On 3/3/2025 at 6:55 PM, tps3443 said:

Do you all think it is worth buying this extended warranty on this device? It is expiring in a few days. This was an Acer recertified device with a very short warranty. And it is expiring very soon, less than 2 weeks left. 

This extended warranty cost $207 dollars with a promotion through Acer. 

I do not typically buy extended warranties. But, with this being a costly and decent machine and all, I would love to hear input on this. Thanks everyone!

Acer Predator 18”
Mini LED 250hz
Intel 14900HX+RTX4090
32GB DDR5/ 1TB M.2

Do it. The worst warrant to have is the one that is expired.  If you buy it things will probably be fine and you won't need it. If you do not, chances are pretty good that Murphy's Law will find your wallet and the cost will be greater than the price for the extended warranty. It is good that it includes accidental damage coverage. That makes the price even more attractive. For 3 years' peace of mind I think that is pretty affordable. 

For the record, that price for a 3 year warranty is about what a 3 year extended warranty cost was 10 years ago.

The only reason I have 9950X systems now is because I wanted something new and the 15th Gen "Core Ultra" product line is more of an undesirable mess.

44 minutes ago, kojack said:

Ok. perfect. 14900k would be my choice too. For my workflow intel is way better than amd, plus I am just an intel user for years. I am on 10th and 11th gen processors and they still work perfectly for me. would love to have a 14th gen with ARC graphics for video work but it's not needed right now.

13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs are awesome. As long as you manually control the clocks and voltage and stay away from eTVB you should have no issues with degradation. Set a high LLC to normalize voltage and avoid the high idle and low-load voltage swings and spike. No need to use special performance-killing "intel failsafe" profile if you take control of things.

40 minutes ago, Papusan said:

Also @Mr. Fox isn't all to  happy with the AMD platform. And he also hate the new Z890 platform from Intel. No HT and dummy tiles is damn stupid choice from Intel.

It truly is a situation of having to choose from undesirable options. There are no good options in the current hardware generations.

7 hours ago, tps3443 said:

Neweggs used RTX 4090 Trade-in value= $1,600 dollars now! 😂 (That’s pretty dang good) especially for trading in a Gaming OC. I can see people moving to a 5090 with such a good return on 4090’s. 
 

The 5090 inventory looks to be completely stabilized now, almost every model available and in-stock.
 

 

That is an absolutely great trade-in value considering that is almost new MSRP for that GPU. But, if something seems to good to be true it probably is. There is an underlying motivation that we are not seeing and I can just about guarantee you that it is ultimately not going to be for the benefit of consumers. Someone else is going to benefit from it, not NewEgg's customers. It's not a generous gesture of goodwill. NewEgg is playing the auto dealership scam. Give you more than your trade-in is worth and then more than make up for it when they screw you six ways to Sunday on an overpriced new car. If it were a legit thing they would cash you out for $1600 nstead of giving credit on a new GPU purchase.

Plus, it's still not enough money to offset the extreme overpricing of the 5090. I think stock has "stabilized" (aka sales have stagnated) only because people that would have wanted a 5090 have figured out they are getting sodomized and decided to not pay twice what one is worth. That describes where I am at with it. Do I want one? Yes. Am I willing to buy one? No, absolutely not. You're basically spending what it would take to buy two 4090s without getting double the performance and only having one GPU left in the end. That sucks real bad.

If it was priced to value I would buy a 5090 and keep my 4090 to use in my second PC or have it on-hand as a spare. So, what seems like a good deal on the surface is still a truly horrible deal and the high trade-in price is probably nothing more than a desperate attempt to move stock on overpriced 5090 cards that are going to start losing value because not enough people are willing to take a shot in the heiney hole to have one.

