Mr. Fox

The Gene definitely is not an ideal solution. Form factor alone is a severe strike against it. I don't have it yet, so I can't say what I think of it. Its only noteworthy virtue is the fact that it is not compromised and degraded as an idiotic 4-DIMM abortion like virutally everything else. Hopefully I will see it as good enough that I will find a way to overlook what I already view as faults and design defects. The only thing that is actually desirable about an mATX motherboard design is that it is not iTX. The Gene may be a rare exception. I view the Z90i Edge as a rare exception for iTX acceptability, but really only because of 2-DIMM config and respectable overclocking. Who knows what they'll charge for the X870E Apex and how much extra will get tacked on by dishonest retailers and scalpers, or how limited the availability will be. All part of their despicable scumbag plan to keep profit margins high, I reckon. The Gene is obsolete and still selling for $200 more than it was worth when it was cutting edge. And, sourcing one isn't easy. Yeah, the Core Ultra thing is just really sad by every measurement. If Nova Lake is not any better, then I think the future for high performance PCs will be hopeless. AMD is already showing us again they're really not serious about winning with their latest GPU launch. If they don't have Intel gnawing at their ankles and trying to make them look bad on the CPU side they'll do worse and offer less. The entire performance and gaming PC industry is circling the drain. We're overdue for a hard reset. If and when we reboot we need to deny life support to all of the retarded and dishonest OEMs making stupid decisions. A$$zeus needs to be the first one we unplug and flat-line. Do not rescuscitate. The question is, is there another one good enough that is less scummy? Probably not. That much is evident by the fact that they're all peddling sucky 4-DIMM trash boards as industry standard. They'll never get back on my shopping list with pathetic limp-wristed mama's boy trash like that on offer. Is 5.0GHz supposed to be something impressive? Since when, maybe like 10 years ago?

The question is, will it even be available? And how absurd will the price be? Or will it be like the Z790 version and only available to a few lucky buyers with perfect timing. For many it has felt more like a publicity stunt than anything else. Intel needs to get back on track. 285K is a perma-broken joke. With only 24T and no HT 285K can't be taken seriously. Obsolete prior to release. No forgiveness available because you can't fix stupid. The purchase of the 9950X is my way of drawing a line in the sand. It didn't need to be a better product than 285K, it only needed to be not retarded.

Sad to share this news, but there were no interested buyers and the infamous @Enterprise from ExtremeHW.com (for years at overclock.net as a lead moderator before he opened ExtremeHW) is shutting things down for good. I enjoyed interacting with several guys there and doing the hardware reviews. If anyone has the time, desire and resources, you could take it over for free (no purchase)... https://extremehw.net/topic/3923-extremehw-site-auction-bidding-ends-jan-1st/?do=findComment&comment=48336

Unless AMD releases a 4090 killer they still won't have anything worth buying as far as I am concerned. It looks like the 9070 XT won't even beat a 7900 XT if the rumors are true, so there is a great big nothing burger with flies all over it. Not beating the 7900 XTX by a solid 10-15% margin is unacceptable. Finding something nice to say about it, good job to AMD for sticking with legacy 8-pin PCIe cables. That allows one to take advantage of pre-PCIe 5.0 PSUs that are getting discounted to appropriate value price levels. Let's hope the rumor is baloney, but AMD being true to form this will not come as a surprise. Pay extra for a GPU downgrade because newer is always better newer. Better off grabbing a RX 590 8GB GPU for under $100 and playing in 1080p with medium settings, or buying a 4090. The middle-ground option blows. Hot or cold is always better than lukewarm. Lukewarm is disgusting. Nothing is ever too trashy for the kiddos. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/asus-leaks-its-rog-nuc-2025-on-social-media-ahead-of-ces-debut-—-compact-gamer-focused-rtx-50-and-core-ultra-200-mini-pc-on-the-way.3867671/#post-23402890

