Mr. Fox

Still waiting for radiators to finish the job on the O11D XL. For now using the XT45 1080 Nova. But, it's alive and well.

I agree 100%. That's why I made that choice. Some features are valuable, but there is no reason for a $800, $1000 or more expensive motherboard to exist if it doesn't offer something valuable and useful beyond what is already present on a motherboard that costs approximately half as much. Arguably, the sub-$500 AORUS Master offers more because it isn't all screwed up in terms of basic functionality like those with the ROG fanboy tariff attached to it. You can actually use the slots without castrating the GPU. That should be normal, not abnormal, LOL. This is just one of many examples that demonstrate how the people making product design decisions and product pricing are totally out of their minds, if not just plain stupid. Being broken by design and grossly overpriced is too easily forgiven by fanbois.

Totally absurd. And, I would bet that it won't overclock the CPU or RAM any better than a B850 board or a cheap X870 does. So, what is a person paying for? Something filled with worthless gimmicks that simply takes up extra space because it is larger than necessary? It makes no sense whatsoever in terms of performance or function. Just a place to foolishly spend money for nothing meaningful in return. Unless one finds value in demonstrating their lack of financial inteliigence to everyone that knows how much they spent on it. "Wheee, look at me! I love to spend lots of money on parts that work the same as the cheaps ones. I'm so special. Mama even said so."

The newest CPUs and GPUs don't really contribute as much to that passion as they used to. In some ways we are going backwards. Stock performance is better than ever and overclocking about as lackluster as I have ever seen. There's no joy in that for overclocking enthusiasts and not much of a reason to purchase products that are made that way.

Beautiful GPU. Looks like a Suprim is supposed to look. Congrats, Brother @jaybee83

Sorry for the delayed text message. Had a busy weekend. I know you are busy with work, so just reply to the text when it is convenient. No rush. There is no real value in the AIB cards except for the fact that they are not the inferior FE design with separate parts cobbled together with cables like a stinking turdbook. The FE doesn't look bad and the form factor is useful for small builds, but I really despise the way the card is put together. Whatever person or group designed it as they did were taking some kind of scary drugs. It's quite the abortion. Everything is gimped, so even the expensive AIB cards are not offering anything in terms of performance. Even if they did offer enhanced performance, the difference is not in scale with the added cost. So, I made some hard decisions this weekend. Not only getting rid of external cooling loops and going down to just two desktops (primarly because of lack of space and my growing sense of claustrophobia the congested workspace is causing), but I also cancelled the X870E Apex order. The more I have compared differences between the all of the AM5 boards I have or did have (X670E Gene, X870E Carbon, X870E Taichi and B850 AORUS Elite) the more it seems like there is little or no differences in performance or overclocking potential. The CPU runs like the CPU is going to run and it doesn't care what motherboard it is installed in. Ryzen is a solid product, but limited by design and having a more robust motherboard makes hardly any difference in CPU overclocking, and minimal difference in RAM overclocking. This is in stark contrast to Intel, where it really does seem to make a big difference having a better motherboard. So, the B850 board got a 9600X dropped in it yesterday with some cheap G.SKILL Flare DDR5-6000 (Samsung IC) I had in my spare parts and the GTX 1080 Strix. It is going to my grand daughters. It runs like a top. With the EK Nucleus AIO it maxed out at like 71°C in Cinebench with PBO 200 offset and CO 25 and a -0.050V vCore offset and maximum vdroop enabled. Like 1.075V on vCore under full title load. They will be in heaven with the upgrade over the X79/RX 580 build I gave to them not long ago. Plus, now they will both be able to play with their friends online at the same time. They will just have to fight over who uses the better rig, LOL. I ordered an X870E AORUS Master because: (1) it has asychronous BCLK like the better A$$zeus motherboards that cost a WHOLE LOT more than the Master, and (2) it is the only logical option for PCIe bifurcation out of all of the models that exist. The only better option is the Godlike, but its ungodly price is just absurd and unacceptable. ALL (100%) of the A$$zeus ROG boards are totally effed up. I can fill all three of the PCIe X16 slots withoutout the GPU slot getting cut to X8. You cannot do that with A$$zeus crap boards because the engineers of the ROG boards were drunk or taking mind-altering drugs at the time they designed them. The two extra X16 slots on the AORUS Master are run off of the two chipsets and have no effect on the CPU lanes feeding the GPU. The middle X16 slot is PCIe 4.0 X4 and the bottom X16 slot is PCIe 3.0 X4. This is how ASUS should have done it. It's a shame how they botched thing up on all X870E boards. Idiots. I will be building using the Master in the O11D XL EVO case with the new radiators I purchased. It will have the 4090 Suprim and liquid cooled RAM. The Gene will stay in the Antec C8 and will host the air-cooled 9070 XT. As as side note, I have a bad feeling about the X870E Apex. Its launch has been pushed out multiple times (at least three times, maybe more) and the $800 pre-order price probably would not be honored even if and when it eventually is released. It was already not worth $800. Factor in the screwed up PCIe bifurcation and it's just not a good product and not worth owning IMHO. The PCIe bifurcation issues it has make it unacceptable. I also do not like the GPU release idea on the new A$$zeus boards. The release button is better, even if they managed to fix the GPU contact finger damage the original design was causing. I saw it listed for $1,999 USD on the US A$$zeus web store. They can shove that up their tailpipe and break it off. That's about $1,200 more than I would pay for it. Kiss my butt ROG scumbags.