What I think might happen, or at least what I would like to happen, is AMD is going to launch another flagship that sells for half the cost of a 5090, runs like a 5080 or 4090 and all of these $3000+ abortions are going to suddenly not be sellable unless they slash the pricing 30% to 50%. I really hope that is what happens. It's exactly what NVIDIA and the greedy AIB partners deserve to have happen to them. They need to be pushed to the edge of the bankruptcy cliff. Not over, but close enough to scare the crap out of them. It needs to hurt so bad and hurt for long enough that they will not want to try it again any time soon. They don't care about us, so we need to stop caring about them. Our actions need put them into self-defense/survival mode. Those that will be hurt the most will be the poor unfortunate suckers that already drank the Kool-Aid and paid absolutely insane prices for a 5090.

Does this mean I like AMD now? Nope. It doesn't and I don't. AMD sucks. But, putting up with their mediocrity and face-melting hotspot temps and slow VRAM  is a better alternative than getting screwed. Look back over the months that have passed since 5090 first launched and take a talley on all of the missteps and shenanigans that have taken place. Besides not being worth it monetarily a lot of stuff was totally botched up. And, we still have the sucky 12VHPWR NVIDIA arson PCIe power connectors.

Happy Father's Day brothers. I hope those of you that are and/or have a dad enjoy celebrating the privilege and honor.

1 hour ago, Vasudev said:

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @jaybee83 managed to fix the inconsistent cpu performance in gaming and high-Low CPU usage issues with Process Lasso with Performance and Idle Saver enabled. 

I didn't think I would be using Process Lasso during my Vista/7 days in 2025 with Windows 11. Windows 11 task manager is broken and doesn't calculate the right CPU frequency of Ryzen on both 23H2 and 24H2.

Also, did a cache benchmark from AIDA64 using Strelec with only basic ryzen drivers installed and found the minimum memory latency to 97ns to 105ns compared to my aging skylake 6700hq with 54.5ns on 2667MHz DDR4 which might explain day to day latency I felt skylake was better than ryzen unless I run PS5 ported games and anything CPU heavy.

Winduhz has been a broken effed up piece of crap in every iteration that followed Windows 7 and the latest abortion has brought us an unprecedented degree of half-assed trashiness and filth.

36 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

AMD is on the way with their AI hardware. They will sink equal low. So not so sure we will have any viable options (correct pricing and real performance uplift without software tweaks and new fake frame features).

 

AMD Expected to Break NVIDIA’s AI Monopoly With Next-Gen Instinct MI500 Accelerators & EPYC “Verano” CPUs, Set to Compete Against Vera Rubin Lineup

 

 

We can only hope the AI bubble bursts.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

AI has not turned out to be as effective as they thought: 50% of companies that wanted to replace their employees with AI are backing out.

If we are lucky their investors will decide they hate them and stop investing in computer technology. Then the companies wanting to get rich from AI won't because they won't have any operating capital available for dumbass ventures like AI. I'm totally OK with the idea of no new products coming to market from NVIDIA for 3 to 5 years. They can just lower prices and keep sellinng what they've already released. I could see some real benefits to that. It would be wonderful to get 5 years of service out of a flagship GPU before anything newer and better dropped.

6 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

Have seen it. Disgusting. Not much have changed since F. Azor left the ship. Regarding the 9090XT I think that will be the 9080XT. More vram and will probably beat a possible 5080 Super. AMD could be greedy if  they add 32GB vram and beat any of the xx80 class cards. Everything in bethween $1000 and 1200 is possible. 32GB vram is the selling point. Now it's up to Nvidia put an correct price on the Super cards.And AMD willcopy that price due the 32GB vram buffer.

 

I do not ever remembering caring so little about NVIDIA as I do now. I really do hope they get what they deserve. It will be really bad (for them) if they do. They have earned whatever misfortune comes their way.

So @Papusan Alienware is partnering with Lego to make the kiddos happy. Disgusting. If the 9090 XT is real I will probably buy one.

1 hour ago, Papusan said:

 

Imagine next gen Intel tile mess (incl dummy tiles) with v-cashe and loads of E-cores and no HT. That 9950X3D you got and sending back will look decent compared to next gen Intel. With all problems INTEL have with Core Ultra then imagine how it will be with the 3D v-cashe. The silicon lottery will come on top.