This is a personal choice, but I definitely would stick with soft tubing and QDC fittings for the maximum quality of life benefit. Hard tubing looks fantastic when done right, but it is impractical and inconvenient, and unnecessarily costly. It provides no benefit other than having something nice to look at (assuming it turns out perfectly to your liking on the first try) and the likelihood of leaking is enhanced due to how the fittings are designed. The simplest type of maintenance becomes a huge pain in the butt. You literally can't do anything without draining the system except maybe swapping RAM sticks. Depending on how the loop is designed, you may not even be able to do that. I think even the King of Hard Tubing (JayzTwoCents) has decided that it's just too impractical for anything built for daily use. It's purely for show. The need for maintenance won't be any different, but it could occur less frequent than it should due to the dread of having to work on it. And, if you don't capture and reuse the coolant, a simple CPU or GPU repaste will turn into a very costly and inconvenient project that would otherwise be inexpensive, quick and easy. Heaven forbid that one of the tubes get cracked in the process unless you spend extra to have spare hard tubing on hand in case of an unexpected emergency. I am not sure how large that case is (haven't looked closely at measurements) to see what kind of wiggle room there is, but building a self-contained custom loop is a challenge in all but the most gargantuan cases. I did a couple of builds that way before moving to open benches and enclosed cases with external cooling components and there always seems to be something that manages to get in the way of doing what you want. But, if you enjoy jigsaw puzzles you might actually enjoy the challenge. Some people really do enjoy that aspect of the build. I prefer it to be quick, easy and convenient most of all. Having to do a lot of pre-planning, measuring and starting over again when your planning and measurements were off just enough to present a problem tends to ruin it for me. At the end of the day, I think you should do what you think will ultimately make you the most happy. The only person you need to please with the PC build is yourself (or the owner if you are building for someone else).

It is rare to see such a grand demonstration of an engineering abortion, even from a company as dishonest as A$$zeus. Maybe Frank Azor is working there now. That rises to Frankie's level of failure and its price tag is guaranteed to identify the greatest of the world's idiots that have decided to identify as a gamerboy.

I am very anti-government and agree that in general they all have too much power and control, but I do think that there are certain ones that are just pure evil and rotten from the core, to such a degree that they make the rest look like angels. China is among the worst of the worst. It is unfortunate that there are some good people in the worst places, and they are their own governments greatest victims. TikTok sucks. I agree. Banning is an option. Or, you can also explore the possibility of taking out the trash, much like what Elon did to Twitter. No longer a massive government propaganda tool or an echo chamber for freaks and undesirables like some of the others that still need a good ransacking. I suspect Biden and his cronies want TikTok eliminated primarily because they can't control it, moderate and manipulate the content for political and social engineering purposes like they do with the mainstream media and other social media platforms. Allowing China to keep it is a non-starter and presents a heightened security risk for the rest of the world.

It will be worth it in the long run, even if it is painful for a short time. Anything worth doing will require some degree of sacrifice, but the price of doing nothing is far greater. If it destroys China economically and plunges them into disaster, drives business out of their country, makes America and our allies view China as expendable and we all stop doing business with China so they dry up and blow away it will be worth every penny in the long run. In addition to making their products unaffordable, we should also stop selling anything whatsoever to them (including food) and prohibit business-to-business trade. They hate us and all nations that embrace freedom and democracy. China's only allies are commies and like-minded dictatorships. There should be no place for them at the world table, and we need to act before it's too late. They are looking for ways to destroy us all and we need to draw first blood... we need to do it hard, fast and deadly so there is no opportunity for recovery. Then maybe the people of China will rise up, shake loose from their oppressors and take back all that their wicked government has taken from them. We can't do that for them. They'll have to do it for themselves, or die trying.

Looks like a nice case, bro. I look forward to seeing some build photos.

The best option I think. Although it would be really weird to install in Intel GPU in an AMD system.

