Mr. Fox

After being thoroughly disgusted with Core Ultra and disappointed that they even brought it to market, I loaded a 9950X and X870E Taichi into my shopping cart. The grand total is about $200 less than a 285K and Z890 Taichi. That initially piqued my interest. Then I spent a couple of hours on YouTube and OC.net and HWBOT.org seeing if there was any good reason to check out. I decided there wasn't. Nothing new is as good as what I already have that is not new. Either way, Red or Blue, it seems like I would be spending $1,000+ for something not better, which makes no sense. I hate how that feels. I think that is what the future holds in store for all of us regardless of what brand one prefers. What surprised me is how hard it was to find anything good to judge by online. Not many AMD overclockers out there other than a small group benching sub-zero. Most of the handfull that are benching Ryzen are using insanely overpriced ASUS ROG boards and I ain't going down that road, LOL. I was surprised that there are quite a few high end X870E motherboards without one single benchmark submission on HWBOT. And why is it that I can't find any 2-DIMM AM5 motherboards for sale other than lackluster ITX models? I thought the limited selection on the Intel side was bad, and it is bad, but it seems desirable 2-DIMM AM5 boards are essentially non-existent. Why? There are less than 600 benchmark submissions with 9950X and less than 3100 with 7950X. No ASRock submissions on X870 and less than 700 X670. There are like 10K submissions with 14th Gen i9 and like 18K 13th Gen i9 submissions. I don't understand this. With all of the poking around that I did on HWBOT, there was one very cool thing that I did discover though, and that was that you are truly exceptional, brother. Why are there so few Ryzen owners that are interested in overclocking? The oc.net AMD threads are also kind of subdued. I was surprised by this. I was literally about to punch the button to check out and changed my mind just like I did with the 285K and Z890 Taichi. This makes me feel very sad about what the future holds for us all. Things are not looking good overall. 😞 I think the same thing that is wrong with all of us. We all want to think the best and we are all more optimistic than we probably should be.

I agree and hope so because that's what we need and they deserve. The direction the pricing of things (tech and non-tech) is headed is not sustainable. Everything is grossly overpriced and most things are overvalued. The best thing that could happen in the tech realm is for most people and companies to just stop buying anything and use what they have as long as it continues to work and only buy used replacements for failed products that are deemed not repairable. Then they would have no money available to waste on idiotic nonsense like AI. Some companies would go out of business because their greed and pursuit of nonsense would no longer have sufficient funding. Que sera sera. Seems like a desperate act to move a product that isn't selling well. At that price they should include two 1TB or a 2TB. A 1TB NVMe or SSD it like nothing now. It is the smallest size I will buy. Anything less it just too small to bother with and I consider 1TB to be super-ordinary mainstream entry-level drive capacity.

I saw that, but the OCF is special order and not in stock at Provantage. It is a hard decision and it really shouldn't be. I think this is the only example of me ever having reservations and concerns about the idea of buying any flagship Intel CPU. I'm not there yet and do not know if or when, if ever, this would get me excited. The apprehension is significant. Not so much based on YouTube talking head nonsense as much as the reduced thread count, reduced overclocking capacity, high memory latency and unproven efficacy of their first stab at a glued together mess. AMD is just now starting to get their similar engineering mess figured out. It took a while and I still don't like it. Had they released these CPUs in an LGA-1700 form factor I probably would have rolled the dice on the new Core Ultra CPU design just for giggles. Having to buy a new motherboard to be part of their experiment makes it a harder pill to swallow.

Wow, sorry to hear that. Glad it did not damage anything else. If EVGA warranty service is still as wonderful as it has always been they will have you back in business pronto.

The 6900 XT that I had from @Rage Set and the Intel Arc A770 GPU that I sold and the current Z690 Velocita I own are all very solid ASRock products that offered good value for the money. It is a shame the Velocita has 4 memory slots. Had I not paid only $112 for it that would never have been acceptable. It sucks at memory overclocking because of that, but it does a nice job of everything else. I notice that Central Computer has 285K in stock, but available only for in-store pickup like Microcenter. They are priced correctly as well. A long way to drive from SoCal, but that is the only retailer I can see that has any. https://www.centralcomputer.com/intel-core-ultra-9-285k-processor-24-cores-32-threads-8-16-3-2ghz-base-clock-5-7ghz-turbo-125w-tdp.html @Talon got his from Provantage and it looks like they have 3 in stock. Looks like the only place a person can buy one online for delivery. https://www.provantage.com/intel-bx80768285k~7ITEP9HL.htm I have one in my cart and a Taichi OCF in my cart at NewEgg. I waited a few minutes and changed my mind and abandoned both carts. I remembered how disappointed and angry I was with the 5950X and Crosshair VIII experience and decided to procrastinate more before dropping $1200 on something I might regret.