It's quite the day we live in. Besides it being a 21st Century Sodom and Gomorrah we buy more snake oil than anyone could possibly use during the course of their life. Consumers are generally regarded as an expendable commodity rather than an important customer.  Lies and misrepresentation are a means to their end. Our happiness doesn't matter and neither does earning trust or respect for as long as we keep paying for their mistakes and continue allowing them to screw us over. These circumstances are not limited to PC hardware manufacturers and software developers, but it feels particularly bad in this realm because it matters to us. 

An example of snake oil is the ASUS Nitropath technology. I mention it only because it is something new that nobody continued talking about after the initial marketing campaign and hype train heralding it as a beneficial hardware feature. There aren't many boards that have it. This Strix does have it and I am seeing no evidence that it exists in terms of functionality. I can't find anything negative or postive to say about it because there is nothing to see other than the marketing hype that was devoted to it.

3 hours ago, electrosoft said:

I'd say give another one a whirl, but that first one I can see giving you pause.

2 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I am not sure if I am going to try another. Maybe. I have lost my curiosity for now and $699 is a lot of money for something that might offer very little in return.

I think I will put this on the back burner until Microcenter opens here. Then the only thing I will have to care about is the 40 minute drive each direction to give them back the broken trash rather than having to ship the trash back and wait for a refund. I'm probably going to seldom ever buy anything online again that is important or expensive after they open.

1 hour ago, electrosoft said:

For that, hopefully you put it as defective/not working so they won't (in theory) try to resell it via Amazon Renewed.

 

I'd say give another one a whirl, but that first one I can see giving you pause.

Yes I did select defective as the reason for return.

I am not sure if I am going to try another. Maybe. I have lost my curiosity for now and $699 is a lot of money for something that might offer very little in return.

1 hour ago, electrosoft said:

Really sounds like you got "working as intended and nothing more" if it is capping out at 7600. I'd ship that thing back as fast as I shipped back that first 9800X3D dud. Absolute trash chip.

I wish I could even say that. Constant freezes and random blue screens in Windows even using BIOS defaults. Every time I tried using a web browser it would freeze. I read on ROG forums some other owners were experiencing the same after updating to the latest BIOS, but I tried the most recent and two prior BIOS versions and they were the same. I have no idea why it is not functioning correctly. If I had to take a guess, there is something not right with the 3D v-cache. Within 5 minutes of moving it from the Strix to the Master motherboard to determine if it was the CPU or the Strix mobo the Master locked up with the only changes after clearing the CMOS being disabling TPM and Secure Boot. Everything else default. So, same misbehavior on both motherboards. I could get it to do some things without freezing and I suspect those were things that didn't try to access the v-cache. Just a guess, but at this point I am past caring or trying to solve it. Clearly there is something wrong with it. Attempting to overclock the CPU and RAM simply increased the frequency and severity.

I put this note in the box with the RMA. Hopefully it doesn't become someone else's problem.

RMA Ref # --------------------

9950X3D – SN# 9MN7550P50134

This CPU is unstable. I spent 3 days struggling with frequent lock-ups in Windows and random blue screens. I did two clean installs of Windows with current AMD chipset drivers, tried four different memory kits and tried three most recent BIOS versions for the motherboard, used BIOS defaults and tried different tuning options to correct the problem. This CPU was purchased as an upgrade for my work PC. I moved the CPU to my personal (non-work) computer and the instability issues followed it to the new host computer. It might not be a good candidate to sell to another Amazon customer.

So @jaybee83 below are the SP ratings for one 9950X and the 9950X3D. Whenever I have a good reason to disturb the CPU in the AORUS Master I will drop it in the Strix for screenshots unless I can find those I took when that CPU was in the Gene.

