Mr. Fox

My impression is that it is caused by the amount of default voltage AMD has to dump on the chip to clock it high enough to deliver competitive performance. While it is a very nice GPU that delivers respectable performance, (ray tracing excluded,) we see a scenario that generally applies to AMD CPUs and GPUs. They have to be pushed harder to compete with Intel and NVIDIA, and it should come as no surprise that managing the thermals in that scenario is going to present a challenge. It is too bad they did not use GDDR6X on the Radeon 69XX and 79XX series. They would not have needed to push the core clock as hard and the performance would have been greatly enhanced with the faster memory and increased bandwidth without a lot of effort on AMD's part.

Yes, it is crazy nice. Looks and build quality are superior.I am eager to see how it behaves on a block. I believe this one has higher clocks and voltage than most, which is also going to affect the temps negatively on air cooling.

My 80°F office is definitely not good for air cooling. Even testing with Crysis 3 Remastered, hotspot is 90°C with an undervolt, and TimeSpy hotspot over 100°C, so I am going to stop doing things until I get the block installed as I do not think it is good for silicon to run this hot. A couple of guys on ExtremeHW tell me it is normal for their 6900 XT to have hotspots in the 100°C range and "not to worry about it, been running it that way a couple of years now" but, I still don't think it is a good thing. It can't be helpful, LOL. I attribute at least 10°C to my abnormally high ambient temperatures and lack of humidity. (My 3060 Ti temperatures were also much higher than desirable before I put a block on it.) Compute performance is really good and impressive on this GPU, but ray tracing not so much. Look at the FPS with ray tracing enabled. It stress the GPU severely. I ran Bright Memory Infinite benchmark and only sitting on the benchmark menu and not running the benchmark the hotspot rose to 90°. Without ray tracing the temps are definitely lower and the frames much higher.

Updates: So, the AMD driver tweak tool doesn't seem to remove any garbage. It merely provides an alternative way of installing the driver with a couple of tweaks. All of the worthless trash is still there. So, I have to figure out a way of killing the processes and services so they stay dead unless I manually trigger them intentionally, instead of immediately restarting. I wish AMD had a Control Panel that was not DCH/UWP trash for W10/11. Seems like they do not. I will try the oldest available driver for 6900 XT and see if it has been that way since day 1. It sucks that all of the hardware OEM muppets are kissing Micro$lop's butt like this. On a much sadder note, it appears the firmware on this 6900 XT is incompatible with Windows 7. I have spent hours trying to make it work. (Literally stayed up all night trying to get it to work, took a shower and started work.) I tried a half dozen Windows 7 Macrium Reflect images, manually changed to a few different bootx64.efi files (including a custom one that allows pure UEFI mode for Windows 7) and even tried a clean install. 100% failure on all attempts. Windows 7 setup refuses to run with the 6900 XT installed. Tried USB and DVD... both the same. It hangs before it reaches the first screen of the setup GUI. If I put the NVIDIA GPU back in it boots right up like normal. So, it has to be the AMD firmware. The GPU is not bootable in CSM mode (Windows 7 freezes at boot CSM with enabled, which is the exact opposite of the expected behavior) and in UEFI mode (CSM disabled) Windows boots fine and the driver installs but the GPU has code 12 (no available resources/resource conflicts). Coincidentally, this is the same issue I had with 4090... exactly. I was able to mod a driver, but same code 12 and same freezing behavior. So, that really sucks. Maybe I can find an older 6900 XT vBIOS that has CSM support. I hope so. Being able to use Windows 7 was one of the things that I was looking forward to. Benching is a lot less fun if you are stuck being forced to the newer cancer OSes that ruin CPU performance.

Yeah, that's my next move. Need to 86 this Adrenaline bucket of puke software... job #1 right now. After the above driver exorcism... next stop, Windows 7. No point in running 3DMark 11 in Windows 10/11 unless you have no other option. The physics score will be totally ruined by the newer feces OS.

OK, here they are. Now that we have that out of the way... 😄 Onward and upward! https://www.3dmark.com/sw/402677 https://www.3dmark.com/pr/2200869 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/36499097 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/36499182 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/29680529 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/29680529 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/29680591 https://www.3dmark.com/wl/279366 https://www.3dmark.com/wl/279367 https://www.3dmark.com/nr/854599 https://www.3dmark.com/sd/6394414 https://www.3dmark.com/cg/4961958 https://www.3dmark.com/is/4931053 https://www.3dmark.com/is/4931054

373W (105%) with no overclock. I have not undervolted it, so it's using 1.200V. Yeah, that alone could make a huge difference all by itself, especially on air. My office is 77°F (25°C) right now. I am looking now to try to figure out what services and process(es) need to be killed or disabled. So far everything I have tried to kill instantly restarts itself. SWEET. Thank you. I'm going to check that out as soon as I finish these baseline runs. No need for this extra software trash. Monkey see, monkey do... I do think the Green Goblin set the bad example here with the bloatware.