It just keeps getting worse. Even the market value for used NVIDIA GPUs remains extremely overpriced. There is a good chance I won't even bother with 50 series. The only reason I would buy a stronger GPU is for benching and the way HWBOT requires ECC to be enabled I have all but lost interest.

Disgusting. And, I don't even care about laptops anymore. Not evenn just a tiny little bit. They are all just trash on steroids. Laptops matter to me about as much as the toilet paper I flush down the toilet after using it. Correct. Neither is Intel, nor NVIDIA. But all three of them them know that most of the people that purchase their products are. And those that are not are often foolishly optimistic and too forgiving.

It might work, just be careful. I know you have done it in the past and you can most likely get it to work great with the CPU just loose on the socket, even if that is not ideal. The EK CR360 die frame is not like the rough old one size fits all die frames from the early days like X299 and 8700K. It is a very precision part designed to work flawlessly with the CR360 only, and it does. There is no risk of breaking the die on the LGA1700 installations because the block is designed to be tightened against the frame and limit the depth it compresses the CPU into the socket. Everything comes together in a very precise way. Those brackets should work. The direct die LGA1700 bracket is made differently. It is one piece and very thick metal like the bracket on an Optimus or Heatkiller block.

Remarkable how similar that lesser bin CCD delimma resembles the Intel "baby" smartphone Atom cores and their inferiority. It rubs me the wrong way with both platforms. If they're charging us for "good stuff" then they need to deliver that fully and not go half way with their effort.

I do not think it would work because the die frame that replaces the ILM probably is probably not the same dimensions. If they are the same then it would likely work if the outer bolt holes on the pump block are the same and line up with the bolt holes in the motherboard. If it fits it would be awesome. I love the CR360 direct die AIO on my SFF beast. It works fantastic. If the die frame for LGA1700 will not fit LGA1200 you might be able to use a generic direct die frame for an LGA1200 CPU instead of the one included with the waterblock. As long as the opening around the CPU die is large enough for the protruding area of the CR360 cold plate it might work. The guy I bought this one from on oc.net actually used it on a CPU that was NOT delidded with a ThermalRight CPU frame and it fit and worked like an ordinary AIO.

It will be interesting to find out what is accurate after it drops. I don't care about the X3D part so much because gaming is a secondary consideration, but having matched CCD quality would be welcomed and beneficial for overclocking as long as the multipliers are fully unlocked.

New MO-RA IV 600 radiator... Lots of nice design enhancements for self-contained external cooling systems that I love so much.

Maybe this example isn't, but all of these big tech companies will do the wrong thing on purpose when the opportunity exists and doing so is to their advantage.

I am not aware of any Intel ME updates ever doing anything to help performance, only harmful to performance. It exists today primarily for nefarious purposes, but is sure is funky how many idiots go out of their way looking for updates for it. That makes about as much sense as nuturing a virus and providing it with a culture designed to help it to flourish. Being mindful of how well an existing product performs is important for all of the major players in the PC tech space. When you are bringing something new to market and having it be profitable is crucial, deliberately sabotaging the outgoing product under the pretense of making it more secure is one of the things they can pull from their bag of tricks. Jensen invented the idea of digital genocide and it has worked for the Green Goblin for many generations. I think Intel and AMD have been watching. We should never have a surprised look on our faces when big business of any kind behaves in a dishonest, underhanded and Luciferian manner. This is status quo for big government, big tech, big pharma, big media. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And the concept of a "standard overclock" is a cover-up and only seems acceptable if you ascribe to the idea that everyone should receive a trophy for participation. If you're paying attention, standard overclock is a fancy way of making "stock" sound like something special. For people that are not very smart, it seems pretty special. The vast majority of consumers (including most gamers) are "not very smart" people.

