Mr. Fox

Thanks, Brother. I turned 60 today.

Everything from AMD and NVIDIA is a poor value. The cheapest 4090s and 7900 XTXs available sell for $500-$600 more than I believe they are worth.

You can only be in the pig pen for so long before you begin to look, smell and act like a pig. AMD pulled an NVIDIA. Get a little; pay a lot.

Thank you both, very much. We should do a virtual meeting sometime. That would be good. I bet I spend 20 hours (at least, sometimes more) a week in Google Meetings at work, and video chat is the nearly exclusive means of internal communication, even for one-on-one conversations. I find using a cell or desk phone inconvenient at this point.

Thank you, brother. You're the young whipper-snapper. 😄

I NEVER get tired of Brother Tom's music. I think this one is in my top 5. His lyrics are phenomenal and I love that he calls the balls and strikes in a straightforward manner with no concern about whether or not it offends the idiocy of wokeness or those that care more about political correctness than integrity, truth and honesty.

Yup... truly GIGO. That's what makes is scary and Orwellian. AI will never be an acceptable substitute for a sentient human being with a heart, soul and conscience. AI will always be flawed and process information in the context of the personal bias and views of its programmer(s). Nothing made by human beings will ever be perfect. It will always have varying degrees of flaws and defects.

Thanks, Brother Papusan. ❤️

Always remember... Fernando says...

Thanks, Brother John. ♥️ The big 6-0. That just doesn't even seem possible... totally surreal. I'm glad I don't feel 60.

And, the Children of the Beast rejoiced and were exceedingly glad. They feasted on feces, sang and danced, "Hail to the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of Darkness, for his evil endures to all generations."

Here's another one. Sad days and getting sadder by the hour.

Galax and Zotac and PNY have overclocking tools that are standalone products and not UWP feces, and they work with other brands. There is also value left in NVIDIA Inspector. So, there will still be alternatives. It is heart-wrenching that EVGA is no longer in the mix. Aside from their superior hardware, I actually used PX1 more than Afterburner. It is a better product. My use of Afterburner has been limited for a good while. Even when I was still benching laptops, I thought EVGA Precision was more effective. But, it is still very sad that MSI Afterburner is probably going away. It seems like NVIDIA doesn't care or doesn't want end users to have the ability to overclock. It probably makes it harder for them to distiguish new products as superior when there is not a big improvement. If you can overclock a X070 to make it look like a X080 or a X080 to make it run like a X090 it is harder to demonstrate value in the more expensive part. Putting things in a box maximizes profit potential for them. By limiting the current generation flagship they create extra space for the next generation flagship to look better than last generation's flagship product than it would if last generation's flagship could run wild and free. Smoke and mirrors, and masterful execution on the art of deception. They do cripple things. Lack of voltage control is the primary way they do it. They develop robust products with great potential and then limit the potential so they can offer different tiers of performance (for more money) without having to change much in terms of hardware. Just manipulate results using firmware. Easy money by screwing the end user. And, still better than anything AMD has to offer. NVIDIA Control Panel in Windows used to be like Linux with overclock controls. Now it is very limited and includes nothing for overclocking. Overclocking without voltage control and uncapped power limits offers very little opportunity for superior results. If your GPU silicon is poor quality, you have no voltage headroom. If it is better than average you can use up the excess voltage available in the firmware, but you are still severely limited in terms of how far you can go without more voltage. The root problem is a lack of integrity, absence of principle and generally unacceptable business practices in the computing space, and those that suffer most from the unethical behavior are the enthusiasts that are getting screwed harder than any other consumer demographic. 100%. The only way to effect change is by deliberately and maliciously inflicting severe financial harm, and that is hard to do when you're outnumbered by brain-dead sheeple that are as dumb as a box of rocks. These are the same morons that view themselves as being informed and enlightened because they read "news" headlines and believe they have all the facts. You know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when the only reason NVIDIA is awesome is because AMD sucks. We know this is true because that's what the clever marketing materials tell us, and our "friends" on Facebook say so. That's no way to live.

People that do things like this, and worse, make me wish I had chosen being a vigilante as my career path. They don't deserve the air that they breathe and it would be great if they never got any more of it. I'd take this one pro bono, LOL.

Here's one to avoid...

That is an extreme example of an overpriced cheap product. There will never be a shortage on stupidity. The decimal point is off one digit too far to the right on that jokebox.

Yes I'm not into playing cheap stuff either. The cliche that you get what you pay for doesn't always apply to expensive items but it always applies to cheap items. And I don't mind spending extra for something awesome if it's actually going to be awesome. I've never really liked Gigabutt or their product offerings and I would absolutely approach the idea of buying something from them with some level of fear and trepidation. I've always been happy with Asus products until they failed and put me in a position where I had to deal with their product support nitwits and their crappy warranty service. I'm always quick to forgive mistakes, but I don't have any respect for companies that are dishonest and look for opportunities to shirk their contractual obligations. I think Asus is that kind of sorry outfit. I have no respect for them just as I have none for the Redmond Reprobates. The contempt I have for them was created by their unacceptable behavior. It probably makes no sense in the grand scheme of things to believe that any company from China, the enemy of the free world, is worthy of trust or respect. It is unfortunate that any economic dependency on them exists. Cheap slave labor is profitable for greed-driven companies.

