Mr. Fox

Hard to know what the reason for it is or what benefit, if any, it will provide. It could be for something other than memory, or it may even be an unnecessary sales gimmick. Kind of like what Buildzoid talks about with grossly overkill VRM phases on modern motherboards that the OEMs build to try to make their products seem better than others, whether they are or not. Z790 as a chipset is basically Z690, but with an additional 4 PCIe lanes upgraded to PCIe 4.0 speeds. It will not provide anything useful over a Z690 chipset for most of us. They needed something new to sell to people that buy new because new is new. Pure speculation at this point, but there could be changes to motherboard design that improve DDR5 overclocking that are not related to the chipset as much as the passing of time and increased ODM knowledge and learning how to better support higher DDR5 clock speeds and performance.

Yes, that would totally work... absolutely. You could also use nail polish on them to shield against liquid metal. In fact, doing that in conjunction with Kapton tape or a guard would be smart for an extra measure of protection. I really like the der8auer silicon version best. I don't know how long until it becomes available, or if a release date has been announced yet. It looks like it would be convenient and reusable. I think the Noctua version would be just fine for non-conductive thermal compound though. Without something it looks like those notched areas will be kind of messy.

It is certainly better than not using anything, but the fact that it sits on top of the ILM is a bit weird. It would be OK for normal thermal paste. If the image is accurate, it doesn't fit snugly against the IHS like a glove which makes it kind of iffy for liquid metal. I would want to see a much better fit against the perimeter of the IHS and sealed off tighter since there are so many SMDs waiting patiently to be short-circuited by a drop of liquid metal. Maybe the sides could be trimmed down to allow it to fit under the ILM and then you could put a small amount of RTV silicone on the underside next to the SMDs and squish the shroud down onto that. This would make it much safer, with no gaps for a tiny ball of doom to drop onto the SMDs.

LOL... that would be a good reason for it for sure. In order to make that happen, we would need a water block for it, more robust overclocking software tools and a way to mod the vBIOS to remove power limits or a shunt mod. But, I certainly wouldn't mind taking a crack at it once all of those ducks are in a row. Would be kind of a waste of time without them.

If you sell it on eBay you'll get raped on fees, too. If you need to sell it to help fund the 4090 that's one thing. If there were an opportunity to keep it and use it in a second computer, you wouldn't have to take a massive loss on the sale. But, you also wouldn't have any cash to contribute to the upgrade. I am very glad I kept my 2080 Ti FTW3 instead of selling it for that very reason. I am benefitting more by hanging onto it that I would have had I sold it to help offset the cost of the 3090 KPE. I almost did and I am so glad I decided not to. I would jump on an Arc A770 GPU right now, but it can't really replace my 2080 Ti FTW3. So, it would be a stupid move for me to buy one. It would be a decent low-cost upgrade to a 3060 though. I think it is nice to see NVIDIA and AMD getting caught with their pants down on mid-range GPUs. It thrills me to see Intel acting as the disrupter in this space and I do hope the next generation brings similar disruption to the high-end gamer and overclocking enthusiast realm. Imagine an Intel GPU with all of the stupid performance metering limitations removed along with the features the A770 employed to overtake NVIDIA and AMD in the mid-range space. It is remarkable that Intel has such strong ray tracing performance at their first entry into the market with immature drivers. This has potential to become extremely disruptive and that is awesome. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/18697315/spy/31194609/spy/14118181 Hopefully this will change soon... need higher power limits. Nice control panel though.

I'm excited for you and I look forward to seeing your build. I can remember when I went back to desktops and how I became disenchanted with laptops almost instantly. The disenchantment soon turned to loathing. Even though high-end enthusiast desktop parts are expensive, the quality they deliver produces a sense of satisfaction that far exceeds anything a mobile computing experience can offer. That level of excellence simply doesn't exist anywhere in laptop land. Everything is chintzy and pathetic in comparison.

Just use Winaero Tweaker or GPedit.

So, temperatures do matter and taking active steps to avoid the 95°C "target" is something worth pursuing to achieve the best performance even without consideration for sub-zero extreme cooling. It is going to be beneficial to improve cooling even for daily driver performance. The silicon shroud that Roman made is something very useful that every Ryzen 7XXX user should think about. I think it is a great idea and will probably solve some issues the notched and unsealed IHS and multitude of exposed SMDs can present that may not have been contemplated. An absolute must have for liquid metal, but would be good to have to minimize tedious mess cleanup with ordinary thermal compound. The nifty stuff this guy can create on the fly is always impressive. I wish I had all of the the tools and fabrication resource he has at his disposal. This video makes me want to buy a DICE pot.

Impressive audio quality for a live performance. I usually do not enjoy live performance recordings due to poor acoustics degrading the audio quality to the point that it usually sounds like crap.