It will take them a couple of weeks to find a freight container or semi-trailer full of GPUs to steal before they have stock available. Don't be so impatient. 😉

I haven't given it much thought, Brother John. I just finished cleaning it up and flushing it out and letting it dry. It will probably be fairly expensive to ship it. Let me give it some thought and I will text you. I bought two of these. https://www.titanrig.com/watercool-heatkiller-360-l-radiator-black-0330wc013201on.html and one of these to connect the top one to the bottom one. https://www.titanrig.com/alphacool-nexxxos-xt45-full-copper-x-flow-radiator-360mm-triple-fan-black-0330ac014501on.html and I ordered $200 (12 more) of these awesome fans. They're my favorite. Almost as good as P12 MAX but I think made better. They weigh a ton. The last two 3-packs I purchased were insanely good. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ45JWL1?th=1 I wish they made an option for reverse blades. As far as the motherboard goes and whether or not it will be awesome, that's the thing. It is probably NOT AWESOME. I am skeptical and concerned it is going to be totally a screwed up POS. The totally botched up PCIe lane allocation would make it hard for me to view it as a good product. If it was going to turn out right, why the hell has the release been pushed out so many times. It's a bad sign. And, it is the only 2-DIMM board. Really sucks how all of the dumba$$ motherboard OEMs crank out tons of 4-DIMM feces. The problem is, nothing new is awesome. Everything new new is pretty much rubbish, extremely overpriced, or even worse, extremely overpriced trash. I don't believe the people running the show and calling the shots in the PC tech development realm have anything but dung for brains now. A bunch of idiot monkeys trying to molest a football because their mama said no to it. Now that they have their idiot AI crap to chase, they've lost their minds and have themselves become "artifically intelligent" LOL. One of the pluses and minuses of Ryzen is that almost everyone has peak performance, whether it is good or not. There isn't much difference between silicon samples, performance is muted and they're generally not very good at overclocking. Performance is strong, but it's pretty much a belly-button product wearing a halo and pretending to be something special. Unless you're a really unlucky person, or an exceptionally lucky fellow, you're going to be a member of the normal club. Everyone gets a trophy for participating. The only reason I own one is that it's not Core Ultra chiplet smartphone core trash.

Trying to hang onto the money for my X870E Apex pre-order. That is, assuming the pre-order price remains the same. If not I may cancel it. Thinking about cancelling it anyhow. I doubt it will give me anything that that I don't already have in terms of performance with either the X670E Gene or B850 AORUS Elite (which performs almost the same as the Gene). So, I am starting to doubt that is is going to deliver enough bang for buck. In spite of the retarded $800 price tag it looks as though A$$zeus totally screwed up the PCIe lane allocation and wasted resources on things that don't matter, like USB4 and WiF7 and didn't include something useful like a slimSAS port. It's got a bunch or worthless PCIe slots that are only usable if you are OK with the GPU getting castrated to 50% (X8) bandwidth. The clowns at A$$zeu are truly idiots. About the only way I would be able to use it the way I want to is to buy an NVMe to PCIe X4 riser with a long cable to run my Sabrent quad NVMe card. Give up one NVMe slot and add four. I ordered a second Thermal Grizzly Mycro direct die block so I will be ready when I delid the second 9950X. I like that better than the TG IHS. I also ordered bunch of high CFM/high pressure fans, two Heatkiller radiators and an Alphacool X-Flow radiator to go inside of the O11D XL EVO case. I am going to sell the MORA radiator and go with an all-internal build in that case since it has tons of room for push-pull in every spot. The X-Flow will go in the back panel and connect the top and bottom radiators. I am going to use the EK manifold with QDC fittings at one end and ball valves at input side so if I want to use the chiller I can simply close the ball valves on the internal system to bypass radiators and plug in the QDC fittings from the chiller lines.

