Mr. Fox

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Yeah, I am seeing higher CPU benchmark scores and better memory performance from a number of 9950X3D owners (like 49K+ in CBR23) so I thought I would investigate. That hasn't been the case in the past, as the X3D CPUs are primarily intended for gaming, which obviously is not a major driving factor or something that motivates me.

Mine is arriving on Tuesday.

Agree with pretty much everything you said. 👍 Yeah, these are really good memory modules and incredibly affordable. They were recommended by gupsterg at oc.net. I had never heard of the brand before, but I was watching a YouTube video earlier today where they were used. They look very good, too. There is a little design decal (triangle) on each corner on one side that I believe are covering screws that bolt the halves together, so the heatsinks should be easier to remove than most. The only thing I don't like is the "KingBank" name on the sides of them, but I would prefer that all brands would leave their branding off of them. I don't like that about any brand. I have a tracking number on the mobo,, so I should have it pretty soon.

If that was not enough evidence that they are evil bastards with nefarious intentions that deserve to die, see this bull crap... Nasty finger salute to them. May their financial and personnel resources be forever inadequate to achieve success and their loss of stock investors debilitating.

All items sold now.

Yes, it works fine. I have it enabled by default since the day I received it. Update on the X870E AORUS Master with the loose NVMe heatsink damaging things. No replacement from Central Computer yet, but here is what I found out. Mine was not the first one. I encouraged them to open the box and examine the replacement. I told them I had no reason to think it wasn't like that before they shipped it to me. The box had no damage and did not appear to be handled roughly. The reason I do not have a replacement is all of them (over 20) were unboxed and found to have similar problems. They're going to have fun dealing with Gigabyte on this. Apparently Gigabyte is not latching them securely when they leave the factory, or the latch is coming loose during shipment. I am actually surprised that this does not happen more often. The silly trend with the toolless NVMe heatsinks that all brands are implementing is an invitation for this kind of shipping disaster to happen. God forbid that a gamerboy would ever have to touch a screwdriver to remove a heatsink. That's way too much to ask of the point-and-click kiddos livin' la vida loca in 2025. I spoke to their RMA rep today and they are going to send me an X870E-E Strix instead. I confirmed before agreeing to it that it DOES NOT have the same design defect as the Apex and putting my Sabrent Quad NVMe card in the bottom X16 slots won't castrate the GPU with X8 bandwidth. Should still work at X16 as long as I only install the one NVMe PCIe 5.0 in the slot above the GPU, ignore the other two and the two PCIe 4.0 chipset NVMe slots at the bottom of the mobo can be used with no effect. Two of the three PCIe 5.0 NVMe slots (those below the GPU slot) cannot be used, which is pretty much standard for all X870E thanks to AMD's obsession with mandating wasted PCIe lanes on utterly worthless USB4 crap that I don't care about. (Not sure where Intel, AMD and NVIDIA are finding idiots for product design engineers, but stupid seems to the the new normal for those employed in that vocation.) Strix mobos have almost always been decent for me, so I am OK with the compromise. Just send me the dog-gone motherboard so I can move on and be done. My new 011D XL EVO is patiently waiting for it. https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-x870e-e-gaming-wifi/ I bought this KingBank kit. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSZPHLCX?th=1 - very inexpensive It is not advertised to have an EXPO 8400 profile, but lo and behold, it does. @jaybee83 I can't do 8400 with my CPU but it runs stable at 8200 with custom timings. Nice to not have the rainbow puke eyesore. tPHYRDL is matched. I bet it would handle 8400+ on the Gene or Apex. This kit performs pretty much identical to my G.SKILL 8000 TridentZ Neo EXPO 48GB kit. A bit slower than Neo 32GB 8000 kits, but to be expected with 48GB modules due to looser timing requirements. The heatsinks are A WHOLE LOT BETTER than the G.SKILL heating blankets. I will continue to do some tuning/testing on the Master and the Strix (once I have it). If it turns out to be a reliable kit then I will probably buy another one and sell the G.SKILL rainbow puke sticks just for the reason to not have to install any kind of bloatware to correct the rainbow puke rubbish.

That behavior mirrors mine almost exactly in terms of clocks, watts and performance. I often see a few higher FPS using a -75 UV with the power limit left to default rather than maxed out power limit. It looks like the Alphacool CORE block for the Gigabyte Gaming and Elite GPUs will be available mid to end of July. It is in production but not yet available for purchase.

100%. That's what they do. They do it at the hardware/firmware level and they can do even more with cancer drivers. They've always been that way. I still remember and resent their clock-blocked crap on notebooks about 10 years ago using drivers. If you wanted to play games that required the new driver then you were SOL on overclocking. Very scummy.

I think all off-the-shelf GPUs that are not a K|NGP|N or Galax HOF are going to suck and fall short of their potential to some degree. The Astral we can all buy will never be all it can be with the firmware that it comes with, just as a K|NGP|N or HOF fall short with stock firmware. They are all gimped and only the Chosen Ones get special firmware for publicity stunts. The rest of us are never gifted with an opportunity to compete with the Chosen Ones because it's all rigged, planned and designed for publicity stunts. The rest of us get to practice soldering skills and are forced to rely on warranty-voiding hardware mods to try to make up for crappy firmware that comes from the factory on the overpriced lipstick on a pig products we buy in hopes of getting our money's worth.