Mr. Fox

Well said. It doesn't even need to have a lot of tactical thinking to be fun if the gameplay is not as slow as molasses. If the game moves at a frenetic pace it is harder to get bored and lose interest due to slowness and monotony.

I really do think that part of it is just crappy work on the part of the game developers. Sloppy coding doesn't run smoothly and requires stronger hardware to minimize the impact of the half-assed products.

I have never, ever been a console gamer, always only PC. I hate game pads and joy sticks and only like keyboard and mouse. I think it's a matter of personal preference and I'm much the same. I have several of the Fallout games and find them too boring. My sons love the Fallout franchise. I have tried super hard to discover what they like about it and can't. Same applies to the Skyrim, Witcher and GTA franchises (which my sons also love). I've tried hard and forced myself to play more than an hour of each release and it's like watching pain dry to me. My gaming interest is concentrated on AAA FPS titles along the lines of the Crysis, CoD, Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, Wolfenstein, Quake and Doom franchises, and anything similar. Oddly enough, I do like Elder Scrolls. Vermintide is acceptable, too. I also like God of War.

Did you try bumping up the memory voltage? XMP profiles are often not stable because their default voltage is too low and if you tighten some of the timings things will come unraveled unless you increase the voltage. I would start at 1.500V and see if you can dial in settings you want. Once you do, slowly start decreasing the voltage until it begins acting up, then go back up about 0.020-0.025V.

So, the AOC 1080p 144Hz IPS display that was displaced from the monitor trio for work has been appointed as the OSD screen (LOL yes, 24-inch AIDA64 Sensor Panel) and the mini-1080p screen repurposed for Roku so I can watch/listen to Newsmax while working without wasting computer screen space for that. And, here's the tacky-looking crap on the back side that I mentioned. I'm not sure why they feel compelled to do stupid stuff like this. In addition to the idiotic RGB logo and glyph designs, the bottom area where the cords and cables connect also have a stupid cover to help hide the ports with a small opening for the cords and cables to exit. There are half circle plastic fillers that snap in place to hide the screws attaching the screen to the base. So extremely dumb and totally unnecessary, LOL. I'll get over it in a day or two and won't care anymore, but stupid crap like this is rather annoying because I know the people that created it are proud of themselves. Ultimately, it was a frivolous endeavor that added cost to production that nobody realizes any useful benefit from and looks really ugly on top of having absolutely no value or functional reason to exist. Everything is a cartoon or anime crap now. Sheesh. Disgusting. Dad gummit, that's really unacceptably lousy memory overclocking. I would not excuse it. Looks like his first was the best and even that was totally unacceptable... +700 less than my memory overclock on my Suprim and about as crappy as the Strix that I RMAd. If they're going to ream out my tailpipe without any lubricant, it had damned sure better perform as high as the price tag, or I'll ram up their tailpipe and break it off while it's in there. In the past year or so it is kind of scary how much trash I have RMAd because of lousy silicon bin quality. It's too bad for the people that are getting it back and can't sell it as new, but I don't care any more. If it is not at least average or a few ticks better they're getting it back. I'm not taking any more losses on crappy silicon. We all deserve to get top quality for top prices. "Settling" for below average just isn't something I am going to do any more. The loss will be theirs for selling me trash and no longer a lottery for me. No more short straws. The "guarantee to run stock stable" ain't gonna fly. It needs to overclock to an average or better level, or they'll get it back.

I got it. I am going to have to get used to it. I don't "love it" at this time. I decided to move the 1440p 165Hz Acer to the middle monitor position on my work PC trio. I don't believe I would find one moitor acceptable for work. So, I am using the 4K display with my benching rig. Probably makes more sense with the 4090 anyhow. The 6900 XT isn't ideal for 4K and 1440p is going to be a better match. ASUS has a knack for making things aesthetically ugly and this monitor is no exception. For some weird reason it is really thick and seems like an 80's-era product. It has some tacky-looking features on the back side, like a big ASUS RGB logo and weird alien-looking glyph designs. so I am glad the back faces the wall/window. The picture quality is excellent though. Very clear and bright.

Windows 10 LTSC 2019 and LTSC 2021 generally offer a little bit snappier CPU performance and better memory performance because the CPU has less worthless trash to blog it down. Every version of Windows that followed Windows 7 degrades CPU performance a bit more than the version before it. The consumer versions, especially Windows 11 have a so much worthless filth running that doesn't even need to exist. Not uncommon to bring up task manager and see 200 or more processes running with nothing open. Totally ludicrous.