l don't have one if you mean the Z890 Taichi OC Formula. I really want one, but I am not sure I want the CPU that goes with it, LOL. I kinda don't. But, the motherboard looks like it would be great to whatever degree that is possible looking at web pages. I really do like the BIOS layout on the Z690 Velocita. It doesn't really seem ASRock was aiming to impress anyone with a bunch of gamerboy aesthetics, but the menu layout is really intelligent and seems to be focused on function over form. I like how it looks and all of the buttons and useful switches on it. I like that the dual BIOS switch is on the rear I/O. And, obviously the fact that it is 2-DIMM eclipses everything else on my list of essential features. I only go with ASUS when the other options are suckier, and that looks like a worthy replacement for an Apex in many ways. I like the fact that it isn't made by ASUS. And, it is priced a whole lot better than an Apex. ASUS ROG products are always excessively overpriced. Thanks, guys. We grabbed lunch and a movie today after my appointment with the cardiologist. Nice time, but if you have a chance to see Absolution I'd recommend skipping it. Super boring, which is surprising considering Liam Neeson plays the main character. My wife and I were both having a very hard time staying awake because it was so dull.

It should be mandatory that all games include a free demo and built-in benchmark. Then I'd rarely ever buy games. A good number of games I have in my Steam, EA, Epic and Ubisoft libraries were acquired on sale for $25 or less only because they have a benchmark tool and I've never actually played them because they don't interest me in the least. When I do buy games, I always look to see if it is available from GOG first, then download the offline installers. DRM-free is the only way to fly. I love BF2042, but every time I play it having to temporarily re-enable DSE makes me angry. They need to keep their noses out of our business.

From what I understand, things are really funky now with the NPU and fabric crap but the E-core voltage is adjustable independently from the P-core voltage. The tiled nonsense sure does jack up the memory latency though. Very much like Ryzen in that respect, unfortunately. It is very intriguing while pretty disgusting at the same time. Microcenter get any 285K in stock yet? Seems like this happens every time. The part most in demand isn't available on launch day except in single-digit quantities with merchants, or not even at all. I am still tempted to buy a Taichi OCF. If I do (still not sure I will) it won't be until 285K is available. The Z890 platform looks great and I love a lot of things about that motherboard, but I am not very keen on Core Ultra so far. I don't really give a rat about gaming performance. The compute performance looks really good even though the memory latency looks pitiful compared to Raptor Lake. It is sad that Intel caved in and moved to a glued together mess like AMD. That monolithic design, even with the crappy E-cores, was one of the things that set them apart as superior. Now their part of the belly-buttons and buttholes club, doing what is popular instead of what is good, and stooping to partnering with TSMC. Today Mrs. Fox and I celebrate 38 years of marriage. Seems weird to even say that. Sometimes I forget that I am not 38 years old, LOL.

So, I had to step in and defend Mr. Potty-Mouth... LOL... https://www.overclock.net/posts/29385760/ I am not aware of any American sites that had any 285K stock that they could "sell out" because it was never in stock. Hardly anyone owns one. I guess if you have 10 and sell all 10 that qualifies as selling out, LOL. I am not sure if that is accurate about other places. It seems like the only group that have most of them are Asian countries. I only see a few rare and random scalper offerings on the 285K that are priced for idiots.

I don't really pay much attention to either of those guys. Most of their videos are clickbait and merely a platform for their expressions of personal bias and speculation. I don't have much respect for them anymore. Even when what they are saying is true, it's really slanted and framed in such a way as to stir up controversy. Stop and think of how many similarities there are between now and 30-45 days ago. Everyone hated Zen 5 because the focus was on using less power and not face-melting performance gains. Same game, new target. Who and what will be the next target? There always has to be drama. It seems to be essential.

This is probably accurate with respect to the Core Ultra line as a whole, but I don't see any market having 285K availability. Only the 285K really matters and it's not available for the most part. Most people in most places can't buy it even if they wanted it because nobody has any stock. If the extremely limited and nearly non-existent supply of 285K processors are only listed for purchase at inflated scalper prices it makes perfect sense that nobody is buying them. They shouldn't buy them and would be silly to do so. (The only 285K CPUs that I see for sale are few and far between, for asinine prices, and primarily from sketchy sellers that shouldn't be trusted.) I could see there being little or no interest in the lesser CPUs. If someone already owns a mid- or low-range CPU from 13th or 14th Gen there is no reason I can think of that they should want to spend money on something newer in the mid- or low-range. A month ago the media mantra was the same, except nobody wanted Zen 5. Now the popular story is nobody wants Core Ultra. This is becoming a pattern with the media. I would apply the same logic when the media was buzzing about Zen 5 sales being in the toilet. Only the flagship really matters to enthusiasts. And, gamers truly don't need any new hardware to game unless they own an antiquated system. A CPU and motherboard upgrade are too expensive and would yield little benefit to anyone if the pursuit is gaming. It irks me that system builders have stock and people can buy a prebuilt with the newest hardware, but the components are often not available in retail channels. This has been frequently true since the days of 8700K. That's messed up and I think it is indicative of inter-industry collusion.

