Mr. Fox

I think one reason it works well for laptops is they don't really have high TDP on anything. There is probably nothing more durable. You can't re-use it like you can Kryonaut or KPx, but if you do not disturb it the stuff will last for a super long time. Also a reason why it works great for laptops. If you had a low TDP desktop CPU and ran it stock it would probably do fine. The thermal conductivity is pretty low and I think that is why it worked poorly for me with my overclocked CPU pulling over 300W. This is basically the same stuff that comes pre-applied on many heat sinks and AIO water blocks. If it has the clear film you peel off and bolt it down, it is this Honeywell pad.

Worse. I've already tested it. Three times, in fact. It will be worse than the Corsair paste you got from Walmart. It works good for turdbooks with crappy-fitting heat sinks because it doesn't pump out and it fills gaps, but it can say for certain it is the worst TIM that I have ever used on a desktop. Not anything crazy like 10-15°C hotter, but not nearly as effective as MX-4, MX-6 or KPx or TF7, etc. At least 5°C higher temps all three times. If you want to try something new. maybe test the TF9 paste. I have never tried it before. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=TF9+thermal+paste&crid=NA6AQT8BS3U9 The new BIOS works identical for me on the Apex and the Apex Encore. All BIOS settings set exactly the same on old and new firmware. Cinebench and AIDA64 scores exactly the same. No loss of performance or stability that I can identify.

Yes, I absolutely would have preferred that it be the motherboard over the CPU. All three of my desktops have extra-good CPUs that would be terribly difficult to replace, and cost as much as the motherboard. I still have two spare CPUs but their bin quality is inferior to the three I am using.

OK, I flashed 2503 to the Apex (white) and had a bit of a scare. After flashing I got Q-code "00" (almost always dead CPU). I cut power and waited, then turned it back on. No lights turned on. I pressed the power button and it came back with "00" immediately displayed again (first and only code, no other codes). I thought, crap... ASUS killed another one. So, I held the clear CMOS button down on the rear I/O, said a quick prayer "Please Lord Jesus, don't let it be dead" and then it booted normally. *WHEW* Running like a top... My IVR TX is set on Auto and that is usually around 1.330V. I will mess with setting it a little lower manually to see what happens. I use similar settings as far as the other ones go. Voltage Monitor [Die Sense] VRM Initialization Check [Disabled] CPU Input Voltage Load-line Calibration [Level 3] CPU Load-line Calibration [Level 7] Synch ACDC Loadline with VRM Loadline [Disabled] CPU Current Capability [Auto] CPU Current Reporting [Auto] Core Voltage Suspension [Auto] CPU VRM Switching Frequency [Auto] VRM Spread Spectrum [Auto] CPU Power Duty Control [Extreme] CPU Power Phase Control [Extreme] CPU Power Thermal Control [125] CPU Core/Cache Boot Voltage [1.05000] CPU Input Boot Voltage [Auto] PLL Termination Boot Voltage [1.15000] CPU Standby Boot Voltage [1.15000] IA VR Voltage Limit [1500] BCLK Amplitude [900mV] BCLK Slew Rate [Fast] BCLK Spread Spectrum [Disabled] PCIE/DMI Amplitude [900mV] PCIE/DMI Slew Rate [Fast] PCIE/DMI Spread Spectrum [Disabled] SA PLL Frequency Override [3200 MHz] FLL OC mode [Ratio OC] UnderVolt Protection [Disabled] Core PLL Voltage [1.05000] PLL Termination Voltage [1.15000] CPU Standby Voltage [1.15000]

Well, I forced myself into moving the excellent bin 14900KF with the SA bug into the Encore for testing. I am happy to report it is fixed for me as well. I set 1.300V on VCCSA in the BIOS and it runs perfectly fine now. I am going to leave it in the Apex Encore because it is just a little bit better than the 13900KS SP117 monster. That is running beautifully in the Z790i Edge now. Leaving it alone. Here are the SP ratings and VF curve on the CPU that used to have the SA bug. And, the same for the 13900KS SP117 monster now in the SFF system (for comparison). Very similar VF curve and MC SP. The 13900KS runs as flawlessly in the Z790i Edge as it did in the Encore. Yeah, I also find him extremely annoying. His arrogance and know-it-all potty mouth is over the top. Truly a legend in his own mind. It also annoys me that about 95% of the time I agree with him. He is right more often than not, but that gets lost in his caustic personality.

Funny you should ask. I wondered the same. I have been wanting to test it for a long time, but haven't really made it a priority because I haven't identified a legitimate need to. Coincidentally, I have some arriving tomorrow to find out. I will share before/after temps on the Xeon in the Rampage IV Gene. It already runs cool with KPx. I have a huge tube of it. It will take forever to use it all. It had better be as good or better because only 4 grams of the Kryonaut Extreme is priced about the same as my 30 gram tube of KPx. Even if it is better, I think it is grossly overpriced. Maybe because it has Extreme in the name that makes it OK to carry that over to the price. The main reason I ordered it was to try it out on the 2080 Ti Xtreme when I install the air cooler.