Oddly enough, the Team Group Delta memory kit that I just sold was purchased from someone in China. I got full asking price. For the first time ever, I shipped a product to China rather than having a product from China shipped to me. It was weird. Nobody from the US made an offer and it was underpriced. But yeah, I've sold quite a few things on eBay over the past year to help bankroll new parts and it feels like many a buyer expects to pay a tiny fraction of what anything is worth. Some of the ludicrous low-ball offers I have received made me want to reply with something like "LOL, what is wrong with you? Are you really that stupid, or do you think I am?" I think the historically horrible Orwellian economy we live in now has people scared to spend money, and they are too worried about losing what they have worked for decades to save as they watch it evaporate. At the same time, the cost of basic life necessities continue to rise at an alarming and demoralizing pace. Watching cities like Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York morphing into third-world slums also doesn't do much to bolster confidence. It is crazy and scary how little time it has taken for bad people to turn things upside down and inside-out. It looks like Arc 770 is going to be a real challenger in mid-range for NVIDIA and AMD. As drivers mature it is probably going to slaughter the competition. Nice to see that. I hope that can do something similar with high end at some point. I think this is a really good start for them. The Good The Bad I really love the minimalist aesthetic of the Arc GPUs. I think they are the nicest-looking air cooled GPUs I have ever seen before. Very elegant looking IMHO. But, the teardown video shows a real nightmare for maintenance. Maybe the next gen can take a new approach. The backplate design is especially psychotic. LOL ...that is spelled the same forward as it is backward.

One of the reasons I am taking a back seat for a while. It is starting to feel like we have all become victims of a scam in an organized crime ring, LOL. Too many strings attached and smacks of collusion and conspiracy driven by greed more than being born out of necessity. One of the reasons I do not plan on upgrading GPUs any time soon is I am not willing to give up Windows 7 yet, and the absence of driver support means I would have to do that whether I want to or not. It is unknown what challenges I would face, if any, moving to a 13th Gen and supporting BIOS. It might not take any effort and be a seamless drop-in CPU change, but it may turn into a cluster. I'm not ready to allow myself to be manipulated. It goes against my nature to allow it, and my natural inclination is to hang on as long as I can for no reason other than defiance and denying them the luxury of making decisions for me. Nasty finger salute to that. I am not willing to stop using an OS that I don't want to stop using as a condition of installing a more powerful CPU or GPU. Double salute to that. I can move to Linux if I am ready to totally abandon benching (almost there). Software selection is the one and only reason I still use Windows versus Linux. Linux is a better product, but the software selection sucks. I am not willing to embrace Windows 11 and still begrudingly use Windows 10 for my daily driver. Neither of them are acceptable to me in their natural, unmitigated and utterly disgusting, state. Both require extensive aesthetic modifications for me to view them as palatable. Fixing those atrocities doesn't correct the performance degradation that comes along with Windows 10 and worsens with Windows 11. I don't think they will ever be something I view as good or desirable operating systems. Windows 7 set the bar higher than the Redmond Retards are capable of jumping in their current compromised and degenerate physical and mental state. With Windows 10 they were circling the drain, and Windows 11 took them down the drain, into the septic tank.

In case you are lurking and happen to see it, happy birthday Brother @Prema. Hope you have a wonderful day and another year of blessings ahead of you.

I don't really do anything competitive any more because I don't have spare time for it. And, at the rate things are going tits up with Brandon and his insane clown posse I need to spend less, save more, or plan on not retiring until age 80 or 90, or maybe never. If that situation changes, then I can reevaluate

I decided to cancel the 13900K pre-order. Not because I do not want it, but because I don't want to spend any money on it. Will see what the KS brings and the price of it

The factory cooler (if and when one is included) should be a minimum of 240mm AIO as an entry point. People that want something better can buy it, or if they want to try to manage it with air because they have a predisposed objection to using liquid cooling, they can give it their best shot with something special. If OEMs are going to continue down the path of trying to sell the idea that 95°C is the new normal, they need to either step up their efforts with something better or not provide anything and leave it up to the end user how to deal with it. Providing something not up to the task would be really lame. I think it is messed up to call it the new normal. Maybe the new unmitigated exception. It shouldn't be "OK" or normal.

Not if their priorities are straight. That sometimes proves to be a pretty big "if" for those that don't know any better.

I think the correct way to look at it is 95°C is the threshold at which performance degrades. It can't really be viewed as a "target" unless the end goal is experiencing diminished performance. Time will tell what, if any, effect is has on the lifespan of the silicon. An ultimate outcome can only result from keeping temperatures as cool as possible. That much remains constant. I think accepting such ludicrous temperatures as the new normal is not very intelligent. It wasn't for laptop and should not be for desktop. Unless you just don't give a rat's tail about performance and get off on the idea of slow-cooking your parts.

