electrosoft

I mean this IS Asus...... did we expect any less? 🤣 I think users need to accept bending these cables just isn't a good call in any scenario..... Before the WVP2 and MSI sending me the MEG 1600T, I kept my tentacle as straight out as possible trying to bend only from the extensions themselves as far out as possible. But overall, it is just not a good design/cable.....

Cost per performance is grossly in the 270k's favor vs both the 9950X3D and 9950X3D2..... Hey, at least MSI didn't angle it to the side like Sapphire did with the Nitro+ 9070xt introducing a needed bend to work in an already fragile connector...... -------------- I am on Intel's side with this one. Just like GPU optimizations where we sometimes have a clearly slower GPU like the 9070xt sometimes hanging with even the 5090 in some instances due to a lack of optimizations along with being optimized for AMD. Even if they went back to monolithic, that doesn't mean games couldn't be optimized to target the subtle (and not so subtle) nuances of each chip and quite frankly just in general. Too many sloppy ports not putting in the work till after release if at all.... Matrix is the sweet spot and I agree. WIth the WVP2, it gives you a sense of safety and monitoring both visually, audibly and within HWInfo. The wired shutdown function if desired is also nice. I do like seeing the little fan icon start to spin.... 5090 is clearly a beast as is vs 4090 and with the Matrix vBIOS it just extends that quite nicely. I do tend to run at stock during the warm times because the 5090 can quickly turn my computer room into a sauna just like the OC'd 4090 and 3090ti did. Plus WoW and FO76 rarely cap out the 5090 especially FO76. Who would want to DDOS notebooktalk? That's odd........

This chip is absolutely pointless and crazy expensive. We will need to see a game that A> Truly utilizes X3D B> Actually utilizes more than 8 cores I'm wondering without parking cores during gaming and truly utilizing all 16 cores real time will slight performance hits be realized if processes drift between the CCDs and fabric limitations in AM5? I'm going to notch this up as a , "proof of concept" for AMD and going forward both CCDs will have X3D on AM6 variants to complement the fabric improvements. lol, I love that top reply.... I would have been happy with the previous offering, but offering to provide with a new AIO, brand new Astral at current prices and a full RMA on his MB? I mean, damn......

Hilarious.... He is really trying to milk the "pain and suffering" (in his mind) component of this transaction. NZXT offers him a brand new Astral sourced or original MSRP. Methinks he wants the cash value of current retail pricing along with the MB cost (vs RMA) AND wants to retain his old Astral to have his cake and eat it too. Greedy.

Original WVP or WVP2? Glad it wasn't the card but still 😞

Welp, when it rains it pours. First, a big ole tax hit and now the wife's Altima literally died in the drive way and yep the CVT is trashed so now we need a new car. I'll probably just give her mine since she commutes 90 min / day to finish beating up and get us a newer travel/local car..... First note is AMD treating Gamers Nexus grimey and not supplying them with a sample. HUB ended up sending theirs to Steve after testing. That is very Nvidia of them to do that. Yeah, as expected too pricey for what we're getting but it is a mild performance bump over the 9950X3D in normal tasks with some results hitting 20% (blender) but usually ~2-5%. Gaming wise, slightly slower in shader compiles (Intel rules the roost) and gaming it is a big, dull dud at this point needing situational games to shine a little but usually being the same or slower than the 9950X3D2. AMD was right to not promote its gaming prowess. Last gasp for me is how is the silicon quality overall and the IMC but everything else? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I kinda like seeing the caps as long as they're all MLCCs. Something fancy about it visually. Hybrid design with some Poscaps in there? Meh, they can cover that up.... I hate to side with NZXT on this one, but this guy is asking for current market value for a card he originally paid MSRP and that just isn't going to fly. Just like I feel bad for those with bad memory or storage and they're being reimbursed their original purchase costs because prices have gone through the moon. I don't like it, but I clearly understand where the companies are coming from on that cost wise and obligation wise. NZXT offered him full original MSRP market value plus I am going to assume tax or whatever is the over cost. He wants a current market Astral AND his original card back.... He is hoping the court of public opinion will blow this up a bit and NZXT will just settle. I would have taken the AIO replacement, original cost paid for GPU/MB and went about my way.....

Yeah it's crazy. I went through my orders and I officially started AM5 in April 2023 with my original MSI Carbon x670e Wifi and ran that 7800X3D then 7950X3D, switched to that SP113 13900KS for a spell then back to my AM5 rig before Intel finally won me back over in Summer 2024 for a spell with the SP109 14900KS then AMD dropped the 9800X3D that pulled me back in and that's where I've been since. Exactly. Throwing another X3D CCD in there without improvements elsewhere to help with performance seems like a useless chip. I'm, personally, hoping for an Intel 11th gen scenario where the 11900k was clearly a Frankenchip with a lot of the transitional tech that made its way into 12th gen in the best way. AM5 + 2x X3D CCDs + some preliminary AM6 love in regards to the fabric would be a fun chip to play around with. It may give us a portend of things to come with AM6 in that regard but we will see... If somehow it turns out to be a gaming behemoth, I would probably give one a whirl if only to feed my 5090 better than the 9800X3D can in WoW or Fallout 76. Top of its class, but so many times even at 4k the 5090 is twiddling its thumbs and yawning 🙂 The trick, as always for laptop DTRs running desktop CPUs, is going to have a cooler running, non leaky power efficient bin which is almost always a higher SP chip especially with the limited cooling on the NH55. I had always planned to put the SP109 in the NH55 because it runs stupidly cool even at 59/45/50 an AIO keeps it cool. I have it capped at 253w though as that is more than enough for its needs but then a couple of modern free laptops sent for eval and it didn't make any sense at that point performance wise and off she went. 🙂 I'd say bin on a cheap desktop board and lesser cooling to get a good chip. I did this when I was binning 12900k chips for the NH55 and used an ID Cooling mid grade air cooler to at least simulate similar cooling conditions and the variance in chips with heat and pull was pretty insane. It gets even more insane with the 14900KS chips. I did the same for the X170SM with a rash of 10900k chips. The X170KM was hilarious because I bought an 11900k model and it had one of the sweetest, cool running 11900k chips I had ever seen in it. I cleaned up the thermal interface on it and it literally ran full tilt out of the box with no adjustments needed. One and done. Same process used for the glory years of the P870 too from 6700k up to the 9900k tons of fun binning to get them tamed for D2D use. *Sigh* we need another real DTR ASAP....

My SP109 14900KS + Z790i lightning 8400 was a beast and is now still going strong on that Z690 D4 for almost a year now in the wife's system rock solid and error free. You can't deny there were issues with the microcode and there are still some stray systems out there from unknowing users that need to update their BIOS (and that doesn't even guarantee a save) but the "crisis" has been over for quite some time. I absolutely love 12th-14th gen. My personal favorite is still 10th gen, Intel's last monolithic design. With Intel opting to extend LGA1700 now, I hope they "officially" embrace Bartlett and let it fully sing. An all P 12 core chip? Heck yeah.... The real star is the Asus Z690 Strix-A D4 that has been in service since December 2021 and has seen everything from the 12900k to the current 14900ks and keeps on truckin'. Rear USB ports are a little loose now, but that's it. I also realized I've been running AM5 now since December 2024, so 16 months in service on this Crosshair X870e as my main driver. That might be a record for me. 🙂 I definitely plan on giving Nova a shot while I continue to play around with Arrow Lake atm. Unless reviews are amazing, I am not seeing the upside to the 9950X3D2 unless it has some of the reported fabric improvements slated for AM6 in play to let those dual X3D CCDs truly shine in unison especially in gaming. The increased PPT and overall power draw potential bodes well but we will see.

@win32asmguy someone wrote an article for 2026 for WoW CPU performance and X3D. Article pushing for X3D superiority for WoW. I agree with some of his points, but two things: #1. There is NO WAY his "friend" was keeping a consistent 165fps+ in Dorongal or Raids even on X3D at 1440p 7 settings. No, just no. Maybe spikes here or there or nights with low to no players in town but on average? No.... #2. Properly tuned, a 13th and 14th gen Intel chip is competitive vs X3D while providing better overall even lows. With Midnight, I'll end up retesting this on the wife's rig (SP109 14900KS tuned B-die at 59/45/50) when she plays, 14900KS is locked at 5.9ghz everywhere vs 9800X3D vs tuned 270k when I get time. I recently gave her SP109 14900KS the yearly, "is it degraded" test with Intel's tool, OCCT and tons of decompression and shader compiles and it is running just as crisp and right as ever. Then again, it was tuned from day one. I really want to take each GPU I have (5090, 2x 9070xt, 1x B580) and CPUIs I have (14900KS, 9800X3D, 265k/270k) at 1440p and 4k through the Twin Dragon's fight especially for this: WoW in the twin dragons encounter has a moment it puts a beating on the GPU and CPU to the next level. I've seen the 5090 at stock (which this is for both GPU and CPU) hit 596w and the CPU pull 80w+ which in WoW for a 9800X3D and mostly single threaded is rather juicy let alone actually seeing near capped GPU utilization..... --------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm shocked..... (not). I would be curious to see how much is in the AI sector vs consumer sector for GPU failures and how much are card related vs power connector related. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm still running 1.36. I'll snag it....

There is an issue. For some reason, I figured @johnksss opted for a white one when he went to Microcenter knowing of the issue.....don't ask me why. 🤣

What was the top frequency your card was able to sustain with a +460 offset in GPU-Z render? 3400+ is good. 3500+ is god mode. Better bins fall somewhere between 3450-3500. Some are untamed (Asus 2000w XOC), while others are actually good. Right now, the Matrix 800w vBIOS is the sweet spot overall for D2D unless you're going to shunt and/or slap on the 1500w+ variants floating around. I know the Asus XOC gives you 1.15v and you will need to adjust down. @Papusan was running the big boy Asus XOC before so he might be able to give you more insight. I know @Mr. Fox is shunted with an EVC2, but not sure what vBIOS he is cooking with atm.

That's a damn good offset. Where does it top out in a GPU-Z render test frequency wise nudging that offset?

Unless things have changed, for stock bios cards the trick is adjusting your VF curve since SN keeps smashing into the 600w limit on the regular. Once you either shunt mod or use the XOC bios, that is no longer needed. You could also run the Matrix 800w / Lightning 800w/1000w as that also helps alleviate needing to adjust the VF curve. VF curve tuning you should be netting over 16k+ For raw OC using MSI AB and pushing offsets and voltage to max (I'll assume your card does +3000 no problem), how high of an offset can you set for runs? What is the max voltage? EVC2 can alleviate some voltage headaches, but higher voltage cards do tend to overall be better samples after a year+ of testing in the OC forums.

Holy $#!+..... So glad I stocked up on SSDs, RAM, have my 5090, 2x 9070xt's, 1x B580 and a few laptops to ride out this storm..... But serious, whoa... Now the question is, what is the Siny new Astral 5090 replacing?