Thanks. Now I know not to test Corsair TM30. Did you remove the old Kryonaut Extreme and save it "just in case" the Corsair crap was no good? Still using that waterblock I gave you? It's a great block, isn't it? It worked extremely well for me.

Looks like the Orwellian nighmare our brothers are dealing with in UK's government is angling toward overstepping jurisdictional authority and looking to work its wicked ways into American life. These creepy clowns are insane. I hope the people of UK can remove their facist government before it is too late.

So, now the DNC is using AI (among other equally deceptive tactics) to make things appear differently than they actually are. The Deep State is frightening enough without the AI-driven fabrication. This is something every American voter needs to be aware of regardless of what side they are on. If you don't like this guy, set aside the bias for a bit and pay attention to the information. AI definitely has the potential to destroy us all. Newer is always better, right @Papusan and @Raiderman? They're even paying thousands of dollars to young people to post propaganda on YouTube, TikTok and Twitch. Listen to some of these young influencers talking about being bought by DNC PACs. Most of them are very upset by the effort to "buy them" (who wouldn't be).

LOL... totally agree. One of the most worthless PC tech YouTube channels. Not only because of his irrational fanboyish tendencies, but seems to promote some of the more outlandish rumors (like that one about the APU) and also leans toward exaggeration and pole vaulting over mouse turds. Other than what seems like an anti-NVIDIA and anti-Intel agenda, he seems like he might be a nice person otherwise. For the record, I tend to not value any of the YouTube channels that promote speculation and rumors, even when there is no brand bias or agenda. Graphically Challenged is another one that falls into that bucket, although not nearly as jaded as Gamer Meld. Seems like a nice guy, but spare me all of the what-if, maybe and some people are saying garbage. Don't care. Show me the real hardware and the real numbers, or hush up and go do something else.

That's great news.

That seems a bit far-fetched since it uses shared system memory and that would be much slower than the 4070 VRAM. I guess we shall see if/when it happens.

Just a suggestion, but I would recommend moving away from the opportunistic boosting of the preferred cores and lock them all down to what is stable and adequate voltage for the "not-preferred" cores and then the better cores will be cruising on easy street. I think the preferred core boosting is part of what created the mess they are sorting out.

Sometimes being future proof has the undesirable implication of holding onto status quo and a normalization of "meh" products. That is looking like what AMD is serving for dinner now. Socket longevity can be good or bad, depending on what happens (or doesn't happen). Sometimes moving onward and upward is better, but we see plenty of examples that newer is frequently not better. This just means that taking a "wait-and-see" approach is always the smartest way. Much smarter than listening to marketing propaganda (lies).

Yes, I agree. It should address it fine. If you go back to the early overclocking threads at oc.net and ASUS forums, Falkentyne and Robert Sampiro threads, they were saying setting IA VR Max to 1700mV to limit spikes, but that is too high even if it did come from Intel. You might even be able to set lower, like 1450mV or even 1400mV, depending on what core clocks you are setting. It will be interesting. Now I just have to muster the desire to mess with it. I always love it after diving in, but as I get older I find I dread the idea of diving in before I do. Maybe because I know the rewards are smaller than they used to be. I'm defintely a reward ≥ effort and cost for something to be worth doing type person. That is part of the reason I no longer have any interest whatsoever in making turdbooks less turdy. Huge effort with minimal reward. That sucks. In the end it is still a compromised pile of crap. I believe you are totally right. There are way too many 14th Gen silicon lottery losers to set the voltage limit lower. There would be too many that need more than 1.500V or need to be clocked under spec to use less than 1.500V. Update: Gigabyte RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme Waterforce conversion to Xtreme (air) Received the air cooler and backplate from AliExpress today. I do not have the 12-pin to 4-pin adapter cable they sent in a separate package yet. I will need to wait for that to swap out the fan wiring harness before installing it. These parts are brand new OEM, not used pulls. This will be a massive upgrade over the GTX Titan Black (Kepler) GPU in the legacy SFF build. They even included a package with all of the OEM screws and stock thermal paste.

Exactly. And, safety aside, using 1.500V to 1.550V on a water cooled CPU just isn't feasible. It will get too hot and thermal throttle with voltage levels that high, even with a delid and bare die. That just creates too much heat to remove through such a small die. Contrary to the modern myth, shrinking die size has some negative strings attached. Even using chilled water and bare die cooling a CPU running that much voltage in a workload like Cinebench is no small undertaking. This should explain why performance is not being impacted. If someone owns a CPU that needs 1.500V to 1.550V to run stock or eTVB boost clocks it is a silicon lottery loser than needs to be RMA'd. It will never be a good CPU. I am happy that, at least for now, Intel is going to leave the possibility of overrides in place for those playing with sub-zero extreme cooling. Otherwise, a 1.550V hard cap would ruin everything for them.