Windows 11 Enterprise is not really any different than Windows 11 Pro. I think it was more for licensing purposes than functionality. There is no LTSC version AFAIK. I eventually formatted and replaced it with Pro and there was no change in performance and nothing remarkable. The same is true of Windows 10 Enterprise (non-LTSC) versus Pro versus Pro for Workstations. Only LTSC was remarkably different. The other variations are irrelevant IMHO.

Yeah, that's just crap. ASUS... surprised look is not on my face. That is an abnormally few connections. This one... https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-strix-xg27uqr-model/ $318 from Provantage ($340 shipped) for a $600 monitor is pretty decent pricing. I would not entertain the notion of buying it at the utterly absurd normal price. It is a poor value and not worth it at normal price, but for half price it was hard to resist.

My new 27-inch 144Hz 4K 1ms IPS ASUS monitor was supposed to be delivered yesterday. Should have it today.

I suspect they were paid (maybe unofficially or indirectly) to not implement it. I have no doubt that NVIDIA and Micro$lop are even more experienced in the game of dirty pool. That's how it works. They take turns playing the part of scumbag. Business as usual. 😉 I enabled it on Quake II RTX and not only was the performance still poor (45-50 FPS at 1440p with the 6900 XT) it looks really bad. Lots of shimmering, a bit of banding and a grainy look to things. Hopefully, FSR3 will actually turn out to be a technology worth using. That may also be a fabricated at-launch paid-for "problem" the same as no DLSS support. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. We should expect to see more underhanded behavior as Intel gains market share in the GPU space.

When he started presenting some of the most irrational arguments in favor of AMD that even a Team Red fanboy like @ajc9988 could not stand for, and getting in philsophical battles with @ajc9988 publicly as to why AMD is better than Intel, is when we first started connecting the dots. We also saw lame excuses being presented on the internet that matched almost verbatim the utter nonsense presented at NBR by @hmscott. That is when Brother @Papusanand I started comparing notes and connecting the dots in a PM thread at NBR. When an irrational idiot defends a product that sucks at overclocking using the argument that the maker of it was more honorable for giving noob end users their best effort with nothing more for an enthusiast to extract from it in terms of overclock headroom, and that makes it better option than a competitor's product that leaves headroom on the table for enthusiasts to exploit, it becomes obvious that he/she is an idiotic shill and fanboi retard. Yes and no. 4070 Ti performs roughly the same as 3090, so if that is roughly where the B980 ends up at launch, that's no slouch. The expected price makes it a compelling thing to consider at $1000~ less than an entry-level 4090 or $500~ (50%) less expensive than a 4080. For my work system I think it could be way better option than the AMD GPU with its goofy random glitches and crappy driver bugs. For my benching rig, maybe not. But, what's the point in benching if everything sucks at overclocking? It is no longer a form of entertainment when the hardware refuses to cooperate. I was more than content with the gaming performance of the 3060Ti, so to me it seems foolish to spend a crap ton of money on a GPU that is going to be used for gaming or run in a work PC. Paying $500 for a GPU that performs in the range of 3090 and supports a more honorable cause (defeating the Green Goblin's crime ring) I would seriously consider it. If you look at the massive gains the GPU newbies at Intel have made with nothing but A770 driver updates in such a short period of time, if only half as much ground is covered with driver updates for the B980 it could end up falling somewhere north of 4080/7900XTX performance within a few months of release. I am also starting to evaluate the logic of continuing my hobby as a PC enthusiasts. It is looking more and more like a an endeavor priced for princes but with products presentable to peasants. If that hobby ends, none of them are going to get any more of my money because they will be deemed unworthy of receiving it. I won't support any cause that doesn't benefit me or do things the way I want things done. However, I will gleefully support a cause that hurts, harms or hinders those that do not do things the way that I want them done. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and Team Red is starting to look, smell and act too much like an inferior amateur counterfeit for Team Green. That leaves Team Blue as the lesser of three evils. If Team Blue can hurt both of them, they'll get my money.

If this leaked info is accurate, I suspect it will be my next GPU.