I'm never owned an Asus GPU. I have had zero problems with their cheaper mobos like Strix and Prime. I just don't like them as a company or their sucky warranty service. If I'm given the option between their brand and something equivalent in a competing brand I'm just more inclined to choose the alternative. I'd consider buying a Strix 4090 if it were cheaper, but I don't like the idea of paying a lot extra for something that's not going to give me a lot extra, or the idea having to fart around arguing with crooked bastards that don't want to honor their warranty if something goes wrong with their overpriced piece of crap.

I might do an Elmore voltage mod at some point and would want something overbuilt.

Yes, that was the video I referenced in reply to Brother @Rage Set but there are not any good views of the PCB. As best I can tell trying to judge by bumps in the thermal pads from far away it looks like it's probably 28 phases. But, I wouldn't swear to it. It sucks that he could not get the correct socket and soldered one on that will not work. I'm also not understanding how the owner of that card managed to break it off the motherboard unless they were like a bull in a china cabinet.

I am not sure. Nothing published is clear on 40-series, and looks are often deceiving.

I am looking for more technical details on the 4090 Aorus Master. That sucker has a HUGE air cooler on it, probably the best air cooler available anywhere. I have no idea what it has under the hood, or if it even has anything worth writing home about.

I agree with some qualifying caveats like living within your means. I think it is not a matter of if, but when, I decide to waste money on a 4090. The temptation is constant, but I am attempting to temper that with good sense and think about what, if any, actual real benefit I would realize from the expense. I need to convince myself that the degree of pleasure in having it will be enough to justify the spend. There is no reason (other than temptation) to feel like I "need" to hurry up and spend money. I am somewhat apprehensive about spending a crapload of money and ending up being disappointed and running out of things to do with it in 60-90 days. I see a fair bit of information suggesting that the overclocking capacity isn't remarkably different, even stunted, among the variety of models and price options due to the idotic lack of voltage adjustment that all of them are crippled by. I don't care about having "normal" 4090 benchmark scores. For example, I'd rather have impressive A770 benchmarks score that distiguish me from other A770 owners rather than achieving status quo mediocrity with a 4090. But, I am not going to settle on a crummy sample. What I am finding difficult is to understand the differences in build quality between them because the information is not being presented clearly and documentation available is inadequate for making an informed buying decision. If the idea behind going with a 4090 is gaming I think it doesn't matter... just get the cheapest one you can and move on. Because my sole intent is overclocking and benching, it actually does matter. I keep narrowing it down after watching YouTube teardown videos and manually counting phases, etc. I can always just cross-flash a vBIOS for a higher power limit or a tad extra default voltage so the firmware power limit or the stock boost clock isn't tremendously important to me. I've got it narrowed down to a few acceptable options and basically rejecting everything else as a possiblity at this point. Unless my perspective changes for some reason, the only acceptable choices right now are (in order of preference): MSI 4090 Suprim X (liquid or air - cheapest of) - 30 phases / memory current 280; max current 1820 NVIDIA 4090 FE - 23 phases / memory current 210; max current 1400 Zotac 4090 AIRO - 28 phases / memory current 220; max current 1320 Colorful 4090 Vulcan OC-V (same specs as Zotac AIRO but probably will never be available in the US) ROG 4090 Strix OC - 28 phases / memory current 280; max current 1680 (excellent specs on this one, but last on my list due to not liking ASUS or their crappy warranty support and ludicrous overpricing) TBD - Gigabutt 4090 AORUS Master (need more detail on this one. Could potentially move up to spot 2 or 3) It is ridiculous that this information has to be harvested manually and I can't help but think there is some kind of nefarious intent driving the lack of disclosure among all AIBs and NVIDIA. I am glad this person already went to the effort. RTX 4090 VRM meta-analysis and FE/AIB comparison

I watch his videos all the time. He is talented even though his presentation is a bit rough. I enjoy watching what he does. Did you see the one where he repaired the broken power connector on the MSI 4090 and installed a connector that can't be used due to the wrong orientation? I am not buying this, but I thought it was interesting to see how many carts it is already loaded into. Good price in the context of scalping prices, but still a very poor value for $1800.

The driving force behind turdbook design is deliberate production of poorly engineered throw-away trash that can't be practically repaired so they can sell a replacement for it when it dies outside of the standard warranty period. The OEMs never cared about customers consumers having the ability to upgrade, but they kill both birds with a single stone this way. The zombie sheeple herd think it's OK and gleefully throw their money away on compromised garbage, so this will never get fixed. Everyone will have what the lowest common denominators are willing to put up with.