Mr. Fox

Yes, there is a 15% restocking fee. This will be my first customer experience with them and I hope to not have to entertain a return by getting an acceptable sample. If it is a terrible sample I will make an arguement that I don't actually want to return it and have no regrets in purchasing it except for the fact that the quality is unacceptable; with that being the sole reason for the return and ask for the option of receving an acceptable quality replacement instead of a return. But, even with the stocking fee that is better than selling it at a loss as an open box on eBay and paying ~15% to them in scumbag fees on the sale.

Yup. Hope for the best. Be prepared for the worst. Never expect goodness, but be pleased when good comes your way. (If we all got what we deserved, most of us would be dead already, LOL.) I just got a text from UPS and the expected delivery is Saturday.

Whose CPU is this? Is it from the Skatterbencher video? (I am at work and cannot watch for now.) Wow, 6.2GHz with only 1.418V is crazy good. Central Computer has them for $699. I ordered one. They have a 14-day return policy (does not cover shipping cost) so if it is not equal or better than my SP117 13900KS or SP102 14900KF it is going back for a refund. There is no point in owning it if it is not better than what I have. If it is worth keeping then I will sell my SP108 13900KS and the two dead 13900K/KS and cover most of the cost. If it is not an upgrade, I will get my money back. It would be stupid to pay extra for something less. It is interesting that people pay money for dead CPUs on eBay. I sold two dead 10th Gen CPUs on eBay for over $100 each a couple of years go. I don't know what they do with them, nor do I care. It's puzzling though.

@Papusan I do not know why the XMP profile runs slower, but after manually tuning with the same settings the performance is essentially the same with new beta BIOS. Maybe ASUS changed some default values for XMP that made it slower if 14900KS MC strength is not better across the board than non-KS. This is fine. Still need to put these modules on water. Still getting too hot with TM5 stability testing using only fans to blow on the RAM. Prior BIOS New Beta No, I did not see any reason to because some were complaining their VID/Vcore was higher and previous memory tuning no longer stable. Since I was stable I decided to skip it rather than invite unwanted drama. New BIOS (like most things) is often worse, not better. Best to only update firmware when hardware compatibility is added or something broken got fixed. Otherwise, it is only for people that are scared of the boggie man coming for them without "security" patch crap. (You already know this, so I am only answering your question if I tested the previous firmware with the same micro code.) I am going to begin testing when selecting the older micro code options in the BIOS soon to see if 14900K is slower than 13900KS in Cinebench at same overclock due to cancer micro code mitigations that I do not care about having mitigated. They should be the same, but 14900K/KF are always just a little bit slower in Cinebench and wPrime with the same P/E/Cache and RAM overclock values. ASUS always providing only "Improves performance" for release notes is just a lie to entice people into flashing newer UEFI filth. These were my BIOS settings on the Encore with 0071. Since we are warned against applying prior version CMO profiles, I set everything the same manually on the new beta BIOS and I cannot tell any difference. Seems the same to me so far.

Apex and Apex Encore share the same EC and ME version number, and the ME version did not change from 0071. The only changes (again the same version numbers for Apex and Apex Encore) are updates to EC 0142 and Intel MC updated to version 123.

I think the issue with them pulling arbitary numbers out of their butt like that is the problem because there is nothing to substantiate or quantify it. I agree with you in terms of how many times on a specific build, but many PSUs have a long warranty (10 years) and even those that do not have a long warranty keep working beyond their warranty period. They could get used for many years on multiple builds. So, depending on what cable one is looking at, 50 times over a span of years with multiple builds, motherboard swaps, GPU upgrades, etc. might not be too big of a stretch. The vast majority of end users won't plug and unplug cables 50+ times. If they do, it doesn't mean the useful life of the connector has arbitrarily ended. It might be less than 50 times depending on the quality of the part and the way the user handles them. It's subtle nuance, but there is a difference presenting something as fact and suggesting it is a given that cannot be questioned rather than presenting information as an educated rough estimate based on napkin math and simple logic.

It may also be the "not wholly profitable" applies to the product provider as well. If Amazon is merely distributing the CPUs for Intel and taking a commission, there is little profit for them. But, it still doesn't explain why the 14900KF got processed within about three days. That suggests it could be little more like a breakdown in process rather than a process running its course.

