Mr. Fox

Need to know what size, but you can get them on Amazon. Probably M2 or M2.5 but you need to measure the diameter and length to be certain. There is a wild variance in screw length that varies with PCB thickness and air space between the PCB and back plate. I also HIGHLY recommend going with stainless steel. I won't use anything else for this. Stainless is harder metal and won't strip out as easily. If you go with Allen or Torx head that will be even better to avoid stripping, and they look nice. That is where I generally purchase mine. The soft black steel screws used to assemble most GPUs are just trash. I have stripped the heads out many times before with the perfect screwdriver size. The metal is just too soft to not be damaged. If the screws are super tight the screw metal is too soft to loosen them. It is extremely annoying because there is nothing you can do to prevent it. Stainless screws are best for everything unless you need to reach a tight spot with a long magnetized screwdriver. They are not very magnetic and won't stay attached. Otherwise, use nothing else IMHO. I also used to replace all of my laptop screws with stainless for the same reason. Yeah, I am probably still going with that one. Best bang for the buck, I think. Hopefully I will get one without the mesh grill bent. For some reason that seems like a common issue. Cooler Master HAF 500 is comparable but flimsy in comparison according to reviews. I think I will go with MONTECH Metal Pro fans to replace those on my EK 360 AIO. I don't care about LED colors, but I want white light from the fans. They have very high static pressure. Not quite as high as P12 Max that I bought, but much better than most and very close to the static pressure at lower RPM. (The lower RPM is probably what accounts for the modest difference. The P12 Max spins faster and consequently louder.) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DJ4MWMPY?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

Yes. Pretty respectable at 4K and with RT on as well. Something AMD has always struggled with. This GPU was less than half the price of my "inexpensive" Gigabyte 4090. Although 4090 is clearly better, it is not scaling with price and is not giving double the performance. It's roughly one-third the price of what I paid for the 4090 Suprim. It's nice you can finally run ray tracing on a red card without it collapsing into a nasty-looking slide show.

Here you go. Nothing optimized, just running with other programs and things active during work. For some reason I could not get the upload to associate with my UL account. It appears to be associated with no one. I tried to upload it again and it got rejected as a duplicate. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/36499097/spy/54229331/spy/40812238#

Soon. I haven't had time, Just barely had enough time to get everything ready for work today. (I only got 2.5 hours sleep trying to have everything ready for work this morning.)

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/sn/971066/sn/4521744/sn/60378#

I am going to, but have not purchased one yet.

I sure will. I agree. I kind of hate to part with it, but that's a sickness I am trying to cure myself of. Trying to decide what case to use now. I've got in on the open bench until I decide. Probably going to go with a Montech AIR 903 MAX, but I don't want to make a snap decision. I don't want to spend a lot. I don't want something too small or something too large. I really wish the ASUS Prime A21 would fit an ATX mobo. It's perfect otherwise. Clean, classic plain aesthetics and well built. I probably won't find a better alternative than the AIR 903 at that price point. The B850 AORUS Elite booted my TeamGroup XTREEM 8200 memory XMP without any hiccup. So far it seems to perform the same as the Gene. That's why I changed my mind on the X870E Apex. I am using dual NVMe cards in BOTH of the extra PCIe x16 slots and the GPU is still running PCIe 5.0 @ x16. If anyone remembers me commenting about my 4K ASUS 144Hz monitor having issues booting with the Apex / 4090, it is definitely something weird with that monitor. The 9070 XT would not boot connected to it. I had to use HDMI on a 1080p display when I initially set it up. It boots fine connected to my new Predator dual 4K 160Hz monitors. What is weird is the 4090 and 9070XT will boot from it fine after connecting the display in Windows, until I clear the CMOS and then it hangs during boot on both systems. That's just weird. I don't know if it is an EDID problem or what. It's annoying to have to fart around with that. I'll probably get rid of it and replace it with a Predator display like the two I purchased. I haven't done any testing with it yet, but this AORUS Elite 9070 XT GPU is built like a brick house. The GPU support bracket bolts to the chassis (motherboard tray I think, but I haven't studied it closely enough) and then bolts onto threaded inserts in the end of the fan shroud. And, this sucker is really heavy. I'm both shocked and impressed by the build quality. It's actually made better than the Gigabyte 4090.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1XZy7xt3LH/ https://imgur.com/a/jZYQXiC I did not post it in the marketplace here because I do not know anyone in this community that lives here, and would prefer to not ship it. If anyone here wants to come for a visit and take it home, my door is always open.