That looks nice. What AIO is that? It has the pump in the lines and not integrated with the waterblock? It looks like the space between the case ceiling and motherboard is too small for a radiator without it overhanging (in front of) the motherboard. I don't know why they don't just make them 2 or 3 inches taller instead of that. I always find it annoying to have that area cramped for space and I think it looks better when there is some extra space at the top without the fans obstructing the view of (and access to) the EPS cables, fan headers and RAM latches. How is the Arc B850? I really liked the Arc GPU I had. What would you compare it to in terms of performance? It really wiped the floor with that 3060. Did you just add it to "trash dog" and you were just playing on the iGPU before you got it?

Merry Christmas to all of my brothers here and your families. May the Reason for the Season bless you and your families this Christmas and throughout the coming year. 2025 will be an interesting year for me and my family. I will likely begin the year with treatment for the prostate cancer they found in 2024. Thankfully, it was caught early and with great faith and confidence in the future, we will face it head on and with no fear. While it is not an Intel system and has some things I do not like, I am enjoying seeing what the 9950X is capable of. It has definitely got a few limitations that I am not used to with Intel. It will be interesting to see what improves with the Gene. The Carbon is a very nice motherboard and better than what most gamerboys need or want, but it is not what I would view as being an overclocker's delight. While definitely better than the Taichi, I have to think that there is something better than the Carbon. The 4-DIMM configuration sucks for Red and Blue. Hopefully that will be where the 2-DIMM Gene steps in to kick butt and take names. It's too bad that it is mATX, but at least it's not iTX. I see a lot of Ryzen owners that are not happy with A$$zeus right now, but they are all the owners of 4-DIMM motherboards. Looks like the Carbon and Godlike are winning the sucky 4-DIMM war. I sincerely hope that Intel will have their act together in 2025 and get back on their A-game. They really blew it with the Core Ultra abortion. I have picked up a lot of useful tidbits from Brother @chew on Ryzen memory overclocking. Thanks, bro.

That sure is some crazy high latency. Are you sure that is accurate? It looks like AIDA64 is not reading some things correctly. It does not show your actual memory clock and I have my doubts that the CPU clock is reading correctly (9900% overclock with 25MHz default). If you do a full report in AIDA64 and choose the option to send it to Finalwire along with your email, there is a good chance they will update it for proper function on your CPU. You can include a message asking the same when you send it to them. (You do that from within AIDA64.) They have done this for me many times over the years. Sometimes it takes a few days, but they've always gotten back to me.

Try kicking that voltage up to at least 1.450V or 1.500V and I think progress will come easier. Tighter timings and higher clocks will be attainable. The voltage you are using (under 1.100V) is too low and that will make it difficult to find stability. Edit: nevermind. I missed you said mesh. I thought memory.

It makes me very happy to know that efforts of technology leaders (dumbasses) to advance AI are failing and I hope they continue to fail hard so that all companies abandon it because their financial losses are too great for them to continue pursuing something so stupid and undesirable. Not only am I pleased about that, I am equally filled with glee that it demonstrates a failure on the part of those companies to influence (manipulate) consumer mindset about this unwanted and unwelcomed technology. They will have to find a new way to advance their nefarious schemes and extortion plots to defraud the human race. I hope their losses are so painful and severe that they are reluctant and fearful of trying pulling another similar stunt in the future. Along with this, I hope that NVIDIA suffers financial losses equivalent to what Intel has suffered in recent days. They all need to be pulled off of their high-horses, gruffly smacked around, and taken down a peg or two... or three. Yes, one can 3D print all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean that one should. 3D printing offers endless possibilities for creative expression, apparently none of which should ever be viewed as "too tacky" for consumers. Tacky products will always have a place because being tacky has become mainstream, at least generationally. (Look no further than the absurdly ugly trash for sale like Yeston GPUs and PC cases plastered with stupid-looking Manga and anime graphics.) I knew we were starting to circle the drain when decals somehow became an important and valuable "accessory" included with motherboards. God, please save us from the stupidity that surrounds us. Isn't that already one of the primary underlying commercial purposes and intents behind AI? I might (maybe) know what is prompting you to ask that question. It's unfortunate that stupidity has become the new normal. It's tragic when the stupid have no idea how stupid they really are.