Yes, I have spoken with Amazon Customer Service three times already. UPS tracking shows they have it, but the order does not reflect that they do. The 14900KF turd got refunded within a few days of them receiving it and it was returned over a week later. The last person I spoke with said to wait until the return window closes and they can force the refund because they do show it as being received on their end (as does UPS). They could not explain why the order status has not been updated and the refund has not been processed. The last person I spoke with said there is nothing in their system indicating a problem, only that it was "in process" (in limbo). I grabbed them both this morning from his post in ROG forum, but have not had time to test them for stability and performance yet. Judging on nothing more that setting XMP and running AIDA64, memory peformance is a regression using this BIOS on the white Apex. Read, write, copy and latency are all poor compared to the values using the XMP profile with a previous BIOS version.

I hope that something happens to cause Qubic to become worthless so that all of the miners that buy one or more of them lose their digital heiny. In fact, I hope that happens to all forms of crypto. I would actually love to see all forms of crypto currency become worthless. People that live on the basis of getting something for nothing deserve to get exactly nothing. Miners that buy up stock deserve to go bankrupt and have to sell all of their no longer useful PC hardware at a loss. I'd also settle for the joy of seeing a power surge destroy all of the equipment they purchased... especially if the loss is uninsured.

Extremely unlikely you would find a KS as good as your current 14900K or my SP117 13900KS. The notion that everyone that buys one will have a silicon lottery winner is specious. I am expecting most of the 14900KS to be just a little better than mediocre 14900K/13900KS with a few exceptions. The main selling point will be avoiding the baddest examples like the three record-setting horrible pieces of trash I RMA'd (one of which I am still waiting for Amazon to process the refund, even though they have had it since 2/19). I have the 14900K that I bought from Brother @Talon in the Munchkin PC and it's working nice there.

I keep an Excel spreadsheet and take photographs to document each cable-to-component mating cycle because everyone knows that this has always been the standard that the digi-gods decided at the beginning of time. Mating event #51 requires replacement of the cable or power supply.

Yes, while he may have a odd voice naturally, I think perhaps part of it is to be funny. Although his voice doesn't suggest it, he actually has a very good sense of humor. I love dry sarcasm. He tries to act so serious, even when he is not. I have watched most of his videos and there have been a few times where it seemed like he was having to try extra hard not to break into a belly laugh. I do not know it for certain, but I suspect even the name of his YouTube channel is intended as dry humor, along with the fairly ghetto projects he takes on. (I do not believe that "Lowcastle" is a real last name.)

🤣

Yeah, I would love to see every dollar made on AI totally vaporize, become a liability for all involved and every investor in AI burned.

If everything else works as expected, it's probably just Cyberpunk 2077. Doesn't it have a reputation for being buggy/crappy anyhow? Does the benchmark behave the same as the chapter you are trying to play?

Well, I finally got the kit. UPS had some kind of service issue and it took 8 days when it normally takes 2 days. Easily handles 8400 with very tight timings and only 1.510V. No doubt it will handle 8600, maybe more. I ended up only shelling out $117 for it because I had a NewEgg gift card from them giving me a price match on the Gigabyte 4090. This is really a huge improvement over the garbage 32GB XTREEM 8000 A-die kit that I RMA'd some months ago. I don't have them on water yet. TeamGroup brags about the stock heatsinks, and I they are just a little better than the worthless heating blankets the others have, but I am not overly impressed with the temperatures. They are very heavy. They weigh close to as much as the G.SKILL sticks with the waterblocks on them. But, they still hit about 45°C in TM5. Really solid performance though. Team T-Force XTREEM 48GB (2 x 24GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 8200 (PC5 65600) Model FFXD548G8200HC38EDC01 @tps3443 I hope you snag one. I sure do love both of my 4090 GPUs. The Suprim X is an awesome choice.

A small piece of good news. Hopefully it will escalate beyond distrust into rejection. I'd love to see all the companies that are invested in it lose their financial hind ends to the extent that it makes the cryto crash and dot com busts of prior years look like child's play.

I have several saved Macrium Reflect images of Windows 7 that I can restore when I play with the 2080 Ti Waterforce GPU. I am going to have to do that again soon. What holds me back is the knowledge that every time I do that it makes it easier to hate Windoze 10 and Winduhz 11 than I did before. It is hard to respect a scurvy outfit that produce such trashy trash. The only nice thing I can find to say is that it is not Mac crap. It's not April 1st yet. My ears were telling my brain something different that what my eyes were.

Why not Micro Center since you have access to more than one location?

