Mr. Fox

It seems like all of the hardware manufacturers are full of bad ideas. They are the proverbial "insane clown posse" by most measurement. Stupid is the new normal in their line of business. Maybe we should form our own posse, saddle up and go take them out. Right now we are surrounded and outnumbered by stupid, but we can use WMDs to level the playing field. Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta... the list of dishonest, crooked, stupid idiots that are only capable of stupidity is a long one. Even when they do something right it gets tainted by their abject stupidity and immorality.

Everyone that purchased parts on overclock.net has been thrilled with their purchases. Especially the guy that bought the Gene parts combo. He made out like a bandit, LOL. Nice to see good parts getting put to use instead of collecting dust on my spare parts shelf. I still have the Strix combo with the excellent bin 13900KS and G.SKILL 7200 kit and the SP104 14900KF for sale. If the Strix combo doesn't sell by the time I do the second AORUS Master build I will probably sell it locally on Facepoot Marketplace as a working system minus GPU or with the old Titan Black GPU. That would probably be better anyhow because I would have to figure out how to get rid of the Antec C8. While I am waiting for Central Computer to send a replacement for the AORUS Master that was damaged from the NVMe heatsink slamming around inside of the unopened motherboard box, the XL EVO and distro block to arrive I decided to go ahead and integrate the RAM water cooling on the existing beast. I used the EK manifold for this as I usually do, but mounted it to a new place. This will also make it easy to connect the chiller and bypass the radiators. The QDC fitting for cold water leaving the chiller is on the dual D5 pump housing (same place as before) and the "hot" water going back to the chiller will use the QDC fitting on the EK manifold. It still purging the air from the loop, but working well otherwise. So, the internal loop routes like this: D5 pump/res > RAM block in RAM block out > EK manifold EK Manifold > CPU in CPU out > EK manifold EK manifold > Top radiator Top radiator > Rear X-Flow radiator Rear X-Flow radiator > Bottom radiator Bottom radiator > IceMan Dual D5 block Dual D5 block > GPU in GPU out > D5 pump/res Using the chiller the routing will be: Chiller out > IceMan Dual D5 block Dual D5 block > GPU in GPU out > D5 pump/res D5 pump/res > RAM block in RAM block out > EK manifold EK Manifold > CPU in CPU out > EK manifold EK manifold > Chiller in

I was watching a Moore's Law is Dead video and apparently it is based on some leaked benchmarks. As long as the temps are not 100°C I would gladly buy a 4090-level AMD card for the price of a 5080 or less. So, I hope it is true, but we shall see. AMD really doesn't cater to performance enthusiasts. Their niche is more geared toward mainstream on everything.

If I had to wager I would bet that it's true because NVIDIA is who they are... control freaks. If they can find a way to screw the people that buy their products that is exactly what they will do. That's how they roll and who they are, and that is how they have been for a long time. Also one of the numerous reasons I dislike FE video cards. And, on a happier note, I ordered my second Lian Li O11D XL EVO to house the second AORUS Master. Also ordered a D5 distro block from Radikult Customs and about 12 feet of Alphacool EDPM tubing. Now I hear rumors of a 9080 XT with 32GB of GDDR7. I am so glad I didn't blow $3000+ on a 5090 already. Now it is no longer even tempting. Not caring actually feels really good.

12VHPWR or whatever popular thing they are calling today, or whatever they decide to rename it tomorrow, is truly a POS connector that never should have seen the light of day. It is a sketchty, ill-conceived, fragile, unreliable and dangerous piece of crap. Nothing they can do to it--ever--will make it a good and reliable power cable. The group at NVIDIA responsible for bringing this abortion to market need to be stripped naked and caned in public until dead, then resuscitated, their employment terminated, citizenship revoked and then deported to a far away horrible place where life is miserable.

As long as the seller is not keeping track of serial numbers in a kit you can do that. If they are they might refuse your return/refund if you keep the two best modules out of more than one memory kit. Physically there is nothing preventing that and it makes sense from a binning perspective.

Only if you think one of them is bad, or if you are concerned about one of the motherboard DIMM slots having a problem. Otherwise, I am not sure what you would accomplish. If you are not planning to use it with one stick of RAM then probably no point in finding how far it can go with one stick installed.

This is not tuned, just settings I suspected would boot and run. I haven't tried 8600 yet, but it looks like 8200 and 8400 aren't too hard, even with GDM disabled. Can probably do more enabled. I suspect 8600 will work as well. But, the performance doesn't move a lot because the CPU architecture is the bottleneck. Still impressive for a 4-DIMM board.

Well, the AORUS Master arrived damaged, so I had to reach out to Central about expediting a replacement. I just discovered it when I opened the box less than an hour ago to install it. The big NVMe heat sink below the GPU slot was loose and banging around in transit and breaking things. It is after hours for them, so probably will hear from them sometime tomorrow. On October 14, 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. Ironically, October 14 is also International E-waste Day. You just can't make this stuff up.

On October 14, 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. Ironically, October 14 is also International E-waste Day. You just can't make this stuff up.

Depending on how hot my office is, between 90-95°C with the same BIOS settings. So, roughly 15-20°C core max reduction. Very clear and unmistakable improvement. Basically mirrored the improvement seen on the first 9950X delid/bare die upgrade. This is using the Thermal Grizzly Mycro Pro direct die block.