Yes. Seems like a trend whenever next gen parts hit store shelves. Was an issue with most recent Intel, AMD and NVIDIA product launches. It is usually the flagship or halo SKU that is most affected. I think demand is never as massive as the media plays it to be, but low supply gives the impression of high demand and creates a feeling of success that may be exaggerated and more perception than reality. It does seem like supply is often an issue when TSMC is involved as well. Supply of low- and mid-range components (where poor silicon quality is less of a factor) is always better because they know the sheeple like cheap and they produce more of the cheap stuff for the zombie horde. If there was a 14th Gen CPU with 16 hyperthreaded P cores (32 thread) or a 15th Gen Z890 option that was equivalent P-cores (32 thread) and no tiled feces I would jump on either one in a heartbeat. Heck, I would even consider a monolithic 15th Gen with 32 E-cores and not even one P-core since the new E-cores overclock better than the crappy new Arrow Lake P-cores do. It is the hybrid/tiled/chiplet/fabric nonsense that sucks the most. Rubbish.

I think they don't have enough to sell is the primary issue. But, this isn't the first time we have seen this from Intel, AMD or NVIDIA. Being sold out isn't an accomplishment when supply is insufficient to meet demand, not to mention that is fosters scalping and overpricing. I think in this case they might have anticipated the decreased stock turbo clock speeds, poor overclocking and lower core/thread count and removal of hyperthreading would be poorly received by many and the poor availability could be a calculated and deliberate move to avoid having excessive stock sitting on store shelves. Since they have farmed out the chiplet/tiled abortion to TSMC they need to be even more careful that production doesn't outstrip demand and force them to lower prices or sell product at a loss.

You are looking through rose colored glasses with that HEDT hexachannel beast. 4-DIMM DDR5 may improve a little bit, but it will always be inferior to 2-DIMM, frustrating and a waste of time. Predictable. Nobody wanted or asked for the slower tiled turd CPUs. Almost nobody gives it a rat's ass about the efficiency and laughable overclocking. AMD has a big head start selling chiplet crap and they've been doing it long enough to prove it to be an inferior approach overall, so Intel is peeing into a headwind while pissing off almost everyone that preferred their brand in the process. Seeing them do this tiled/fabric nonsense in spite of seeing how it turned out for AMD isn't exactly confidence-inspiring. I wonder if they haven't sold any because they don't have any to sell. I find it hard to believe nobody in Germany would not buy it if it were available for purchase. Being inferior has never stopped some people before, even when they are in the minority in terms of acceptance. I could see some valuing the Z890 platform more than the downgraded CPU product lineup. Then there are guys like Wendell at L1 saying how good Core Ultra is because of the good compute performance and massive power reduction, only lackluster performance because of Winduhz 11 (no thread scheduling issues on Linux). He has praised the same power efficiency thing about Ryzen and preferred them because they pulled less power. Clearly not an overclocking enthusiast, but at least his perspective remains consistent.

Have you had the opportunity to install and test the 285K from Provantage yet? Or was it delivered while you were on a trip? (Curious what the 285K SP ratings looked like. I will check to see if you already posted it.)

From what I have seen on oc.net that is better than many. Not a lot of examples yet, but SP ratings are all seeming to be low numbers so far. Probably makes more sense to look at voltage values on the VF curve.

Based on the limited sample size I have seen, it looks like that might be a good one. Even though the design of the new tiled CPUs and low core count leaves a lot to be desired, the Z890 platform seems to have a lot of things going for it.

@Talon https://www.overclock.net/threads/intel-core-ultra-9-285k-arrow-lake-processor-24-cores.1812877/ 285K for sale on oc.net (new, sealed) if you're looking for one. Hi Brother John. Nice to see you. I look forward to seeing what you can extract from that CPU.

There seem to be none in the US. At $630 it is a grossly overpriced ripoff on a downgrade. It should be priced the same or less than last gen 24 thread, not same as last gen 32 thread. They're probably counting on the newer is better early adopter people to jump on it at any price no matter how absurd, because that is how silly people roll, rather than pricing it based on logic and equity.

