electrosoft

I'm so glad a board member picked it up especially @1610ftw. Hopefully he gives it a whirl in his X170SM-G to see how far it can flex especially compared to the SP101 I sold him that was my best sample I had including vs my golden sample like yours but your SP106 was rated higher I think than my LTX sample. --- And yeah, supply is trickling in steadily now but more importantly demand at those higher price points is waning fast. The fact those combo deals which aren't even that bad (Sub $3k w/ a z890 Motherboard) for a gigabyte shows something is going to have to give especially for perceived "B" tier cards. I'm thinking of cancelling my Astral 5090 pickup at the end of the week. I just am having problems stomaching a $3.5k 5090 purchase. I know it's an Astral and all that, but the price just seems crazy high. But on the other hand, Astrals have been binning pretty nicely overall but I know me and I'd be just as content with a $2k FE or a $2.2k PNY and keep it moving. I'll continue to mull it over mentally. 🤣 I could always just play with it and see if that justifies the purchase. I do have a 60 day return window but still that isn't realistic considering I have to pay for it within 30....

What's in the box? (In my Brad Pitt from SE7EN voice) --- 5090 sales are definitely slowing down and everything else Nvidia is seriously slowing down..... Gigabyte, Zotac and MSI combo deals on Newegg have been up all day with some even sub $3k for the Gigabyte combos still available for the $2639 Windforce and Z890 MB combo for $2939. That includes a free Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition key (~$109 value). Like I said, Pre-builts are available everywhere now for order. Upper end 5070, 5070ti and 5080 (aka the stupidly overpriced versions) cards are in stock. (shipped and sold from NE only) and some on BB too. The real question is with tariffs in play, will the prices remain the same (IE, MSI just raised their prices again), continue to go up or fall? What is the actual breaking point? 9070xt's are all out of stock atm on NE (shipped and sold from NE only) and BB.

Absolutely awful deal no doubt about it. If I don't like it, it will be going right back. I have a 60 day return window. I wonder if you could have even picked up the LC on their site at the old price..... Astral $1649.99 vs $999.99 = ~65% markup over MSRP Astral $3359 vs $1999.99 = ~68% markup over MSRP Ugh.... I agree. While I do like my 32" Alienware OLED, I find I still prefer the picture quality of my benQ 10-bit 32" IPS display overall in every aspect but it is capped at 60hz. Everytime I'm working/tuning/building a system with it and launch some games for testing, it just re-affirms my love of its display. I might try one of BenQ's 10-bit 32" 144hz displays. I have a few Asus Vivobooks here with Ultra 7 and Ultra 9 CPUs with 15.6" 1080p OLED displays and they're nice, but I always preferred the displays on my X170KM and SM along with even the P870TM I had. I thought those 144hz displays were great. It is starting to show its age though. I moved my SP109 14900KS into the wife's system and I suspect that is where it will stay for the next 2-3 years or beyond. It's running great, boosting to 6.2 in WoW, temps under 70c and pulls under 1.4v within the Intel recommended limits coupled with a dialed in LLC and UV. Still a banger of a platform though. --- Like above, OLED is nice, but I find myself really preferring the picture quality and colors (after both were calibrated) of my BenQ 32" 10-bit IPS display. ---- 5090 demand is definitely leveling out at least in regards to overpaying past MSRP and scalping. Pre-builts are in stock everywhere now and combo deals are lasting a lot longer on da egg even simple combos like Gigabyte 5090+MB only. But MSRP keeps creeping up...... MSI also looks to have raised prices across the board with the Liquid and Suprim now costing $3k+ in the US and even the damn Ventus clocking in at $2949.99.

Binning is Winning especially when you're trying to push beyond factory specs (which is really all you're guaranteed).

I listened to it with headphones and again, I'm just not seeing all the uproar or whining especially post vBIOS update. Compared to my Powercolor 7900xtx or 5700xt that is nothing. It truly isn't. Maybe it needs to be heard in person? Maybe I'll pick up my shiny, new Astral on Thursday or Friday, slap it in, play some games and immediately go, "oh hell no!" and back it goes if it is that bad. ....OR I'll plug it in and run some tests/games and go, "People will whine and complain just about anything these days..." 🤣 I guess we'll see soon enough. ----- I was wondering especially at $3k+ that is no small bit of change. You'll get no arguments from me @Papusan. Look at the crazy pricing over here.....

Thursday!

