Mr. Fox

I thought of that too. That would not be a smart naming idea from MSI, but I digress. Smart doesn't seem to fit anything in technology space. So, if they release any "Super" GPUs on the refresh MSI would have to call them Super Super OC, LOL. SOC even sounds hokie. Probably not enough of an overclock for them to tag it XOC. No, we cannot trust the leaker or Franky. But, I would bet on the leaker if I were forced to choose. So, if the 9070 XT is going to be falling into the 4070 Ti/4080 performance range it really needs to come in closer to $600 and the 9070 like around $500. Even if it were to match 4080 performance there would still be the missing features and comparatively weak ray tracing performance. Maybe it will help drive down the prices of 3090 Ti, 3090 and 3080 back to realistic values. What those cards are typically still selling for is just totally absurd. $2500 for a 5090 is retarded, but not more idiotic than $1500 for 3090, 3090 Ti and 4080. Ludicrous. That will make 9070 XT attractive if it is priced under $700. Maybe buy two of them for the price of one RTX competitor. Grab some popcorn. The next 45 to 60 days is going to be pretty entertaining. I think I'm good for this GPU generation. I'm hoping I can get lucky and snag another certified refurbished EVGA 3090 Ti FTW3 for $700 (paid $800 for this one from NewEgg) so I can revisit the SLI fun from the good old days. It would be interesting to see how 4090 and 5090 fare against 3090 Ti SLI.

This is a cool open bench other than the undesirable vertical motherboard positioning. (Horizontal whenver possible is always better, but it is still kind of neat product in terms of construction.) So, if the marketing email I received from MSI and the specs published on their web store is accurate, the 5080 GDDR7 speed will be faster than the 5090 GDDR7 memory speed. And, what's the deal with the silly "SOC" name they are tacking onto the end of some 5080 and 5090 SKU names? Is that just more stupid AI mumbo-jumbo to get people excited about something that doesn't matter and doesn't make it any better? Or, is there something about "SOC" that should actually matter to people that don't give a rat's butt about AI? Are they hijacking the traditional use of the acronym "SOC" to mean something different in MSI lingo? Not all of them are tagged SOC. If it actually is "System on a Chip" then why are only select SKUs labeled SOC? I haven't read or heard anything that suggests what MSI's use of SOC even means, so I asked here: Questions on MSI 50-Series (Blackwell) GPU Product Stack

All of the blocks and restrictions the Green Goblin has put in place have done a lot to create opportunities for user-induced damage to video cards. If the norm were that all GPUs we're unlocked like Galax HOF and K|NGP|N cards there would be no shunt mods or volt mods or firmware mods and cross-flashing issues. The average gamerboy would behave exactly like they already do in terms of accessing the BIOS and making adjustments... Paralyzed by ignorance and fear of the unknown, and always in too much of a hurry to play games to be bothered with anything more complicated than a one-click solution. The lockdowns and crippling tactics are what drive the efforts by the adventurous overclockers to have something awesome that should have been awesome (but wasn't) before they paid for it. Motherboard manufacturers would be financially crucified by enthusiasts and would never get away with the same kind of control freak nonsense, and I don't know why video card manufacturers are allowed to. Everyone keeps opening their wallet for overpriced crippled trash.

Thanks, Brother. Fun fact: next year my age and year of birth will be the same. I will have to wait another 100 years for that to happen again.

First one is very reminiscent of Ronnie James Dio. Funny to see a song about pizza, LOL.

My next build, if and when there is one, will likely be a HEDT with 3090 Ti SLI. New and shiny is looking less pretty all the time. Very valid points about why making a 5090 FE waterblock is going to be an unattractive proposition. I suspect this will be a side benefit for NVIDIA.

Maybe it has something to do with the robotic soldering they brag about or the cleaning method they use. Perhaps whatever chemical they use to wash them after soldering. It's odd that their brand is the only one where it is seen, so it has to be something they do differently in manufacturing. Perhaps it is easier for them to spray some kind of crap coating on the GPU than to clean it properly.

Will the new Astral GPUs feature extra rust for the extra premium?

🤣

This is a good time for all of us to sit back, do nothing, spend nothing, and reflect on the things that actually matter in life. Sometimes we get wound up like an 8-day clock about things that don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. The only way they will listen is if the cash stops flowing. Budweiser knows how that works now. There are lots of companies, in many industries, that need to learn hard lessons the same way. But, there may not be enough people that are smart enough to teach those lessons. This is the wildcard. Stupid is dangerously common. From 9:48 (the meat of the video) - this is in line with what I have been saying.

China should not be allowed to have anything except for their dirty air and dirty water that nobody else wants. Just the fact that they did something that made it incompatible with OSes before Winduhz 11 shows a pretty sinister intent. There should not be any such thing as "Windows 7" or "Windows 10" or "Windows 11" drivers. There should be drivers for Windows x64. Period. Whatever it is that makes it Windows 11 dependent and incompatible with older versions probably isn't doing Linux users any favors either.

Thank you, Brother. Next year my age and year of birth will be the same. In order for winners to exist there has to be losers. It totally sucks to lose, but it sucks worse when winners are the same as losers. When everyone is a winner then everyone becomes a loser. Losers are what makes being a winner so special.😝 Yeah, it would beat it pretty soundly. My 13900KS and 14900KS beat my 9950X at many things already. They lose to the 9950X in a few things like Cinebench because smartphone cores without hyperthreading suck.