While the raw performance of the 6900 XT is respectable for its generation as long as ray tracing is not utilized, I don't think I would hesitate to pay more for the NVIDIA card in the same performance range. They've gotten a whole lot better since my last AMD GPU more than a decade ago, but the day-to-day use of the 6900 XT is not a particularly pleasant experience. Aside from the text rendering issues in Micro$lop Office, there are other minor driver glitches that diminish the experience of owning an AMD GPU. For example, when I am desktop sharing in a business meeting, the rendering of things on my desktop have random issues. Ray tracing performance (as everyone knows) is terrible. Their drivers still suck and the little bugs like these are more than a little bit annoying. Things like these are something I do not remember ever having a reason to complain about with the Green Goblin's GPUs and drivers. This would cause me to think twice about saving a few bucks on a GPU from Team Red. It is really good news for those benefitting from it, but it sucks for those that live elsewhere and have to put up with the Edge nonsense. Guilt needs no accuser, so their doing the right thing for the people of EU and Norway but not the rest of the world demonstrates they are NOT committed to doing what is right and that they only do the right thing when they are required to. In some ways it demonstrates what I complained about in my post on the last page. They are not our friends and they are not a good company, and they should not be trusted.

I am almost positive you are correct. He is an agenda-driven wolf in sheep's clothing and should not be trusted. His agenda is to convince consumers what is best for AMD (and hurtful to Intel) is best for consumers, even when it is not.

Companies either do what is best for themselves at the expense of their customers, or they do what their customers expect in terms of product and quality delivery to ensure cashflow continues. To a great degree that is expected. The latter is appropriate and the companies that do that are what I would consider to be good companies and brands worth buying. Even if their intentions are self-serving and profit-driven, customers get what they want and deserve. It's a win-win scenario. The idiocy part comes with acceptance of change that is unacceptable, not with brand selection. Change that produces desirable outcomes is good. I love change when it brings benefits and adds value in terms of things I/we care about, and everyone else should love that, too. The dynamics that have changed are multi-faceted. We have some companies implementing change based on philosophical preferences held my decision-makers with no regard for what customers want. These ones deserve to die as far as I am concerned. The agendas and philosphical ideals of their owners/executive leaders have no place in business unless their businesses and products are built explicitly around those agendas and philosophical values. We see many example of woke businesses that deserve to go broke. (Bud Light, Target and Best Buy are recently visible examples.) But, ESG-focused financial services and investing practices are an example of this scummy filth at its worst. Pursuit of idiotic idealistic endeavors under a jaded view of "greater good" with funding through the frivolous waste of other peoples' money under the guise of "investment" and financial planning. We have other companies that habitually use misleading marketing to convince consumers that the rubbish they are selling is better, and idiots that believe it because they are gullible or otherwise victims of their own ignorance. Similar to the above, we have companies that go a step further (NVIDIA and to some degree ASUIS) that manipulate supply and demand, and charge abusive and predatory prices for misrepresented and overpriced products that are embraced by irrational people that lack self-restraint and common sense because they are slaves to their passions and gullible. Lastly, and perhaps the most nefarious of all, we have companies like Micro$lop and Google who pretend they are giving things away for free to make the world a better place. When, in fact, they are lying and providing products at no charge, or extra-cheap, to facilitate the theft of personal information and data that should be illegal for them to collect. They pretend to be friendly and have philanthropic goals and ideals, conceal their intentions and work in collusion with governments and their host of appointed three-letter agencies that have Totalitarian aspirations for a world governed by fiat. But, that's OK. We accepted the EULA that gives them permission to commit crimes against the users of their products.

The tail is wagging the dog. The only way to fix it is to do a Bud Light on them to inflict massive financial harm to punish them for their bad choices and use financial warfare to brutally exterminate the companies that refuse to comply with the expectations of customers that actually have standards and abide by them. Given that the target market is composed of way too many zombies, sheeple, clueless idiots, unprincipled losers and ignorant children whose only means to acquire rubbish is from parents that fall into one of those buckets, the chances for successful execution are very, very low. We're all going to get screwed again, and it will continue. I think it's time to cut our losses and find something different that is worthy of our time, money and attention. It was fun while it lasted, but it's time to end life support. Do not resuscitate.

It doesn't matter what the reasons are, compromise opens the door to more compromise and it sucks every time. Every. Time. What you end up with is what bottom feeders want or what the lowest common denominators think is acceptable and to hell with what everybody else thinks. The price stays the same, or goes up, you just get less.