After spending many wasted hours with it, trying three different BIOS versions, two clean installs of Winduhz and four known excellent and stable memory kits, and almost wrongly concluding the Strix was a piece of trash, to be certain I put this 9950X into the Strix in place of the 9950X3D and the immediate and overwhelmingly obvious conclusion is the 9950X3D is a worthless and extremely disappointing piece of trash. I am sending it back to Amazon for a refund.

In spite of its acceptable SP120 it overclocks poorly on CPU and memory. It cannot run tight memory timings at any clock speed and it constantly freezes or throws BSOD in Windows with any memory overclock above 7600. Latency is horrid and I could not tighten things up enough to get below about 62ns in AIDA64. So, it is as worthless as teats on a bull to me. Cinebench R23 scores are about 5000 points less at matched clock speeds. Highest R23 score I could get was a bit over 42K and Windows froze when I tried to take a screenshot of it. Clock-for-clock it is a slower CPU, not faster. And I don't give a rat's ass about how it plays games.

So @jaybee83 your Hero motherboard might be totally stable at 8000+ RAM speeds if your 9950X3D is as much of a piece of garbage as this dungheap that is going back to Amazon. Curiosity box checked now. Don't care about X3D just like I didn't care before I got curious. Horrible product if you like overclocking.  Absolutely not worth $699 by any stretch of the imagination. To borrow the expression from Steve at GN... "a waste of sand" from AMD. Maybe I drew a short straw in the Ryzen lottery. Not going to waste any more calories on it.

Buh-bye X3D turd CPU. So glad I didn't already delid it. Also glad I didn't wrongly blame the Strix for sucky overclocking. It's actually very good and almost a match to the AORUS Master. Gigabyte is still beating ASUS on motherboard design and features. The only benefit the Strix has that the Master lacks is a questionably useful SP-rating. In terms of performance they are a tie.

Things are as they should be. Scores are essentially identical to the AORUS Master.

8 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

I know right, the FE’s are just fancy feeling and premium looking even though they have their other short comings and stuff. It’s a very industrial looking design. No silly RGB anywhere. Just white LED that can be brightness adjusted or turned off all together with EVGA Precision X. That’s right up @Mr. Fox alley, I know he loves his white LED’s 🤣 But I’m not gonna lie, It’s gonna be tough taking it apart though because I’ve come to appreciate the GPU exactly

how it is now that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it. 

Crazy good deal! But yeah we are brain washed. I felt blessed getting my FE for normal MSRP which is insane if you think about it. It’s amazing how companies can completely confuse our minds and trick us in to thinking something bad is now suddenly good..It’s like getting a baseball bat in the rear end with barbed wire for 3 months, then suddenly big Bruno in the jail cell isn’t nearly as bad. 🥴

 

Probably not a very good analogy, but good comparison for Nvidia. 😂

You are right. All of us are brainwashed at one level or another. We've been conditioned to think and act a certain way, often without any awareness. Submiminal messaging is extremely powerful and nobody is smart enough to never be affected by it. Some are easier to fool than others.

The difficulty of disassembly is an issue with the newer design of FE cards, but that has never been a deterrent to most of us. My greater concern is the durability or added fragility that often follows the added complexity of design. When a change introduces complexity or reduces reliability it often lacks enough value or benefit to justify it.

59 minutes ago, jaybee83 said:

 

LOL i had no idea, now i feel like a moron 😄 thanks for the tip! ill try it next time in BIOS 🙂

You would be surprised how many people do not know that. Only works with FAT/FAT32 (no NTFS).

Off-topic... saw the new John Wick movie last night "Ballerina" and it was awesome, just like all John Wick movies always are.

Just now, jaybee83 said:

 

be sure to post ur VF curves, as well (9950X and X3D). lets get some comparisons going here to put some proper context to the curves 🙂 

I will.

You know you can just press F12 in the BIOS to take a screenshot and save it to USB rather than using a camera.

This Strix has the same features as the Apex. That BIOS Q-screen thing with the mobo map. Also has eCLK (asynchronous BCLK) like the Apex and AORUS Master.