This does not seem too far fetched to me. Micro$lop wants to sell their scummy disposable e-waste Surface turdbooks with soldered RAM and smartphone CPUs in them. Why would they give a rat's butt if the newest AMD and Intel CPUs worked correctly? The dumb-dumbs at Micro$lop do not care about Intel or AMD, and probably not NVIDIA. And, since most brand new computers run on a Winduhz 11 platform now by default (all prebuilts on top of what silly people elect to use for an OS) they essentially have no skin in the game and do not need to care if new processors function correctly as long as their cancer OS is the platform that gets chosen for it to run on. It is interesting the AMD was usually the brand hindered the most by sloppy OS coding and now that Intel has a glued-together mess they are having optimization problems, too. It also gives Micro$lop the power to decide what OS gets updates to make the new CPUs work right. If they do not want an AMD or Intel CPU to function correctly on anything other than their latest trashy OS they get to decide whether or not to provide an update for anything else. Better for them if the new tech is broken without their latest malware OS.

I think one of the problems our industry is suffering from is unfortunately a problem with AMD, Intel and to some degree NVIDIA. None of the people making design and engineering decisions are true overclocking and performance enthusiasts and most are probably not avid gamers. NVIDIA is probably not as badly disconnected with the gamer community as Intel and AMD have proven to be, but they're all out of touch with overclocking enthusiasts. They release things that have some redeeming qualities that general consumers might find useful. But "features" that overclockers, and probably most gamers, do not care about and find unimportant or even counter-productive as it relates to their passions. Then they label it as "for gaming" and insinuate it is suitable for overclocking endeavors when it isn't actually great at either thing. In the case of X3D, good for gaming, but not great for many other things and poor at overclocking. Now the tiled mess from Intel. This happens because the people that made it are clueless, out of touch or ignorant as it relates to overclocking and/or gaming. So, it uses less power... well, whoopty-doo.

Wow, that would be a really hard decision. They both have their pros and cons. The black Apex Encore looks better by a lot and something about it seems better in ways difficult to pinpoint. That being said, I would keep the white Apex if for no reason other than I can use all of the NVMe slots without cutting the GPU back to x8 because there are no Gen5 M.2 slots. I really like being able to use the M.2 slot above the GPU and I cannot on the Encore because the idiots at ASUS made it Gen5.

I think I am good for now. Four very nicely binned Raptor Lake CPUs running like a Swiss watch. With the SA bug gone now the 14900KF SP106 in the Apex Encore CPU is functionally near identical to the wonderful 14900KS SP108 that I bought from @tps3443. Raptop Lake CPUs in the Z790i Edge (13900KS SP112) and Z790 Velocita (14900KF SP102) I am good to go for now. No need for a more efficient CPU crippled by no HT and a lower thread count.

I'm not sure if it's actually a lot of people or if it's a small group of the same talking heads talking a lot more than they usually do. I have seen numerous people comment that they've cancelled their pre-orders because the 285K is a downgrade. I have never seen this many disappointed and salty people emerge during an Intel product launch. And it is justified. But the only way Intel is going to get the message from this is if they get punched in the nuts so hard they can't stand up straight for two weeks. These namby-pamby pathetic turdbook grade CPUs need to be rammed so far up their butt that surgical extraction is required. One of the things I like about Intel fanboys is there is seldom any hesitation to bite the hand that feeds them. Being preferred doesn't exempt them from hate-fueled wrath or ridicule from their biggest advocates.

No I cannot. Either one of those sucky companies would utterly ruin everything Intel stands for and then AMD would have no competition and become even more complacent. This would literally destroy the entire industry. I cannot identify any technology company that I loathe as much as I hate crApple. They're literally worse than poop splattered under the rim of a public toilet. Nobody would ever have anything nice again from Team Red or Team Blue. Even the thought of it is about as ridiculous as the elderly woman that lives next door to me buying Walmart or Amazon. I don't know. There isn't a whole lot there to be tempted by. Pretty disappointing. It seems like they did not even make an effort to do anything right. I do love the ASRock Z890 Taichi OC Formula, but that doesn't mean much if the best CPU you can buy to install in it is a disappointment. If there is a refresh for Arrow Lake and they correct some of their poor design decisions, at that point I might seriously consider it. The reduced core count and P-cores that can't handle more than a about 100-200MHz overclock is a non-starter. They need at least 32 threads or it is a downgrade. I'd even settle for the idea of 32 E-cores and no P-cores on a monolithic chip because it seems like Arrow Lake E-cores overclock beter than the P-cores do.