So, I delidded the second 9950X and, yes, nice temperature drop. 74.9°C core max in Cinebench R23.

Only items #1 and #3 remain. All other items sold.

You would be surprised how many people I have told this to that do not believe me, LOL. It is absolutely for real a lottery, in some ways even worse than the CPU lottery. Only about one in five or six memory kits I have owned (DDR4 and DDR5) have actually worked correctly at their advertised speeds with default XMP profiles, etc. and only one out of two that did work correctly as advertised were actually worth keeping for overclocking. So, about 2 out of 10 that worked as advertised with 1 of those 2 samples actually being good enough to keep and not RMA for a refund. I have returned more garbage memory kits than I can keep track of.

Well, the mobo and CPU combo deal just got sweeter. I had an old G.SKILL Trident Z5 7200 kit that had one bad stick. It was in my spare parts pile an forgotten about. I rediscovered it going through my stuff to sell and I had it replaced under warranty and today received the brand new replacement kit. I am including it in this mobo/CPU bundle at no extra cost. So, it is like getting $135 for free with the purchase. It sells for that price on Amazon today. G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series (Intel XMP 3.0) DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 7200MT/s CL34-45-45-115 1.40V - Metallic Silver (F5-7200J3445G16GX2-TZ5RS) I just now opened the sealed package to install it and set the XMP profile to confirm it was good. No tuning done, just confirming the kit runs at the rated XMP speed and timings.

Item # 2 and item #4 sold. Still available: Item #1: Z790 Motherboard/13900KS CPU Combo - $550 $500 + Shipping - Strix Z790E Gaming WiFi and 13900KS SP108 (120_E84_MC83) Item #3: Intel Core i9 14900KF - $375 + Shipping - 14900KF (SP104_P116_E82_MC88) w/ lapped Copper IHS Item #5: Supercool Computer LGA1700 Direct Die Kit - $40 + Shipping - complete with RGB shroud, mounting hardware and associated parts, Allen wrenches, etc. - SOLD - NO LONGER AVAILABLE -

Yes, it does. I think they might be the same PCB. I have emailed Titan Rig to see if they can get it rather than ordering it directly from Alphacool. Alphacool has blocks for like 17 different 9070 XT models. I think it is a Radeon trait and they all run hot. They use surprisingly high memory voltage on the 9070 XT, maybe to clock the memory higher to help make up the difference using slower VRAM than NVIDIA. The 6900 XT that I had still ran hot even on water, just not as insanely hot. But hotter than I had ever seen on water before. https://shop.alphacool.com/shop/gpu-wasserkuehlung/amd/14780-alphacool-core-rx-9070-xt-aorus-elite-mit-backplate Edit: Looks like I have an interested buyer for one of the 14900KF now.

X670E Gene, Trident Z5 EXPO 6000 CL23 RAM and IceMan RAM block sold. Boxed, labeled and ready for UPS tomorrow. I will be ordering an Alphacool CORE block for the AORUS ELITE 9070 XT. It needs it. Real bad. Looks like they are projected to be 6 to 8 weeks (in production). Air cooling is not my friend. The Arizona heat and absence of humidity (especially) doesn't play nice with air cooling.

The second Master should be here Wednesday. I added the Gene/RAM/IceMan block combo to the listing and think I already have it sold. Not sure why nobody is interested in the Intel parts. I am starting to become attached to the Z90-E Strix and 13900KS so I hope someone snags it soon to remove the tempation to keep. I am using it right now and it's solid. Played a couple of hours of DOOM: The Dark Ages on it yesterday and it runs silky smooth at 4K with the 9070 XT. https://www.overclock.net/posts/29468045/ My love/hate relationship with the open bench will likely never end. Just ran this for giggles a moment ago. Runs super cool. Very solid performer.

Wow. What happened? Melted insulation or overheated socket? Do you have aluminum wiring from before it got banned by most building codes? I have never experienced that before, only tripped circuit breakers. I have replaced two circuit breakers that were tripped too many times and apparently weakened from lots of benching and pulling over 1000W from the wall.

To all for whom the holiday is relevant, have a good day tomorrow as we celebrate the freedom we enjoy and honor those who gave their lives so that we can.

Nice job!

I haven't change the price on overclock.net but I am willing to knock $50 off the mobo and CPU combo for members of this forum. So, $500 + shipping. The motherboard is basically brand new. It was purchased for the sole purpose of identifying each CPU (SP ratings) because I had lost track.

16GB modules or 24GB? The 24GB modules suck on the Gene. They work perfectly on the generation newer Master. If you are testing only 24GB modules I am not surprised. If you want that you're probably going to need to get an X870E motherboard to find the appropriate attention to it at the firmware level. The Gene has a BIOS update intended to support 24GB modules, but using them still sucks in terms of performance and stability. I really do not believe it is a hardware issue, just lack of proper attention to firmware.

I really think part of what you are finding is poor firmware support for the 24GB modules. EOL platforms (Intel and AMD) are never going to get the level of firmware support they deserve because the expectation is for everyone to waste money on a new motherboard. I think it is deliberate and orchestrated. The 24GB modules also do not work well on Intel unless the motherboard OEM gives it the effort needed. And, it usually takes two or three BIOS updates focused on that before it works well.