18 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

and THAT, my friend, is the crux of the hardware enthusiast reality 😄 

 

 

haha nice that reminds me of the high tech toilets i saw in japan 😄 

 

 

7950X = lemme see if i can find an old bios screenshot / post about this

First 9950X3D = SP 120

Second 9950X3D = SP 120 (120.44 across all cores)),  V/F curve below.

in general, both the IMC and CCDs seem to be stronger on this one vs. the first. unfortunately, i dont have any screens of the VF curves for the first 9950X3D or the 7950X.

 

 

sorry about the awkwardly slanted screenshot, this is due to my curved monitor 😄 plus had to stitch together two pics cuz the low Bios res doesnt allow all 16 cores to be shown at the same time.

Thanks. I will have a closer look tomorrow. My 9950X3D is SP120 as well. I just got the Strix build put together and have about 2.5 hours to sleep before work tomorrow. No problem running 8000 C36, but still need to tune it. First distro plate I have owned. I like it, but getting the air out of it was a little bit tedious. It was very noisey when it had tons of air in it. Now that most of the air is worked out, it is cranking out some decent flow (318-320 L/H). It started out less than half that rate. Top and bottom rads both push/pull. I purchased a second set of KingBank 8400 and will probably sell my G.SKILL 8000 EXPO kits (3 of them).

@jaybee83 I forgot to ask, what is the SP rating on your 9950X3D CPU and what was the SP rating our your 9950X? Do you have any BIOS screenshots showing the V/F curve on them?

If everyone would be smart and say eff ewe to companies selling $3400 5090s and $1200 9070 XTs there would be no companies selling $3400 5090s and $1200 9070 XTs. They'd be selling them for what they are actually worth and making a reasonable profit in the process. They have priced them based on how much an idiot is willing to pay for them. Too many people have issues exercising self-control, restraint and prudence. They are driven by their desires more than intelligence. They know this and they are exploting this flaw in their humanity.

55 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

I think FE pricing was similar to AIB pricing though.

 

4090FE= $1600

4090 Gaming Trio $1650

 

I don’t know what happen to AIB pricing scale. MSI Gaming Trio was +$50 more than FE. And now MSI Gaming Trio is +$1350 more than FE. 
 

^ This is all whacked out. I really wonder how they go from +50 dollars to +1350 dollars more. That cannot be tariffs. I think it’s BS. 
 

 

I think AIB’s are really thirsty like Nvidia has been for years.. 

 

 

I know Nvidia is slinging the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB GPU at insane profit levels. It’s a 5090 die through and through. But, it cost $8,200 dollars. That is a big profit for Nvidia. They even had an artificial limit at 5090 launch day. And that’s where all the dies went to (Into RTX Pro 6000 lol) 

Yeah, AIB pricing is all jacked up. Real bad. I think in the end they are hurting themselves. There will always people that are idiots with money that have no limits on what they are willing to spend to have what they want. But, even the most idiotic person can reach a point of recognizing when they are being screwed. I don't mind paying 25% more if I get at least 25% more. 

3 hours ago, tps3443 said:

 

I like to think about the 4090 compared to the 4080. My experience was a substantial upgrade very nice boost in games. Everyone with/without a 4090 talked about it, and thought it was +$400 more well spent going for the $1,599 dollar 4090. Now consider the 5090 is also +$400 more than 4090 but an even larger upgrade than that was. 
 

I’m beginning to seriously question if anything is ever good enough for me or most people. When we all had 3090’s, and the 4090 came out, we complained because the 4090 was too damn good. It was so fast with frame Gen it made the 3090 instantly obsolete (Nvidia was no friend to us gamers because our 3090 is obsolete now) But now the 4090 owners complain because that didn’t happen again. I don’t think we can ever truly be happy with high end hardware no matter the product they give us.

 

I really don’t think any company or product can fit the bill for what we actually want that would make everyone happy and sing praise lol.  All we can do is waste our money, convince ourselves into buying the GPU, then we sing our praises about the things that are true. 