If it is M-die it has been binned for 6600 and it has an XMP profile with sloppy loose timings and costs more. I haven't seen an M-die kit that would not run 6800 fine. 7000 is usually doable as well with 1.500-1.600V depending on the silicon sample quality and the CPU bin quality. Part of it is dependent on the CPU silicon. I have two generic M-die kits that have no XMP that perform identical to commercial RAM kits with XMP that cost 200% more than the generic sticks do. What I am saying is, you are probably throwing money away paying extra for the 6600 kit. My best advice is, if you are not going to wait for M-die and don't want to use the Corsair Vengeance 6000 kit, sell that and buy some generic green SK Hynix M-die sticks on eBay instead of throwing away money on branded memory that costs more and does nothing to improve the outcome. I paid $80 per stick for my generic memory and it works as well as, if not better than, the $400 TeamGroup Delta RGB memory kit. Also, there is a lot different about DDR5. CL makes little difference in performance like it does with DDR4. I would recommend watching some of Buildzoid's DDR5 overclocking videos where he goes into this. A lot of what we learned from DDR4 does not apply to DDR5. The tRAS, tFAW, tREFI and other timings change performance more dramatically than CL, tRDC and tRP do. The timings that end with "DR" (different rank) apply only to dual rank modules. Those that end in "DD" (different DIMM) apply only to a configuration with more than one DIMM per channel. So, values set for the timing ending in DR and DD do nothing on single rank two-DIMM setups. You can change those settings to anything you want to and they are ignored. I set all of the DR and DD timings to "1" and it is the same as setting them to "Auto" or something else.

I have no idea. I haven't seen anyone overclocking 32GB dual rank DDR5 modules, so you might be the $300 guinea pig. I also haven't seen anyone overclocking a 4-stick DDR5 setup. Seem like all of the overclocking, at least that I have noticed, is being done with single rank 16GB modules in a two-stick system.

I agree. The SK Hynix A-die is way too expensive right now, and the degree to which it would be beneficial is questionable. @tps3443 I would say wait a while. I could not tell any difference in performance with SK Hynix M-die at 6800 versus the Samsung B-die you purchased with the mobo running at 6400. At 6400 and equivalent timings the M-die Hynix and Samsung B-die perform within a margin of error of the same. The only way I could measure a difference at 6800 was with a memory benchmark. I ran some game benchmarks, Cinebench and 3DMark and the difference was not really detectable. In most things the performance of the DDR4-4000 on my Strix D4 matches the performance of my DDR5-6800. I'd say when the A-die price falls to about what we are paying now for M-die it will be worth it at that point. If you are just wanting it for impressive memory benchmarks and don't mind paying a ridiculous amount for the A-die, then by all means do it just for shiggles. I want it for no reason other than the AIDA64 benchmark, but not bad enough that I would be dropping a bunch of money on it for the reasons stated above. The overpriced A-die is a very poor value and there is no bang for the buck at this point.

The RTX 4090 is far too expensive even if it does offer double the performance of a 3090. This is abusive Kingpin/HOF overclocking enthusiast niche GPU pricing on belly-button video cards with cancerous firmware made for Joe Blow the gamerboy. They will have gimped performance. And, if they pull more shenanigans like they did last time, there will be a 4090 Ti and you will be stuck with a second fiddle graphics card that you paid more for than it was worth. Even if it were priced appropriately, it would be prudent to wait and see what cards are going to have good water block support and which ones will not. An enthusiast version of any GPU is going to be boost clock impaired and thermally gimped if it relies on air cooling or a hybrid setup. My confidence in NVIDIA or AIB partners to do the right thing and not deliberately rape people willing to cough up the cash is near zero percent.

But, I am actually all for this, LoL. Seriously, I am for real. I am opposed to normalization and forced equality in any form it takes. If there is no opportunity to establish superiority, rise above the herd, be remarkably better than average, take a dominant position and send the gamerkidz away crying because they want to and don't know how, then I have no interest in it. The joy of overclocking is lost no matter how good the "normal" performance looks when everyone gets roughly the same experience. It might be good for ordinary consumers, but it is no longer exciting to own for an overclocker because it becomes ordinary. Using chilled water with the 5950X provided little benefit because the silicon was already close to maxed out, which made owning it very boring and unstimulating to me as an overclocker. It irked the snot out of me that I could not get it past 4.9GHz stable on all 16 cores/32 threads on chilled water even though the 7980XE was stable at 5.3GHz. That made it feel inferior even though its clear improvement in IPC gave it an edge in benchmarks over the much older CPU.

There were a lot of things I despised about the 5950X, but PBO was enough that had it been the only thing wrong with it I still would want nothing to do with it. It sucked real bad. I know the lazy gamer kids that don't want to learn how to overclock the right way like it, but it makes no difference to me what the everyday user/gamer likes. It's AMD's job to care about that. That they do like it sends a strong message about it. I hate Intel TVB just as much, and for the same reasons. I overclocked it manually and got much better results, but some of the fanboyz seemed irritated that my results destroyed their hypothesis that PBO mediocrity was better.