I hope the majority of them are equal to or better than the one I bought from Germany. It's a very good CPU, but it's definitely not worth $750 without a guarantee or assurance of receiving a sample of quality equal to, or better than, the best of the best 14900Ks that have been sold so far. Getting one that is no better than a decent 14900K is unacceptable due to the price premium. They should all be golden samples from the top 10% or not be sold as a KS. If that is not what happens, then it is a ripoff/scam being charged cream of the crop prices for something that isn't. I'm skeptical now because the three that I RMA'd were absolute trash samples. Might have just been bad luck, but I have my doubts. If you get one, I hope it is an awesome sample.

Agreed. And, because of that it makes AI even more dangerous than it otherwise would be. AI is not sentient, doesn't have a need to "get along" or act in a civil manner or live by the rules we (most of us) do, and should, live by. Sometimes we don't, and there are plenty of intolerant zombie human beings. Thankfully not the majority even though it feels like it sometimes due to a vocal and militant minority. AI is like an intolerant zombie human being that had no sense of decency to begin with, and then matters were made worse by having a lobotomy by a self-taught brain surgeon. It doesn't help matters knowing that those among us that are the least worthy of trust, respect and possessing the lowest standards of decency and ethics are the depraved goons feeding their skewed garbage and personal biases to the AI under the auspices of it being accurate information, wisdom or truth.

The things that suck about computers suck for us all equally. It doesn't matter what our personal preferences are. AMD, Intel, NVIDIA... ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock... all of them have their pros and cons and all suck as much as they excel. It all boils down to who one thinks sucks the least. They are all muppets that lick the boots and smooch the posterior of the Redmond Retards, which automatically disqualifies all of them from being viewed as good companies. We have each other and our friendships are the most valuable element of being PC enthusiasts. The silicon lottery is brand agnostic and takes no prisoners. As long as the silicon giants continue to sell trash samples on the same shelf as the good ones, and AIB OEMs sell crappy products with inadequate QC and lousy warranty service and support, a large percentage of us will end up getting screwed with trashy tech that doesn't live up to what we were lead to expect by fanboy shills.

That is very true. Reviewers are usually fanboys and there is always a way to build a case for a particular brand by selectively choosing what your favorite brand is best at and omitting information where they are not. You can pick any brand you want and do that. Same applies to "news" to fit a narrative with bits and pieces of information that, while accurate, is incomplete, out of context, or distorted, and that paints a picture that is the exact opposite of truth. It's called "spin" and it is unfortunately the new normal. HWBOT leaderboards are a good way of getting a big picture view. I think that is good advice. But, it's only especially useful for guys like us, that care about overclocking. Many of the fanboys think overclocking is dead and the only thing that matters is stock performance. Guys like us don't care about stock performance. It's irrelevant to us. We only care about how well it overclocks and what the overclocking does to the results. It's OK for stock performance to be the only thing that matters if you don't care about overclocking. It is OK to have dips and stuttering, and suck at ray tracing when you don't care about those things. It's not accurate to declare a winner based on limited information that excludes the measurements that are unfavorable. All that said, "birds of a feather flock together" is a natural thing. It is not a bad thing as long as the flocks do not turn on one another, become enemies and try to destroy all who are outside of their flock. We all have our personal preferences, but shouldn't take it personal if someone thinks our baby is ugly. And, the person that thinks that our baby is ugly probably shouldn't tell us what they think unless asked. It's OK to be honest, but weaponizing honesty is not OK. The only reason to do so is to be offensive. Smart people can find and look at numbers that matter to them, connect the dots they care about, and decide for themselves. Sheeple follow the flock they like most and gives them the most warm fuzzy feeling.

I would love to see how a crossflow (axial) fan works in a PC. I have a crossflow tower fan in my office and it is amazing. Moves TONS of air. This is what most central air conditioning and swamp coolers use for a fan. They turn slow, make little noise compared to a radial (conventional bladed) fan, and move tremendous volume of air. Too bad this is only a SFF. Would be nice to see something similar in a full tower kit with 360, 420mm radiators or even just sold as a standalone chassis fan.

Have you tried Double Driver? If not, check it out. It's awesome. I have been using it for several years with only good experience from it. It does what you are doing manually with a couple of mouse clicks. Once you have all of your drivers installed, use Double Driver to back them up with the installer option. The next time you do a clean install just run Double Driver on the backed up drivers and it installs everything for you from your backup. And, that's without the software and extra garbage payload that a normal driver installation often includes that you don't need. It's only the core driver files. When you make the backup, exclude GPU drivers. The driver backup can be used on other computers with the same hardware as well. You can also use the backed up drivers to slipstream them into a Windows ISO mod.