That makes good sense because they were also originally saying that you should cap your VR max to 1.700V, which used to be Intel's safe maximum. That's just way too high.

@electrosoft I will have to wait for a BIOS update for the Z790i Edge, but using the Windows MC that Brother @Prema provided I can increase the VCCSA to 1.225V now without a hard freeze, so it does look like it may at least improve the SA bug. Will need it in the BIOS probably to know for sure if the SA bug gets eliminated. This is up from 1.190V, so not a lot but still more. I did test 1.250V and it will pass Cinebench without a lockup, but not AIDA64 memory benchmark without locking up. Maybe if I feel motivated enough tomorrow I will yank that CPU from the Edge and see if the SA bug is gone when installed in the Encore. Hopefully the effort to find out will not prove to be a waste of time.

Same and confirmed. All the same settings as before. No change in performance, voltage or thermals. Can't tell any difference at all. Now I question if there actually is any. Seems there is nothing whatsoever, but may be because of how I manually overclock almost everything and remove all limits. I will check to see if it affects the SA bug now on the CPU that has it. MSI has not released this for the Z790i Edge WiFi motherboard yet. So, I can't check for an SA bug fix using the Edge mobo until they do.

Not need to reply. I checked it out and see it is two separate downloads. That's great. Question: Does this change MC in Windows only? I flashed it, rebooted. BIOS still doesn't show 129. It shows whatever very is set. I use 11F, but there is a menu with other versions available. 129 is not in the list. But, when Windows loads AIDA64 shows 129. Edit Answered my own question. Booting into another OS on the same system AIDA64 shows 11F, so it does appear to apply 129 to the OS only. After applying the MC update in Windows it seems nothing is visibly different. Power draw, voltage, watts, amps... all exactly the same values in a Cinebench run. Micro$lop doesn't charge extra for Winduhz 11 being a sucky piece of crap. It is a free service they are happy to provide.

Nice to see you brother. Hope all is well with you. So this microcode update can flash only the microcode without the ME if you want to omit the ME update? If that's the case, then I won't update any of my BIOS on any my four desktops. I will just test the microcode on one of them first before deciding whether or not to apply it to the other three.

If you need fan control for your laptop, see if Argus Monitor will work. It works excellent for my desktops and even includes RGB controls that work for GPUs and some motherboards. I have not tried it on my Dell Precision yet because I rarely ever have a reason to use a laptop, but I am planning to the next time I have a reason to use it. I believe they have a trial version that you can test to see if it works before you buy. All of the motherboard control centers are the worst software imaginable. Armory Crate, MSI Dragon Center and Control Center, Gigabyte, ASROCK, Tong Feng, Alienware and Clevo all have universally horrible software support products. It seems like the laptop versions might be a little worse, but I won't allow any of their cancer garbage to be installed on my desktops.

All turdbooks are disgusting. I cannot identify any circumstance where I would be willing to purchase a modern notebook. They are all loathsome rubbish and detestable objects that stand as examples of human stupidity. This just adds a new dimension to the already-unacceptable rubbish that further reinforces the already-unlikely possibility that I would consider wasting my money on any of these trashy products.

Yes, that remains the same. They make the newer ME available for any fool that wants to flash it, but it is not bundled in the BIOS. I have never updated the ME on the Edge and I would never update it on ASUS if they didn't bundle the filth. It really sucks that ASUS does this. I really do not like many things about ASUS firmware. The menus are nice, but they do a lot of idiotic things. The way their motherboard have to "re-flash" firmware to another area when you flip the switch on the motherboard is absolutely idiotic. Dual BIOS should actually mean dual BIOS, not their hybrid abortion version of that. EVGA was the only motherboard manufacturer that has done everything right for a very long time.

If that fixes it, I might move the CPU in the Edge over to the Encore and put the 13900KS in the Edge. Their VF curves are almost the same, very close, but the 14900KF in the Edge with the SA bug has slightly better E-core and lower Cache voltage needs. If I remember correctly it can run the E-cores at 49x stable and the 13900KS caps out at 48x on E-cores. I only moved it to the Edge since the memory is air cooled and running it above 8200 is thermally not ideal. Unless something has changed, MSI still does it the right way and you have to deliberately download and flash the ME firmware if you want newer. They do not bundle the ME filth in their BIOS to form a cancer cocktail. Hopefully, that has not changed. ASUS really needs to stop doing that and add a BIOS menu option to disable the ME, because it is utterly worthless and contributes zero value to anything from a consumer perspective. If nothing else, it impairs security and never has anything to contribute in terms of improving performance. It should no longer even exist.