It is enough but I don't want one. I can think of a lot of better ways to spend $2500. NVIDIA can kiss my butt.

So, the Gigabyte 4090 Gaming OC is on its way to the new owner and the Apex and 14900KS was delivered to its new owner today. Net on the sale of those parts was $2500. Not too shabby. I sold the GPU for what I paid for it new, not counting the waterblock.

If you do what @Papusan suggested probably everything, including physics and combined test, will increase. With 13900/14900K/KF/KS you have to drop down to 29 total threads to get the best results. So, disabling 3 e-cores on that CPU.

Yeah, the non-XT is pretty silly. Speaking of that, this was a pretty entertaining video.

I totally get where you are coming from and it is a valid perspective in your case. There is not much relevance to me at this point. I'm generally not even trying to do my benching hobby any more at this point because of the shenanigans that have made it a sport where winners are chosen and predestined. They are given access to things nobody else has access to, won't share any of it (possibly contractually forbidden to in some cases) and some of them even get everything for free. I don't game enough to justify blowing a gigantic wad of cash on a 5090 that would provide me with no practical benefit. I would only buy it for benching and it's too expensive for such a limited use in a situation that attempting to win is just a frustrating exercise in futility.

VULC just backed out. He just messaged me. The shipping was just absurd. I don't blame him. I would never pay as much for shipping... super stupid prices. I think he found a Strix 4090 in AUS. I am surprised Thanh Nguyen did not already know that. If you own a 4090 then 5080 is a performance downgrade. Only 5090 is an upgrade. Unfortunately, not as big of an upgrade as the price difference suggests that it should be. For a one-third higher price I would expect to see at least one-third higher performance across the board.

I know that @electrosoftand @tps3443 saw my post at overclock.net about possibly selling my 4090 Gaming OC GPU to @VULC. We got stuck at the shipping cost. I had no idea it cost so much to ship to Australia. Very weird... 2x to 3x more than shipping to UK, Germany, Finland, Saudi Arabia and other places I have shipped to. Weird that Australia is so crazy high. UPS and USPS are about $200, but FedEx and DHL are more than double that. Crazy. @Thanh Nguyen is also messaging me asking about buying it. I will put it out here in case @Clamibot or @Reciever or @Rage Set or anyone else is interested if the AUS shipping ends up being a deal-breaker.

This CPU was already delidded and was running bare die. I will do a comparison with stock vs TG IHS after I delid the second one. Here are the SP ratings: Yup, the SP118 CPU runs 2200 FCLK no problem in the Gene, same as it did in the B850 AORUS. So, a point lower SP rating and better FCLK.

So, the CPU that was in the Gene has a higher SP rating but can't boot 2200 FCLK. I moved the delidded 9950X from the Gene to the AORUS B850 and it runs like a top, but won't boot 2200 FCLK in that motherboard either. What is weird, I can run the lower SP-rated 9950X at 2200 and CO 30 on CCX0 and 25 on CCX1, but I couldn't do more that 20/10 on the higher SP-rated CPU. So, I am thinking the SP-rating is a worthless joke on AMD and means nothing whatsoever. Seems like it. Now I will see how well the not-delidded CPU that can run 2200 FCLK tunes up in the Gene. I'll probably decapitate it this weekend. Anyhoow... this is the delidded CPU using a Thermal Grizzly performance IHS and the EK Nucleus CR360 Dark AIO in the B850 board. About 1,000 points higher on Cinebench and a whole lot cooler because of the delid (as expected).