Where is that vomit emoji when we need it most? 🤣 LOL. 🤢 🤮 They are crazy. I agree with you totally. In fact, more than just crazy. Both crazy and stupid. I really begs questioning about a couple of things. If the smaller and slimmer GPUs are cooled well enough and perform exactly the same as the larger versions of the same product, why were they so big to begin with? Was the extremely large size a feeble but nefarious effort to make the people buying them think that the hit on their wallet was more justifiable based on the size of the GPU? Or, if they are NOT as well-cooled, run hotter and less performant due to the heat, why are they selling defectively engineered products for people hell bent on SFF builds? Is the thought that compromise should be the new normal to accommodate the lowest common denominators? Should we expect to pay less for a smaller GPU that runs hotter and performs less?

Yup, the suckfest is swiftly turning into a suck-o-rama extravaganza. It was bad enough for the thin and light fanboi clown posse to ruin everything by turning all laptops into emasculated BGA turdbooks. Now their brain-dead psychopath stupidity is turning the desktop computing experience into a circle-jerk venture to be valued only by idiots, losers and pansies. They should stop eating junk food and focus on becoming less disgusting human beings by making themselves thinner and lighter instead of ruining desktop computers (and components) by making them thinner and lighter. Buckle up and brace yourself. Stupidity is about to get more stupid. "God made fools in order that life might be more tolerable to people of wit. What distresses me is to see that human genius has limits and human stupidity has none." - Alexadre Dumas

Yeah that would be a lot of money to spend on something that you can't take back home on the plane to Norway. Today's PC tech lacks nothing in terms of crappiness but there's always tomorrow, and it usually gets worse in time rather than better. That's the new way now. Stupid people give birth to stupid people. Or should I say, stupid people give birth to babies they ruin by training to become stupid people. With the assistance of like-minded sheeple they surround themselves with, they almost always turn out to be more stupid than the generation of idiots that raised them. The GIGO principle applies to people, and they apply that to tech, among other things. If the 4090 is so poorly engineered that it can't handle 1.300V with ease that is extremely unfortunate. If it were engineered correctly it would handle 1.500V or more. The 3090 KPE laughed at 1.450V overclocks and begged for more, with artificial low temperature algorithm-castrated thermal throttling being the only limitation. Hopefully it was a defect in his GPU specifically and not a defect that plagues everything in the entire product line. If something as low, boring and unimpressive as 1.300V killed it, then it wasn't engineered correctly. That's baby-girl voltage that should only be scary for sketchy turdbooks with inadequate and half-assed circuitry.

It's too funny how our brains work. It's a fault that I love and hope never gets fixed, LOL. A picture is worth 1,000 words. As you can see, this monopolizes my desk. If I can not feel like I am going insane using one 4K display (TBD) I might actually be able to put my computer next to the monitor on my desk instead of on a microwave cart next to it. OK. I feel better now. A cluttered workspace is better than a cluttered mind. 🤣 That's quite the command center... wow, 36 controlled from one station. Crazy. What kind of KVM switch can do that? On another note, rubbish designed by an idiot (like this) makes it hard to take a brand seriously. This proprietary abortion is about as stupid as an Alienware and equally disgusting to look at. Recent drama aside... what Linus does best... purpose-driven entertainment.

The thing I don't like about two monitors is the lack of symmetry. I'm a real freak that way. I don't want the seam in the middle because that's annoying and you're always looking left or right to the primary monitor. If you put the primary monitor straight in front of you then your desk configuration is lopsided with more room on one side than the other. Three monitors fixes that problem with the primary in the middle and the left and right peripheral displays available for me to drag my application windows to each side such as Outlook, calendar and instant message windows, while keeping the thing I am actively working on directly in front of me. And then yeah... Good luck having room for anything else on your desk. Because of my goofy OCD it will probably be either one 4K, or 1K+4K+1K, with 4K being the primary display in the middle. The number of hours I spend working in Excel and PowerBI each day, it'll be easy to lose any tolerance I have now for 1080p. The idea of sharing primary screen space with peripheral applications makes me feel grumpy before I have even tried it. I suspect in no small part because of the annoyance and distraction those applications (necessary evils) represent during the course of a normal work day, LoL.

I agree in terms of picture quality, but it is super easy to tell the difference in screen real estate. Going from 1080p to 1440p is a massive leap and 4K even more so. As long as you leave the scaling to 100% (where it belongs) a 4K screen is literally the equivalent of four 1080p monitors.

I already have a 3-monitor desk mount with three curved AOC 1080p 144Hz IPS 24-inchers, but large enough for three 27's. But that would defeat the purpose of buying it. Which was/is to free up desk space without massively sacrificing screen real estate. Three 24-inch monitors is wider than a normal desk. It looks, feels and is very cramped in my tiny office. Will see how it goes. It shipped already early this morning.