I am not sure waiting a few days is a good idea. With no overclock the GPU hotspot temps with max fans is crazy (95°C+). I can see why people are saying they are scared to push these cards on air now. I may move to water tonight or tomorrow night. I don't want to burn it up running stock. It is using 100% of the stock power limit (373W) with no overclock. I am running some baseline stock benchmarks and will post screenshots when I am done. Yeah, I am not liking it. Too much bloat, like GeFarts Experience feces. I will probably look to do a driver only install or see if there is some kind of mod that allow access to the control center without the payload of garbage. This Adrenaline Software stuff is definitely gamer-boy rubbish like GFE trash that nobody needs. I am not surprised or complaining, but it is typical gimmick nonsense that no bencher cares about. Totally same as the Green Goblin's garbage, just red instead of green, LOL. Do you or @Rage Setknow of any stripped down driver packages or something like NVCleanStall for AMD?

It will be fun, not to mention a very new and unfamiliar experience. I can see from the AMD driver package that nothing resembles what I am used to with the Green Goblin's stuff. I haven't touched a Red card since 7970/Catalyst/GCN 1.0 days. So, going from GCN 1.0 to RDNA 2.0 is quite the leap.

No worries. It is actually good that you had not. I am going to leave the plastic on and do some testing on air first and in a few days install the block so we can have a good point of reference on the value added by the water. I will probably do all that testing before I start going nuts with firmware modding. By the time I am ready to move from air to water I will have the extra fittings I ordered. It is a physically impressive GPU. Even though I have not installed it yet, it gives me warm fuzzies looking at it and feeling what a chunk it is in my hands.

I have not heard of it before. Sound interesting. I wonder how much overhead it requires that would impact performance. I generally use Macrium Reflect to put my system back the way I wanted it before the Redmond Reprobates did something to mess it up. Wow, that's pretty dog-gone fast internet, bro. The 6900 XT has arrived. Thanks, Brother @Rage Set I will install it after work.

Performance matters more than looks for most things, but not everyone agrees on what consistitutes acceptable performance or good looks. The bar is set low for both now. It's awesome when you can like both, but if I had to choose one above the other it would always be performance. It is getting more difficult to find both in the same product. Form over function is winning. I am more concerned about the overall trend toward disgusting looks combined with lackluster performance being status quo than I am about the color of a component or case. The color of the product is probably the last thing we should burn any calories worrying about. Ugliness and the inability to identify it (calling it out as ugly in public when you see it) seems to be the new normal and is a symptom of the world we live in. You can walk down any big city street and find a freak show on every corner. You don't even have to go to the carnival for that. Resale value is important if you need to resell. If you plan to use it until it is used up, then it doesn't matter. But, don't let worry about resale value diminish your pleasure. You bought it for you, so you probably should not care a whole lot about whether the next owner likes things your way. If you identify the right buyer, they might even pay extra for it not being normal and they might even be as smart as you are.

Eurocom used to sell those... for 3 or 4 times what I ever thought they are worth. I used to want one, but never bad enough to pay what they wanted for one. I can only imagine how much less you paid for it. Probably made by the same place as what they were selling with a gigantic markup. Maybe with that kind of adapter, someone like Tony at Northwest Repair could fix your MXM cards that are not working. I just snagged a sweet deal on some fittings from the same guy I bought the like-new EKWB block from for my 3060 Ti FTW3 a while back... less than half the cost of new, and the QD4 fittings are getting harder to find in quantity. One here... one there. Seems like I can never find what I am looking for in one place most of the time, and the shipping really adds us when you buy things piecemeal. I figured out the silver QD fittings are less prone to sticking. From what I can tell, the black anodized finish is what tends to contribute to the female QD fitting not closing all of the way because the male part gets the black finish scratched off during normal use. That said, using the auto antifreeze for coolant helped a lot to reduce the frequency of the black fittings getting stuck. The antifreeze not only stops corrosion and organic growth dead in its tracks, but also acts as a lubricant, which is necessary for water pumps and seals in automotive applications.

You were born for a reason and your life as a purpose, Brother Ryan. If you're not working, or can't, if you're still ambulatory find a local non-profit or a Church congregation and give just a little bit of your time to people that need help and I think you'll find that there are a lot of people that are worse off and you could give their lives a lot of value and meaning without investing a lot of yourself. You've got a lot to offer... Probably way more than you think you can offer. I know when I stay cooped up and don't get out of the house, my mind starts telling itself lies and it can be depressing. I'm sure it helps having the camaraderie of the forum when you're feeling gloomy, but an hour or two of your day helping someone that is old, sick, lonely, etc. could breathe life into them and give you a huge morale boost in the process.

The desktop stuff is like riding a bike. You never really forget it. Once you hop back on the saddle it'll come back to you. Yeah, I don't know he was posting lots of stuff and then he just skedattled on out of here. There's a few places around the country that have had some really horrible weather, power outages, etc. Maybe he's in one of those places and things are kind of messed up for a minute. That's good advice from Brother @Recievertoo.

