electrosoft

There is no "one answer" here and what also applies is substandard wages and gross profiteering. The erosion of the middle class is alive and well. This is a byproduct thereof. I've had countless conversations with financial planners and debt lawyers and those in the trenches lean towards other factors than "personal planning or accountability." The world we live in today @Mr. Fox is financially a far cry than even 20 years ago let alone 40. "Picking one's self up by the bootstraps" and "self made" no longer generally apply like it did when we were young. With that being said, are there those who lack common and financial sense? Absolutely. I know quite a few including a few family and friends even but it is not the core of the problem. Remember, we do have plenty of these walking around:

Good on you brother! Nothing is as frustrating as "comfortably getting by." Just enough where life is comfortable, but not enough if something were to go sideways or you suddenly wanted to take a break or do something else but can't really afford to do that....cruise control has its pros and cons. Almost 2 out of every 3 people live paycheck to paycheck in America now. It's a somber reality. Here's wishing you all the luck and success in the world man....now go get it. 🙂 My dad used to tell us all the time, "You know the people who both lose and win the most at life still equally die right? Immortality is not in the prize pool."

@tps3443 up and sold off his 5090 for some real life adventures.... 😁 https://www.overclock.net/posts/29553159/ Fantastic price at that too!

Yeah, I just saw his for sale (now sold!) 5090 listing over on the OC forums. Congrats @tps3443 and good luck on your new adventure brother! Keep us in the loop with how it goes! This thread clearly transcends just computer hardware for us. 💙 You can always repurchase later or just wait till the 6000 series as priorities are elsewhere atm. That's just how life is sometimes. I remember selling off a large chunk of hardware several years ago for a new roof.

I feel like if cable makers really didn't cut corners it would at least put a nice dent into many of these problems. Watching that brand new Corsair cable be absolute trash was alarming from its loose fit to its readings. It seems like Cablemod learned their lesson that first time around and all the issues with 4090 cards and really came back with a high quality cable with a snug fit and good amperage distribution. Trash connector that needs perfect conditions to properly thrive Trash AIBs shaving pennies on quality adapters even to their own detriment Trash end users treating it like it is as robust as 8-pin and twisting and pulling it with reckless regard.... I DO think this connector is here to stay, but I do feel like with a few more refinements it will be declared "safe" lol, I tried to avoid that club! 🤣 lol, well I'm going to let you know it doesn't get any better in your 50's! 🤣 I turned the corner today and my fever finally broke after 4 days but I know this wet cough and general malaise is going to be with me for at least another week. Speedy recovery brother! -------------------------------- @Mr. Fox It's like we talked it up..... 3090ti vs 5090. 5090 is two generations newer and fully 66 to 133%+ faster than a 3090ti with a lot of that on the low end being an inability to fully utilize the 5090 even at 4k....it would be even worse with a 3090. 5090 is just a beast. I am glad we were able to get ours at a somewhat sane (in the realm of 5090s) price... --------------------------------- Zotac first out letting us know massive price hikes coming specifically to the 5060 and 5090 and kind of throwing Nvidia under the bus but they are the reason so.....yeah.....

More Sapphire Nitro+ burning issues yet the Taichi with the same 12v2x6 connector seems to be ok? One problem with the Sapphire is the rear back mounting which has no choice but to twist and bend the cable in all scenarios. It is unavoidable. Another is it is directly in the line of fire of exhausting heat..... https://videocardz.com/newz/sapphire-rx-9070-xt-nitro-adds-two-more-burned-blue-tipped-12v-2x6-adapter-reports-and-issues-with-rma