And, the good part is that you don''t even have to install LTSC/ioT Enterprise. (I hate how that sounds so stupid... LTSC was a more intelligent name, but we're talking about the Redmond Retards, so I digress.) Just convert to LTSC/ioT Enterprise with a PowerShell script and you're good to go. https://massgrave.dev/#Method_1_-_PowerShell Awesome stuff, brother. Is the 3D printing less expensive? See below It's everything relating to tech now, but GPUs are the worst example of it. I am about fed up now. Very seriously considering selling off the Z790 Apex build entirely, including the MO-RA radiator/pumps assembly, 5 gallon reservoir and water chiller. I know if I do it will be a massive loss. I can't ship all this stuff because it is all too huge and extremely heavy. Someone will have to drive here and take it away. I spent all day yesterday getting my work PC ready to sell (the Edge build with the direct die EK AIO) and assembling my new "work PC" to replace it. I got a cheap B850 AORUS Elite and 9950X to go with the 9070 XT. I feel very fortunate to have purchased the GPU at the appropriate price and the mobo dirt cheap. More to follow once I get done and ready for work tomorrow. Still have to finish setting up the new work PC and clean up the mess before tomorrow. I am also seriously considering putting the air coolers back on both 4090s and using a cheap AIO. If it doesn't cool well enough I will just run stock or at a lower overclock. I cancelled the X870E Apex pre-order. I got to thinking about it and it's kind of pointless with a Ryzen CPU. Judging between the Gene and the cheap B850 AORUS Elite, there is really no difference to speak of because AMD has limited overclocking capacity either deliberately or the architecture itself is limited. Why pay $800 for an awesome board if the outcome is going to be the same as a POS motherboard?

MSI has no plans to release any Radeon RDNA 4 graphics cards. Maybe the more realistic and acceptable pricing thresholds for Radeon cards doesn't offer enough profit margin or a large enough cushion for compulsive overpricing to fit MSIs need for greed. There is also the possibility that too many people buying AMD video cards are inclined to be self-governed based on a realistic value proposition rather than driven by irrational passion. Scalping AMD cards is likely less of a succesful endeaver for the same reason. Whether the GPUs are better or worse holds less meaning than offering an acceptable price-to-performance value proposition. https://overclock3d.net/news/gpu-displays/msi-is-skipping-amds-radeon-rx-9070-series/ AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series has been released, and it has been a highly successful launch for AMD. However, one brand was notably missing from AMD’s RX 9070 series lineup. Where is MSI? Will there ever be MSI RX 9070 series GPUs? In a statement to Tom’s Hardware, MSI has reconfirmed that they will not be making any AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards. When it comes to GPUs, MSI’s focus is on Nvidia and its GeForce RTX series GPUs. MSI will remain an AMD partner, but that partnership doesn’t currently extend to AMD’s Radeon GPU lineup.

This is the world we live in now. It has been this way for a few years now, but progressively getting worse. This is one of the reasons EVGA told NVIDIA to kiss their butt. It sucks that my/our interest in overclocking is being systematically killed by idiocy like this. They are making it all about them and no longer a mutually amicable relationship. Charging extremely high prices for basically crippled products with manufacturer-controlled results is an unforgivable sin and treachery. This deals a death blow to the overclocking sport. That death blow reciprocates by way of me no longer having a desire to purchase their functionally-limited products. Having my results (or lack thereof) predetermined and metered to the level of their choosing is unacceptable. Bestowing special privileges to a select small group of individuals and excluding all others based on an arbitrary decision by NVIDIA and/or their AIB cartel partners generates great malice, an enormous sense of contempt and an overall lack of respect or regard for the well-being and financial solvency of their companies. If I cannot benefit from their existence on my terms, their existence no longer matters to me and my preference would be that they cease to exist. Sometimes. Not always, and almost never when the leak is still relevant or useful. Usually when nobody cares anymore and only when peasants are excited about owning obsolete products. More and more it is gravitating toward never. You have the AIBs playing favorites as well as their tiny group of predestined beneficiaries that want to insultate themselves from having to compete with aspiring overclockers. This is organized cheating and deceptive orchestration of publicity stunts. I hate to say it, but what we see on HWBOT is all staged and rigged results that are achieved only by select individuals. Legitimate competition is generally absent and not even possible now. It makes it difficult to even care at this point.

I am not sure of the venue where you sold it, but if it was overclock.net marketplace I could see people being wary of scammers because there were some hacked accounts where scammers were coming out of the woodwork recently. I remember one guy whose account got hacked had 4 or 5 RTX 4090 being offered for a suspiciously low price. It is generally a very trustworthy group of people to trade with apart from those examples.

No. I have no interest in X3D. It's of zero value to me. The only thing that would make it interesting to me is if all or most of them have higher overclocking headroom and less disparity between CCD silicon quality. I'd go for one if that were true, but I don't give a hoot about the gaming cache thing. I'd consider paying $200 more for a 9950X3D to gain an average of 10 to 20 FPS on a system already gaming well over 100 FPS to be a frivolous waste of my money and a benefit I would seldom use. Unfortunately, the X3D chips are clock-blocked like all the others. Your max functional core ratio is more or less what the Red Team Nazi dictatorship decides it is going to be before the product is released to manufacturing.