The only thing dumb I can see is the mistake of saying that you're dumb. 😉 We know you're not. Anyone who thinks they're functioning at 100% on meds or alcohol is just kidding theirself. Dead giveaway that they're not. Crysis is something we are both pretty enamored with. Best game ever. Closest thing to it is Crysis 2 and the next closest thing to that is Crysis 3. I can live without the rest. The Remastered versions of them are the whipped cream and cherry on top.

The fourth wire sends a PWM signal to the fan motor. The 3rd pin is for the signal, brother. The 4th pin or the PWM signal is the control input of the PWM fan. Never run a pump on low speed. And variable/lower speed tend to clog the cold-plate. I always go for full speed on the pump. And modern pumps isn't very noisy. And most of the AIOs aint maintainable so run full speed brother. The image with the red text is not only difficult to read, but it is not clear what connections they are saying to bridge. I thought the instructions were unclear and somewhat confusing. I saw some people positing about the fan controls on the AIO and if I were still trying to get by using an AIO I would not even run the fans using the AIO controls. I would use a manual fan controller or connect the fans to the motherboard headers to eliminate the need for extra trash software. The AIO pump should be running full speed 24/7. There is no reason for it to change speeds during normal use. All it will do is cause problems. I don't change the speeds on my D5 pumps either. There is no reason I can identify to run them less than full speed 24/7. I run my fans full speed 24/7 as well. I bought fans that were strong enough to get the job done, but quiet enough to not be annoying running full speed. No need to mess with silly fan curves or other nonsense. Set it and forget it. They never turn off, even when my computer is turned off, because the pumps and fans on both of my systems have their own PSU. So, yeah... the fans and pumps run all day/all night. I only turn them off when I go out of town for a business trip, or when I am working on my computer. I don't want the loop to be pressurized by the pumps when I am taking things apart. That could end badly, especially if a QD fitting got stuck in an open position when disconnecting it.

Just to add one more to the endless list of reasons people should be using NVCleanStall to rip out all of the worthless garbage the Green Goblin bundles in its payload of filth. (A payload of filth is becoming common in all drivers, not only GeFarts.) Why, pray tell, would ANY driver need to include telemetry malware? Short answer: no such need exists. We all get to partake of the stinking garbage that the world's lowest common denominators are willing to put up with. This applies to everything in life. We have many millions of brain-dead losers that submit to the will of wicked decision-makers to thank for everything that sucks in the world around us.

That sucks. I have had that happen to me before, even with all avenues for updates disabled and thought to be broken and non-functional by design. Makes good sense to me. I do think the issue is something not right with the AIO. Whether it is fit, pump operation, debris in the AIO loop, diminished coolant volume, or something else is anyone's guess at this point. If changing the AIO fixes the problem, all of the other enhancements (delid, liquid metal, IHS lapping, etc.) will just be icing on the cake. If it doesn't... well... cross that bridge next.

My impression is that something is not right with the AIO. You will certainly see improved results with a delid and liquid metal if the fit is good, so that is something worth considering regardless of the root cause. I would do that now and see where it leads and it will be out of the way and ultimately provide a benefit even if it doesn't solve the problem you are having. If fit is poor and doesn't make good enough contact for liquid metal, you should see improved temps after delid using thermal paste between the IHS and cold place. I would start with the idea that the AIO is the problem if I were in your shoes, but still do the delid first.

Yes, either term can be used. They are almost the same thing. A scam is premeditated and organized fraud. Fraud can happen when someone sees an opportunity to take advantage of, and does so, even if it is not the result of a thoughtful plan. Both are deliberate. Fraud does not happen by accident.

Did you mod the voltage and power limits using RBE? Or, cross flashing from a different brand? @Rage Setgave me links to read about the tweaking tools and where to download them. I think it will be interesting to experiment with. I wish NVIDIA firmware could be messed with in the same way. Cross flashing them is easy, but they have all kinds of Nazi blocks on modded firmware. I don't know how delicate the Radeon cards are though, or if they are easy to kill/brick, or if they are resilient and can take a lot of abuse. This is uncharted waters for me, so I will have to investigate further before diving in. Yeah, $699 for a 6950XT is reasonable. You can't even find an obsolete 3090 for that price as far as I have seen.

Right. But, being charged for it as if that were true is totally dishonest. Even more dishonest when it performs worse than something that cost $300-$500 less. I agree with that. While the volume of water getting pumped through the block matters, fit is more important. If it cannot transfer the heat off of the die or IHS due to poor contact then running more water through the block will accomplish nothing. The fact that the phase change pad worked better than thermal paste for a period of time, but ultimately failed, suggests there is a problem with fit and/or contact. If the fit is poor enough, liquid metal might not provide any help.

Nope, I did not. Brother @Rage Setis loaning me a 6900 XT and waterblock to play with and if I like it I will buy it instead of a 4090 for now. I can always get a 4090 or 4090 Ti later on, or maybe not ever. I'm not liking how firmware crippled they are in terms of overclocking the core and the lack of voltage control sucks. That does not surprise me, but for the price they are charging you should get more than a gamer-wuss cookie cutter GPU. And, paying more should get you more. In the case of the Strix paying more meant getting less. Well, that's odd. Your link gives me this: