rating is the lower the voltage is. If you allow the ASUS AI to automatically monitor and adjust the cooler rating it can become a mess. To stop that you need to manually override and assign your own cooler rating. Looks like 5090 prices will be for wealthy fools that like to waste lots of money on grossly overpriced enthusiast parts that suck at overclocking. I bet that 5080 will end up being sold for 4090 scalper prices as well. It rises to the level of extreme dishonesty and demonstrates a lack of integrity, if not outright immorality, in my opinion. This is like getting screwed on steroids. They are cordially invited to dine on my feces. Hopefully they are OK with using a paper plate and disposable plastic spoon. One thing that could help stop the scalping is for AMD and NVIDIA to re-write their warranty terms so that there is no warranty whatsoever if a new GPU is purchased from a seller or retailer that is not pre-approved by AMD and NVIDIA and on their list of authorized distributors. It could be sold used and still have warranty, but only if the original purchase invoice is available to prove it was purchased from an authorized seller when new. Then all of the scalpers would have nothing to sell but parts with no warranty. They would be worth less and nobody would want them. The scalper would have to provide the original invoice showing it was purchased from an authorized seller, which would then draw attention to how badly they are screwing the people dumb enough to purchase their products. It would be instant death to scalping. (Next best thing to instant death of the scalpers.) I am glad I have two 4090s and a 3090 Ti I can ride until they die because they are still great GPUs and those new prices are unacceptable. If AMD doesn't jump on the "let's screw our customers" bandwagon, I can see a lot of people shopping for GPUs being fiscally responsible and settling for AMD even if they dislike Radeon cards. Better to settle for something inferior that is priced to value than getting sodomized on the price of a GeFarts card. Yup... it's what I call nuckingfutz. Appropriate imagery in Paul's intro. LOL.

Best Buy probably will not sell any online. You probably need to go to a Best Buy or Microcenter, arrive early and walk out with one if there are not too many ahead of you in line. Don't forget that Provantage and B&H Photo could be good options for online. I really cringe at the thought of an FE. You want an FE even though they are a multi-piece nightmare contraption. I bet it is going to run hot and loud with that cooler on it.

External appearance is sleek, yes. The main PCB+PCIe daughterboard and cable-connected I/O are laughably dumb and it looks like a real nightmare in my opinion. I think he said it best when it said to look at it as a workstation GPU.

Dufus is right again. I wonder if NVIDIA designed the 5090 FE in such an absurd manner deliberately so PC enthusiasts and gamers would avoid the FE?

No it doesn't. All you have to do is open your eyes and look at the mess you have in UK. I'll take this, warts and all, over that. I am not talking about the feminist "me too" movement that suggests any accusation made against a man by a woman should automatically be accepted as fact on face value. I am using "me too" to mean the silly notion that anyone that wants a platform is entitled to have one regardless of whether or not is it embraced as socially acceptable or rejected. Rival political parties are not "competition" and smart people work together to get things done. Division is not smart and nothing good gets done when niche locos become obsessed with their own interests and act as though they are hell-bent on ramming their agenda down everyone else's (usually the majority) throat. If the new parties brought massively popular ideas with broad support they would succeed. The reason they don't succeed is because they are usually small minority goofballs with loads of self-serving bad ideas that don't have enough support and don't need/deserve to have any place in governing the huge majority that doesn't accept their views. They need to fall in line and understand that they are a minority with ideas and values that are not acceptable to the majority. Not saying they can't have them just saying they can't have a platform to push universal acceptance, forced embracement or a demand for tolerance. For the record, both parties do not suck big-time. Extremists do suck, but those are the clowns that would fragment society with PR cells and expect a level playing field with equal weight for the lunatic fringe. Republicans and Democrats are all Americans and have more in common than what they disagree on. It is the extremists on both sides that are the problem. Extreme left un-American nutjobs on the Democrat side are exactly how and why Trump had such a sound victory. They do not represent what is normal for Democrat, Republican or American as a whole. They are psychotic. Smart people are paying attention and are fed up with the nonsense that has become the new normal on the whacky far left. Moderate Democrats (the huge majority of that party) don't want anything to do with the insane minority that has been allowed to hijack their party. Moderates represent the bulk of both parties. Trump is more moderate than I would like him to be, but that is why he got elected, with the help of Democrats, Republicans, Green Partiers, Libertarians and Tea Party. People are fed up with the idiocy and broke from party lines to elect someone they hope can right the ship like he did before. Tons of stuff got effed up in record-setting time during the past 4 years under the rule of lunatics. He is hated by the "progressive" extreme left because he represents what is normal, right and acceptable. They're losing their minds over the fact that Americans as a whole have rejected their dystopian quest to "fundamentally transform" America (into a third-world hell hole).

I'm glad we don't have that here and I hope we never do. The UK way of governing is undesirable and that is why America exists. The pilgrims left because it sucked. The more our government takes on traits that resemble that the worse things get. The "me too" mentality and expecting to gain public acceptance of individual preferences no matter what they are is really effed up. In fact, that anything goes, I'm OK/you're OK mentality is a fast track to self-destruction. Some things are not okay and we need to call the balls and strikes. People that don't like it can leave. Especially those that are here uninvited and without proper authority. They are trespassers that shouldn't have a voice in anything. They need to go home, or get rounded up and sent home. The days of tiny special interests demanding to be embraced and celebrated, or even financially funded in some ways, by everyone needs to end. That is, in great part, why things are so jacked up.