If you do end up trying another, the only logical model is the Red Devil. You get the highest phase design, 3x8pin and I would say one of the best and quietest air coolers, but we know you would rip that off ASAP. Even though it is a kick in the performance sack, I wouldn't be adverse to running a KPE3090 again if it came to that and a 3090 is where you wanted to go. We didn't realize that was truly the last of a magical time in GPUs. 😞 Based upon how AMD implemented mobile considerations with their effectively transplanted desktop chips, I think you are better off with the 275hx. I have yet to encounter an AMD laptop that doesn't have poor fan tables and fans revving up vs the now three 275hx based laptops I've tested. Even the hot box Acer Nitro 15.6" with 5060 and 275hx that thermal throttles under heavy load runs relatively even and quiet vs the Acer 16" AMD OLED, Acer AMD 7325 + 4050 15.6" and my former Raider 7945HX3D. Unless AMD changes something in their mobile implementation, I am going to stick with Intel moving forward. Since the launch of their Ultra chips both true mobile and desktop shoehorned into laptops, they just run quieter and more even for D2D use than AMD....at least in my testing/use cases. We only ended up with a paltry 6 inches of snow. So disappointing..... (Sorry @Papusan! 🤣) I was wondering if you had a preferred card one over the other, but as Nvidia stock dries up there's plenty of 9070xt cards available even though prices jumped. Hopefully AMD can make some more inroads. lol, thanks! It really is the best model on paper out of the 9070xt lineup for several reasons. I didn't even really give it a serious look till you went with one and I went "Hmmm, if @Rage Set is going with it, maybe there's more to it that I missed," and then read some reviews, watched some videos and realized it is the best 9070xt this time around overall IMHO. Ugh, Thursday night after the gym I had a scratchy throat and itchy sinuses. I woke up Friday feeling like someone hit me with a baseball bat. High temp, throat feeling full of glass shards. By Saturday, it had moved down into my lungs and chest was hurting and nose flowing like the nile. Sunday temp spiking to 103+ and now a tight, juicy cough with lots of green stuff that would make even Slimer proud. Took a home test and yep, Flu A. I skipped my flu shot this year too and this was a nice reminder why I shouldn't skip it. My wife got her flu shot and she picked up Flu A from me and besides some mild sniffles, she's fully functional while I am coughing and hacking up all types of stuff with spiking fevers going on day 4 and I'm just wiped out.....luckily I have enough energy to at least play FO76 and WoW 🤣 Like you, and I am sure the bulk of us married, I dunno how we would survive without our significant others. I will say this though, I will take the flu over Covid any day of the week.....Covid wrecks me in a way no other sickness ever has and I'm down for the count for 6-8 weeks depending on how close I contract it to my vaxx window and even after I am weakened for quite awhile. I've had Covid 5x now in the last 6 years (including on "launch" in early 2020). My wife caught it with me last February and it was the sickest she's ever been in her life. In her words, "I now see how this crap can take someone out...." I think one reason I tend to skip my flu shot from time to time is because even at its very worse it is maybe a 5/10 vs covid for me. Oh, and you're relatively young. You're what? In your 30s? Yes, it gets worse as you get older.... 🤣

Congrats! Lenovo really makes nice laptops that consistently place towards the top in Jarrod's laptop ratings. 64GB of 6400 DDR5 is awesome not just for capacity but it running no problems at 6400 on your laptop. I've actually held off opening back up my eBay store for a massive selloff of items till February because of tax return season. I'm in SNJ, so we're getting this quasi freezing rain thing with maybe 4" of snow atm. It's just sad.... 🤣 How are the Red Devil 9070xt and Prime 5070ti working out for you? We knew prices were going to trend up. This is most likely just the beginning.... If used market prices hit $4-5k, I can almost guarantee you I will sell my 5090 and ride this 9070xt or whatevewr to what comes next...... Like I said, I returned the Nitro+ 9070xt brand new in box because I just couldn't stomach that oddly placed 12v2x6 connector and replaced it with a Red Devil 9070xt which has the most phases off all models available AND a 3x8pin power setup. 3090 is just a wee bit too underpowered for me to regress that badly....

Might want to login to your FedEx account and check (you would need to anyhow to see the documents portion of the program). If you don't pay online within 4 days, they will mail you a physical invoice which is what I'm going to wait for till it arrives..... The actual customs duty is $17.70. The Disbursement Fee is a FedEx shakedown charge since they made it convenient for you by them paying the fees directly. The fact the disbursement fee is almost the same as the customs duty is highway robbery. In the end, it's the cost of a small order of chinese take away but its the principle for myself and just another 15% tax no matter how you slice it up going right into the government's pocket and then FedEx profiteering on top of it resulting in a ~22% overall fee.

Intel is beholden to shareholders just like any other company and it would be illogical to NOT go where the current profit stream is most viable. Just remember how quickly the dotcom boom and several cryptobooms imploded...... FYI, Intel is nowhere near close to going bankrupt. They just aren't printing money like they did for decades on end. I'm glad they've hit a wall though and need to get lean, mean and hungry again. As for the 9850X3D, with both their laptop and desktop refreshes, AMD is taking a classic play right out of Intel's handbook and giving us Granite Ridge+..... Zero chance I pick one of them up. Intel is actually bringing the heat in the mobile market which is very important. If Nova Lake tracks like it should, AMD is in for a rough ride unless AM6 is something special Productivity wise, I would pick an intel Ultra setup over an AMD one all day everyday And it isn't like Ultra can't game. Tuned, it can still bring the heat "Hold steady consumers while we milk the AI segment! We haven't forgotten you and we'll return to our regularly scheduled program sometime in the future!" ------------------- Just got my email for tariff duties owed on the TG WV2P..... $32.70 🤬 ------------------- @Talon Asrock is not supporting Bartlett. Has Asus confirmed support? https://videocardz.com/newz/asrock-confirms-its-z790-and-other-lga-1700-motherboards-will-not-support-bartlett-lake-cpus

THIS is why I love MSI...... MSI just contacted me about my RMA on the AI1300P to inform me they have zero stock of the newer revision (AI1300P PCIE5) and would the following PSU be an acceptable replacement: https://us.msi.com/Power-Supply/MEG-Ai1600T-PCIE5/Specification Uh, yes, that will definitely be a suitable replacement!! I'm going to wait till it gets here and then do my system with it along with the swap to Ultra 265k, WVP2 and custom 140mm fan cooling for the DDR5.

Whoa, 9070xt prices just jumped massively at Microcenter almost across the board. Probably a product of the expected price increases due to memory and 5070ti being sold out everywhere increasing demand for the 9070xt. The Red Devil I just picked up for $719 (MCC price was 683) is now $849. $780 on da Egg. Challenger which was $569 late last year is now $649.99 and the cheapest model available on PCPP is now $699 for the Hellhound. ------------------------------------------------------- RAM market is an odd beast atm. Lots of overpriced memory in stock. Plenty of overpriced (but not AS overpriced) new/used memory on eBay that is either not moving or taking quite awhile to move. End user demand is low because supply is grossly overpriced. SSD prices have jumped stupidly high but nowhere on the level of RAM but still..... I really feel like the AI boom is either going to crash or greatly recede sooner than later but we will see. Microsoft CEO openly questioned its profit viability.....May just be wishful thinking.... --------------------------------------------------------- WV2Pro arrived yesterday along with my brackets for DDR5 140mm cooling and Lian Li AIO. Piles of new parts everywhere for several projects/builds. First up is repairing my daughter's laptop though.... Just got an email from MSI they received my faulty Ai1300P PSU... --------------------------------------------------------- Yeah this is definitely the price/performance bundle that is going into my "I ran AM5 9800X3D for a year now let's give Intel's Ultra a fair shake till Panther" run unless it proves to be absolute trash (I'm looking at you FO76). $176 Strix Z890-A is hitting every criteria I need and the second $205 265k with some tuning now passes TM5 at 9066 G2 no problem which is the MB's limits and wouldn't be my D2D tuned settings anyhow so I'm good. I'll be keeping an eye on the Ultra refresh to maybe bin a few of them for shiggles.... WOW, didn't even know the 12 core Bartlett was up for order! I hope it is available and you can test one to compare to your AM5 and Ultra rigs. Did you hold onto your AM5 or jettison it? 🤣 -------------------------------------------------------------- @win32asmguy Midnight pre-launch 12.0 patch is definitely working with some secret sauce. When Tazevesh launched, performance was poor especially on the 9070xt but subsequent patches improved performance greatly along with Nvidia, but the 12.0 overhaul has now taken my fps in the exact same testing spot with the same drivers and rig as is from ~132 to frame locked 175 with the exact same settings. One thing I notice, though, is VRAM usage and CPU usage has increased drastically at 4k in the same spot from ~6.5GB to ~10.5GB. Not that players should be running WoW at 4k Ultra RT Max with 8GB or less cards, but they may be in for a reality check with the engine updates/overhaul. CPU utilization went up by 50% on basic reporting as did power draw so definitely some tinkering under the hood. RAM allocation is also up from ~13.5GB to ~20.6GB. Much more efficient, pulling less power and getting more fps than before. I've seen them do this in past xx.0 xpac pre-launch updates. GPU usage didn't even cap out with the 12.0 patch at frame locked 175fps. I'll need to go in there and remove that to see where it actually goes. One thing Blizzard does do is improve their graphics engine before, during and after launches. Before and after testing (note, both tests were at 8000 not 6400. Need to update AB descriptions). Of course Dornogal is an absolute sludge fest now on both my rigs and player data. Classic pre-launch patch Blizzard. Doesn't matter 14900ks + 9070xt or 9800X3D + 5090. It is absolute trash right now and chunky. Blizzard seriously needs to overhaul their CPU multithreaded utilization ASAP.