The smart ones... if any of them actually are smart... will figure out that cloud gaming will end up costing them more over time than the cheapest but still overpriced poor value entry-level gaming GPUs.

I think there could be a significant number that say no to the cheapest cards because the cost is still more than their budget. Kind of like how some of us say "hell no" to 5090 scalper prices. The MSRP of the cheapest GPUs will be more than some are able or willing to spend. Potentially quite a few. This may also keep demand and prices of used obsolete GPUs higher than they would have otherwise been. These are the people that love their $150 RX 580 are GTX 1550 GPUs. Will they pay $300 for the same tier of performance? Not sure, but I would take a guess the answer is no.

There are lots and lots of casual gamers. A lot more than those that refer to themselves as "hardcore gamer" (LOL). They use cheap parts and turn down settings, and they are pleased to no end to get 60 FPS at 1080p. Probably the majority. They have RGB so they pretend it is awesome even when it is not. No idea if it is accurate, but what I have heard is they overclock pretty well, but performance does not scale and actually might see some regression in performance without a loss of stability.

They're catching a lot of flack and ridicule from every direction, as they should. They've had plenty of recent missteps and failures. So, I suspect they want 4090 owners buying the 5090 for publicity, maybe hoping for demonstration what they believe will be a massive upgrade (extra fake frames and software wizardry give that appearance) so that owners of 4090 will post about publicly. I suspect this is an entirely self-serving marketing strategy for them to whatever extent it is relevant. I think it would be naive for any of us to believe for a minute it has something to do with caring about what PC enthusiasts want, or believing that there is any degree of merit or value they place on us. Some of them might care a little bit, but their primary focus is generating revenue from business-facing clientele. We are kind of like a side job for them to tinker with to avoid boredom. Probably the primary thing they value from PC enthusiasts is positive publicity. They do not get any free advertisements from their business clientele. Black, thankfully. Have a look at the images. Link

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29439921/ Pre-Ordered mine at NewEgg Link I just received my second 9950X today. I will compare bin/VF/SP rating to the one I have now and use the better of the two in the Apex. The X870E Apex will go into the case the X670E Gene is occupying now. I will use the Gene for in a SFF case like the Z790i Edge is in now, with the 9070 XT as the GPU. Will likely buy another A21 case for that. (Perfect ITX/mATX case IMHO.) Then I will sell the Z90i Edge A21 build with EK Direct Die AIO and the 3090 Ti or 1080 (buyer's choice, latter obviously less expensive) as a complete ready to run system. Or, maybe I will sell the Z790 Apex build complete with the external cooling chilled water package. Or, maybe I won't. Decisions, decisions. I think I am the third owner on the Z790i Edge that I bought from @electrosoft and that is one mighty little mobo.

We didn't need anybody to tell us Winduhz 11 is a piece of crap because we already knew, but it's nice to have confirmation of the agreement of people that have the ability to influence the easily misled people in the right direction. Such a sucky OS. The fact that Windows 10 is EOL later this year doesn't phase me at all. I don't need their support. Just as I did not need their support for Windows 7. Let's hope they don't bend us over and nail us in the hind end with a lack of driver support. Windows 10 matches or beats Winduhz 11 at everything. Winduhz 11 is the loser OS, literally and figuratively.

I received these and got them set up on my work rig. Just... wow... much better display quality than my older ASUS 4K 120Hz display, and these actually even look nicer when turned off. The ASUS screen has a wide bezel and ugly chassis with absurd RGB garbage on the back and a chintzy snap on plastic panel that makes accessing the connections inconvenient. I have never been overly thrilled with how it looks sitting on my desk. (Typical tacky-looking ASUS aesthetics.) And, I don't like that is uses a power brick like a turdbook. That is the only monitor I have owned that is made that way and it sucks. Speaking of my work computer, it started having problems and ruined my day yesterday. I finally gave up and used my Ryzen build to finish working. It was randomly locking up and Explorer.exe was crashing and restarting randomly. Of course the first rule when you have a computer or cell phone issue is to reboot. That's when things got really bad. It would power on, everything would light up and the fans were spinning, but it would not complete POST. It was getting stuck on the white debug LED (display connection) and not progressing, so I could not access the BIOS or anything. If I waited for like a half hour it would eventually boot up, but Windoze 10 was still behaving very badly. I was really worried that the Edge mobo had failed, the 3090 Ti was failing, or something similarly undesirable. After work I tried swapping the RAM, tried a different GPU and nothing helped. So, I moved on to testing other things. Next step was disconnecting all four of my SATA drives and *BOOM* instantly functioned flawlessly. I started reconnecting them individually and got to the third one in the stack and instant chaos ensued. So, I replaced that 1TB SSD with a spare I had in an external USB enclosure. It's back to the flawless operation I have always appreciated it for. Now I need to see if the SSD that died is still in warranty and get it swapped out. I am so relieved it was a SATA SSD. Not a big deal, other than the inconvenience and anxiety that it caused before I found the problem. To make me even happier, it turns out that it was the Winduhz 11 drive that I haven't booted into for probably 90 days. I did not lose any important files for work, and it was the ideal drive to have failed if one was going to because I just don't care about Winduhz 11 enough for it to matter. I am looking forward to your report on how well that worked. PTM7950 is perfect for GPUs. I disable core parking on everything as part of my Windows setup ritual, whether it needs it or not. I also disable power saving features in the BIOS and in Windows. I want everything running full blast at all times.