I never think in terms of FE pricing because I have no interest in FE cards, and especially not the current design with the fragmented components connected by ribbon cables. That is totally unacceptable to me. So I do not think it is accurate to say the 5090 is $400 more than 4090 when you look to the AIB options. That is also not a great comparison because nobody manufactures 4090 anymore. I think if they did, and it was priced to value the 5090 would not sell well because it is not priced to value. Everything else in the Green Goblin's product stack is a piece of trash, but still grossly overpriced and a poor value.

NVIDIA has everything so stinking effed up with the GPU market right now that I don't believe that it will ever be capable of returning to normal. They are anti-competitive, deceptive and maniplulative and they sell products that reflect that mindset on top of being grossly overpriced or a poor value. Being better than the alternative is not good enough because of their disposition.

You are right to question whether anything is ever good enough. I think that is very much the case and that's where I am, especially with video cards. Nothing is ever good enough for PC enthusiasts and overclockers because of the degree of nonsense with control and manipulation. NVIDIA has created this problem by deliberately screwing us all and being bold about it. Their behavior has adversely affected everyone, including those that do not purchase NVIDIA products.

To be clear, I do not like AMD. I don't like how they do things. Most of what they do is a little bit goofy and often not the best approach. However, they have become the lesser of evils. NVIDIA and Intel are capable of being better than what they have become and should be held accountable for bad decisions. AMD is the best they have ever been and seem to be putting forth the effort to do their best. Sometimes doing your best isn't enough, you have to do what is required. NVIDIA isn't doing their best or what is required. They are screwing everyone and are not even ashamed of themselves.

As much as I miss EVGA and wish they hadn't thrown in the towel, I think they were smart to do so. Nobody wins when NVIDIA is involved. They realized that before anyone else did. I think the only way this will get fixed is for NVIDIA to end up losing massive market share and ending up on the brink of bankruptcy before they will pull their head out.

2 hours ago, johnksss said:

@Mr. Fox Not sure if you know this but.....

 

The Best Computer Store in Phoenix, AZ

 

The Wait Is Almost Over – Micro Center Grand Opening Coming in 2025! Micro Center is coming to Phoenix with over 25,000 items in stock and the industry’s best customer service. Phoenix, get ready to experience Tech Heaven for yourself—stay tuned for opening details!

 

https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/phoenix.aspx

 

You might be able to rent that 5090 yet!!

Hallelujah!!

Best news I have heard in a long time! Thanks for letting me know, Brother John.

2 hours ago, tps3443 said:

I wonder how the 5070FE with MFG compares to 9070XT though. This seems like a feature I’d want. People pick on it, but It is a great feature. Going from 60 real frames to 240 fake frames looks and feels so much smoother. 

9070 XT has frame generation and it's much better than prior generations of RDNA. Same for ray tracing. NVIDIA needs to be minding their P's and Q's or they're going to find themselves in the same kind of trouble Intel did. Being asleep at the wheel isn't going to work out as well for NVIDIA as it has for a long time.

55 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Retailers will alway benefit from the ignorance of consumers. Those with the least knowledge are some of their best customers. They buy the garbage that people in the know will not, and because they do there is a market for it. Sadly, they are not in the minority.

Ignorance has consequences.

Punchline: "nvidia is just too busy  drowning in money and Michelin star cunnilingus to care about making a good product at this point  in fact it's in their financial interest to make a  product that consumers don't want to buy at this  point so that they can reallocate all that wafer space to AI chips they can sell for 10 times the  price so with that all I have to say is Nvidia has been dragging their balls in our face for way  too long and don't get me wrong I love balls in my face as much as the next person but for 4  years it's getting real stanky and gross please please Nvidia stop"

Retailers will alway benefit from the ignorance of consumers. Those with the least knowledge are some of their best customers. They buy the garbage that people in the know will not, and because they do there is a market for it. Sadly, they are not in the minority.

22 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

Lets see how it compares to Doom 3 and Doom 2016 🙂 

Check out this free mod from GOG for DOOM 3: https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_3_phobos