Addendum to 4k response as I don't think I gave you enough data for reference (sorry): Oh and zero thermal throttling anywhere and CPU utilization on any of the cores at any given time is never more than 50-60% using this approach which is designed to allow you to stress the GPU to 100% load really taking the CPU out of the equation. If Blizzard could figure out a way to load balance player physics across a true multicore design versus still really stuck in a single threaded model it would work wonders. One of the reasons I threw FO76 in the mix was to see if it was the same, but you can clearly see the uplift from JEDEC to 6400 Tuned and 8800 Tuned which might negate some of the X3D potential blame in WoW. -------------------------- Here's a screen shot I took of my exact chosen place to benchmark in Tazevesh so I know exactly how to position my toon and distances for future benchmarking on the 265k and you can see all the relevant data. Neither the 5090 or 9800X3D are overclocked for these tests on purpose to control all variables at stock. I plan on going back in and testing this exact same spot after the Midnight patch on Tuesday to see if anything has changed. If you want to benchmark here, make sure to get your toon and camera angles the exact same. You know you have it right when you have the small cat pat in and out in the lower, right corner. GPU at 100% CPU usage 16% (of course based on 8 cores, but you get the idea it is low) Temps are low on both even with the GPU fully maxed and 500w+ but the Vanguard Heatsink is ridiculously good along with the Suprims. Fans are at their lowest speed (33%) on auto. Voltage at only 1.085 (max of 1.125v).

I'll retest at 1440p Ultra just to see if memory (and CPU) comes more into play removing player physics as a constraint as we both know tanks GPU utilization quickly and when pushed to 100% GPU utilization even on a 5090 does memory settings on AM5/X3D make any difference because at 4k it means nothing even at JEDEC which was surprising. It could be with zero player physics at play, WoW can sit in the cache comfortably but with raids, PVP, city the cache exhausts pretty quickly. I could swap in this 9600x I have here in my ITX setup and test that theory. I haven't tested the 265k yet. I am just wrapping up dialing in memory tuning at G2 8600 on the test bench and then will OC dial in once this new AIO comes in on Thursday. This is my ghetto current memory tuning setup..... I have some custom brackets coming in to set up an adjustable 140mm fan over the DDR5 memory (this will carry forward regardless of what CPU/MB is installed) along with ordering a singular Silent Wings 140mm Pro fan for it for two tiered speed adjust-ability. Apparently the new king of AIOs is the Lian Li Galahad II Lite which in several reviews is the top dog and for ~$100 so I ordered one. It even beats down their former Trinity Performance model at a much cheaper cost, easier hook up and better designed pump. I ordered one of these to slap on the test bench with the 265k and if I like what I see, I'll move it into my case too replacing the AC LF II 420 that's in there now along with the 265k after my DDR5 fan parts and WV2 arrive but want everything tuned up and ready to go before the transplant.

TG just let me know my WV2 shipped, woot! -------------------------- As soon as China saw the "procedures" being enacted by the US government for AI hardware to ship to them , they balked and are slowly, but surely, turning to in house advancements on both the CPU and GPU front for the future. If they ever decide to invade and annex Taiwan they will become the front runner in technology pretty fast. There is a reason the US and other countries are all in diversifying production and fabs away from China and China adjacent. Those "procedures?" Well, Nvidia chips have to be shipped from Taiwan to the US, go through a series of validation steps over here and be assembled in the US before being shipped to China and 25% of the sales go right into the US government's pockets.....yeah I don't blame China for basically saying forget that and continue to use back channel ways of piping in same or similar hardware into their country. If China produces an ASIC specific computing device (as rumored) for AI that is more efficient and less expensive than using GPUs, the GPU market will crash harder than the Cryptobooooooom and I'm 100% here for it. Personally, removing China from their sales is a win for us and will start to bring Nvidia back down to reality and demand will plummet enough to offer more products to consumers but that really doesn't address the ram crisis as GPU, CPU or ASIC based AI will still require godsmackingly large amounts of ram for those ever growing LLMs.... Producing 1 card a year is still technically "in production" 🤣 But seriously..... Nvidia is still providing the entire GPU / Memory package for now, so unless they decouple it they will most certainly be raising prices right along with AMD...... Corsair's stock has tanked. They are trying to redirect to that sweet, sweet AI money and downsizing their consumer division which they were most likely going to do anyhow. I don't think the market conditions (AI AI AI AI!!!!!!) is the problem for them. Their issues are elsewhere. I do think they view the AI market as their hail mary atm.