Honestly, it sounds way better to me than a $2500-$3000 clock-blocked GPU with a small performance bump over its predecessor.

If I used Wi-Fi I'd be yanking all of the crappy Wi-Fi cards off motherboards that only had Windows 11 driver support and replacing them with a Wi-Fi card that offered Windows 7 and Windows 10 driver support. This idiotic new Windows 11-only driver support crap is just utter nonsense. I'm okay (for now) though because I don't care about Wi-Fi or BlueTooth. I don't use either one on my desktops and have them disabled in the BIOS. What I really want is an LGA1700 15900KX 16 P-core hyperthreaded no E-core 6.0GHz AVX-512 CPU. Then I wouldn't care that my 9950X can't do 2200+ FCLK. Wonder if they'll have similar challenges (and failures) with pushing weaker silicon samples to the brink like Intel has? Wouldn't that be special to spend $2500+ on a clock-blocked GPU that started dying from silicon degradation?

Well sure you would. So would I. But I don't think I'd be happy with everybody that owned a 5090 being capped at the same maximum memory overclock. That totally defeats the purpose of owning a product you bought to overclock. Super stupid. The silicon quality should determine the max overclock not the NVIDIOT Nazis. That's one of the Ryzen gotchas, too. You can overclock as much as you want to as long as you're happy raising BCLK to bypass the stupid low fused limits on the CCD core ratios. Gamer sheeple ruin everything for overclocking enthusiasts and the idiots that make the hardware seem to think that gamers and overclockers are the same thing. It must really suck for them to be that stupid, but they probably don't even have an awareness of it. I need a better 9950X so I can run the FCLK at 2200+ but the memory seems to be doing well enough.

Nice music video, LOL. 🤣

Punchline: Stupid is the new normal. Pay a lot for a little and it's clock-blocked trash. 5080 looks to be a downgrade for 4090 owners and 5090 Kool-Aid drinkers are probably going to get screwed a second time when 5090 Ti drops later. And, here come the clowns! The China Clown Posse.

With an effing VRAM overclock limiter to make it the same for everyone. Well, screw that and screw NVIDIA, because they are screwing us with overpriced rubbish with nuts cut off. Everyone gets a trophy for volunteering to be molested. They can kiss my butt.

It's sad to think that an OS could suck bad enough make a die hard computer nut stop caring about computers, but Winduhz 11 sucks bad enough that the thought of being forced into using it makes me want to be done with computers. When they pull poop-for-brains crap like not having driver support for an OS that is still supported to force you to into using the undesirable latest version it makes me wish for very bad things to happen to the people and companies that are responsible for that. Their command and control approach to things is unacceptable. And, I certainly do hope that very bad things happen to them in the very near future. It has never been more unlikely that I will purchase new hardware because I'm not willing to embrace daily use of the crappy OS required by the new hardware.

Gimmicks. Other than the image looking kind of rough and a tiny bit muddy with AMD FidelityFX turned on, I seriously can't tell the difference between these settings. I can measure the FPS with the benchmark, but otherwise would have no clue which one was turned on or if all are turned off. As far as NVIDIA (or AMD or Intel) being honest... what I said the other day about wishing in one hand...

If I am not mistaken, I-225V LAN was the last NIC driver that could be successfully modded for W7 support and I think Intel LAN after I-226V and the latest AX WiFi has no Windows 10 driver support. I think WiFi 7 is not allowed to be Windows 10 compatible (by driver development being blocked). We are living in the bad old days for PC, with worse days looming on the horizon. What they do not deliberately screw up gets screwed up by accident. After I repasted the Strix 1080 it has been great and I haven't even bothered putting the 3090 Ti back into that system. I've tested quite a few games on the 1080 after work (it's my work PC) and everything run smoothly and plays very nice at 1440p. With overclocking and benching being intentionally diminished and destroyed by the dishonest, retarded and corrupted "leaders" of the industry, I am quickly moving in the direction of not buying anything new and reverting to older hardware whenever a purchase is necessary or desired. It sure would be nice if enough gamers could grow their gonads and deny themselves of juvenile pleasures long enough to inflict some major financial harm on all of the big tech companies. But, that will never happen because their priorities are all jacked up.

I'm not a huge fan of growling, but man this kind of metal grind is just SO awesome. I can't avoid feeling compelled to head bang and fist pump. Absolutely love it. I could listen instrumentally for hours. No lyrics necessary. No growling on these...

Amen. It's vicious by design and nefarious by intent and should be treated as nothing less. The people and organizations responsible for it should be treated as organized crime syndicates. Survival should be made difficult for them. They need to be snuffed out.

Yes, unfortunately. This is because it has been allowed to happen. It should not be allowed. The only way to fix it is to stop permitting it. China cannot participate if they are deliberately excluded and cut off. They need to replace Afghanistan as the world's poorest nation. That is why the US, UK and EU need to ban together and outlaw any form of trade or exchange with China and any other nation that considers itself an ally to China. Any travel to China should be one-way, with no pathway back by land, sea or air.