More fake pretty ladies. 🤣 No matter what way you look at is, AI is NSFW.

That's great and I am very happy that you got what you wanted at a price that isn't off the rails insane. While it is not a "bargain" at that price, I also know that $2,000 is not out of scope for what we paid for 3090 KPE. The only difference is, this being an FE model, there is nothing special about it in terms of overclocking, voltage controls, etc. If decent (better than normal) AIB cards ever sell for that price I might pause to consider it. Fantastic. Super happy for you, bro. I will be looking forward to seeing your max stable overclock and benchmark scores in things such as Cinebench and 3DMark Physics and Combined tests and then decide if I want one. If it delivers $200 worth of improved performance and overclocking capacity than my non-X3D CPU then I will definitely want one. Well, if you want an omelet you have to crack some eggs. I think the things he is doing are very good, very necessary and very right. He is almost always right about everything and the vast majority of Americans agree that what is taking place now with DOGE and snuffing out government waste and fraud, balancing trade with other nations so it is benefits us equally or more, is ruffling the feathers of those that didn't want their scams and crimes exposed. I am very happy about all the things that are taking place and wish they would have taken place 20 years ago and carried through to now. It's going to be harder to manipulate China now than it would have been when they were an economic dumpster, and the longer we maintain status quo the harder it will be to bring them down. It's our fault things are what they are and it's time to correct the mistakes of those that made China a relevant nation to the rest of the world. Regulators, elected and appointed public servants need to be held accountable, prosecuted and incarcerated for their crimes against the people that pay their salaries. And, as far as China (or any other nation, whether friend or foe,) goes, it needs to be America first, allies second, enemies nothing. Our government set the mess into motion with China and helped elevate them from a third-world slum nation and our government needs to undo whatever they can. We need to stop caring about whether something helps or harms our enemies and focus on what is best for #1 (us) and #2 (those we trust and are aligned with). Whatever happens to China... que sera sera. Not our problem. If I have to pay more for the crap they produce, including electronics, or not even allow them to export those to us even with tariffs, in order to make that happen, I'm good with that.

Congrats, brother. Super happy you got what you wanted. I love when that happens. Nope. No interest in 5090 now, and especially not an FE engineering abortion. Plus, I don't want to reward NVIDIA for being a scummy outfit. You honestly don't need one. Save your money for something better later on. Minus DLSS 4 and extra fake frames it produces it's not a meaningful upgrade to 4090. If you take those things away it's not that much of an upgrade, even though the ginormous price tag suggests otherwise. The X3D processors are of no special value outside of gaming, but they are the undisputed king in that area. Everyone else is better served with an ordinary CPU with core parking disabled. If they are cherry-picking binned silicon for the 9950X3D that might interest me, but we haven't seen enough of them in the wild to know if they overclock significantly higher than non-3D 99550X. If they can do 6.0GHz or higher on all 16 cores that would impress me enough to buy one. Not sure why they did not use 3D cache on both CCDs. That might have been more interesting. Relying on a crap OS like Winduhz 11 to identify the game and manage the CPU behavior is stupid IMHO. If the entire CPU (all CCDs) were equally binned and using cache, with core parking disabled that might be a real hell-raiser CPU. Having only one CCD on cache is a turn-off because it relies on drivers and software to function properly, and expecting it to function properly 100% of the time is probably unrealistic. Having to use a POS OS like Winduhz 11 with special patches and software in order to enable the functionality kills the idea instantly for me.

So, I snagged one. I guess I will find out tomorrow morning if my order gets cancelled again. This one has a vapor chamber, thermal putty and what looks like 9 heat pipes. $700, which it think is good for the better overall build quality. Hopefully it will be worth it. 3100MHz boost, 2520MHz memory and 340W TDP. Same advertised specs as the Taichi OC (but no nasty arson power cable) and XFX Mercury OC. https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-R9070XTAORUS-E-16GD#kf