That was too long ago for me to remember, LOL. Those were awesome air coolers though. I can't believe they were so inexpensive. Didn't they fit a whole bunch of GPUs or were they model-specific? I can vagely remember they were fairly universal because most GPUs had a common "reference" PCB design. Congratulations, brother.

And, 5090 should be $2000 or less for standard AIB and $1500-$1800 for FE, and $2200-$2400 for the top tier enthusiast GPUs. But it's not. It's more grossly overpriced and a poorer value than anything else. It further compounds the problem that performance doesn't scale in measure equal to or greater than the price gap compared to anything else. I think the difference here is the price for NVIDIA's best GPU is truly stupifying and requires a disconnect from logic. AMD's best, while not nearly as good, is as good as it needs to be for most people, and it doesn't require checking your brain at the door or dumping as much money as a month's take-home wages for many of the people that would buy it, or do buy it (but shouldn't) using credit and end up paying an even more ungodly sum with interest tacked onto their purchase. Most people can find a way to purchase a 9070 XT without sacrificing the soul of their firstborn, selling internal organs or having to be checked for STDs afterward. Everything is overpriced, a poor value, and nothing is actually worth the sticker price. Price gouging and scalping just adds insult to injury. The hate against NVIDIA is not only real, but earned and deserved. AMD is just being scummy and opportunistically doing what NVIDIA's actions allow them to get away with. NVIDIA calls all of the shots for everyone, but doesn't care about anyone that their actions affect. It seems like lately NVIDIA doesn't even care about their own reputation, the quality of their overpriced products, or the quality of their product support.

If I decide to keep the B850 build I may just get a cheap Zen 5 CPU with 6 or 8 cores. I was looking online and these are generally between $150-$250 depending on how weak a CPU a person is willing to accept. I may also just sell one of my 4090's, move the 9070 XT into the C8/Gene build and use that for work, buy a cheap Zen 5 CPU and give it one of my kids with the Strix 1080 installed. The X79 Gene build that I gave to my son-in-law was confiscated by my grand daughters so maybe I will bless him with it. Edit: I wasn't sure I liked how this turned out, but as I am sitting here looking at it while working, I think I do. It is growing on me. Perhaps my reservation was jaded by the fact that I used PrimoChill LRT tubing instead of the Mayhems (which is what I generally use) and it was a real pain in the butt. It is very hard and takes tremendous force to get the tubing to slip over the compression fitting barb. It is also very stiff and inflexible. I have been using the Mayhems for a very long time and it is much softer and more flexible. Wile the LRT tubing is exceptionally clear and it looks good, I don't think I am going to buy that again. It made building it take longer and required extra effort because of how unweildy the LRT tubing is.

The Green Goblin has lost its way.

Thank you. That industrial look is my favorite. Yup, down to two rigs, at least until (if) the X870E Apex ships. I don't know if I will keep the B850 board currently powering my work PC, but probably will. It's pretty solid and it was very inexpensive. The Antec Constellation C8 is an excellent case, but borderline too small. For an AIO (or even dual AIO for CPU and GPU) the C8 is perfect. Custom loops just take up a lot of space. The external cooling loop is so much easier and is case-agnostic. Doing the bottom radiator in push/pull and fitting the distribution manifold was quite a challenge. Nothing is difficult to access, but the volume is limiting. The O11D XL EVO doesn't seem that much larger looking at it, but it is significantly larger in ways that matter. Lian Li was smart to involve @der8auer in the engineering of it. I think going forward that is the only case I am going to purchase. It's not perfect, but very close. Super easy to build a custom loop inside of it without having to cut so many corners to get things to fit. The O11D XL EVO is waiting for its next victim. It was hard forcing myself to sell the Z790 Apex and 14900KS, but I'm sure the new owner will love it as much as I did. Computers are like kids. You have to learn to let them go when they get older.

Transformation complete. All self-contained. Gene seems happy with the new work environment.

Sold the Apex and 14900KS. On it's way to the new owner in Kansas as soon as UPS Store opens at 11:00 AM. Now I have to decide if I am going to sell the MO-RA and chiller setup or keep them. I don't really want to sell them, but I might find it easier to give up my overclocking/benching hobby if the temptation they present is eliminated. Decisions, decisions.