After der8uer's video, I actually spent time hunting down YT videos of the card in action and even before the vBIOS update, it wasn't bad at all. Nobody complains in the forums about it either. I actually put headphones on to really listen and the overall sound profile of the Astral is better than half the cards I've owned in the past easily. ---- But having owned your LC for a bit now, are you overall happy with it or are you going to return it?

Asus did address the harmonics issues with the fourth fan with a vBIOS update but I get your point. For a company that charges such an asus tax, you would expect HOF levels of perfection and we're just not getting it. It's frustrating. What I find frustrating from Asus is they hit it out of the park with their GPU Tweak software and pin monitoring and to a level their build quality, but then fail cutting costs everywhere and charging so much more overall vs MSRP. I would think it would be the ram, but it is TG which is usually pretty solid and it is rated at 8200 but still it *could* the ram. It could also be your board as alluded to before being a 2DPC board that is stalling it with issues >=7600. I know the stupid $80 1DPC Asrock board bested my 2DPC Carbon pretty easily for 8000+. Physics can not be defeated. Reason 4090 was so much better than the 3080ti mobile was the node shrink. Keeping the same node means there's only so much you can do with a 175w envelope and there was no way you were going to see a major performance bump. Then laptop makers decide to insanely bump prices prices into the stratosphere for the 5000 series......

Astral flexing some seriously nice clocks there @Papusan! I haven't seen a bum Astral (air or LC) yet really. I don't think I can resist the allure of my BB order. 🤣 @tps3443 what kind of clocks/scores are you getting with the 5090 FE in comparison? @jaybee83 can't wait to see some Suprim loving up in here! All roads lead to Rome. Our 2nd / terts are very similar, but my primary are based around 2200/6400 vs G2(4), nice! ---- @jaybee83 x870e crosshair Extreme if you want to upgrade and continue to address us peasants with Hero only 🤣 https://videocardz.com/pixel/asus-rog-crosshair-x870e-extreme-motherboard-has-been-pictured

Yeah he is! Very nice @Papusan!

$999? Heck $1499.99 I would snatch up a 5090 with missing ROPS ASAP. Anything above that? Nope. $3150 is hilariously funny. I suspect they can't really compete against the 5070 and especially the 9070xt..... B580 is a unicorn in price:performance (assuming you have somewhat decent modern hardware). Nvidia is making money hand over fist and we know anything not AI is cutting into their potential overall profitability but they have to keep AMD and to a much lesser extent Intel honest. They know they can't just abandon the gamer market outright because AI could contract at any given time and they will need that gamer/prosumer market to still be intact and valid. Their $8600+ card is getting all that 5090ti love we will never see. Want the best for the next 2-3yrs? Suck it up and get a 5090. 😞

(Also posted in the X170KM thread) If someone is looking for a sweet 10900k sample (SP106), message @tps3443 here. He's selling his Golden Sample chip here: https://www.overclock.net/threads/10900k-golden-sample-1-of-200.1815617/?post_id=29448362#post-29448362 but you can also reach him here.

If someone is looking for a sweet 10900k sample (SP106), message @tps3443 here. He's selling his Golden Sample chip here: https://www.overclock.net/threads/10900k-golden-sample-1-of-200.1815617/?post_id=29448362#post-29448362 but you can also reach him here.

All it takes is ***ONE*** leak of the XOC vBIOS and we all win! 😁 Unless like I said before the vBIOS is tied directly to the software and individually encoded upping security from last time. We know @tps3443 is gonna end up getting an EK Block at a minimum and adding it into his loop at a minimum. He might even spin up the CHILLAH!!! to really get it going. 🤣 And yeah, the pattern is prison rules are now in effect for 5090 AIBs.... 🤔 Unfortunately this has been going on for quite awhile now. I can't fault the bean counters. It is their job. They just respond to market conditions while topping it off with as many cost cutting measures as they can get away with to continue to pad the bottom line while inching prices upward till they get their hand slapped. I've always been content as long as they at least also offer a few top end enthusiast parts while flooding the market with the other bits. Apex motherboards and Astral cards at least from Asus have some of those properties (along with the Asus tax). ---- And as expected, the 5090 mobile is going to be very underwhelming vs the 4090 mobile because, well, physics. Decent rationale as to why DLSS and FG matter in laptops because you can't slap a 575w part in a 175w envelope. He even touches on the older laptops and how thick and big they were that could handle more power and heat with their dual adapters and such: Review of Razer and MSI: https://hothardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-mobile-gpu-preview

So I scored a Gigabyte 9070xt from BB that was delivered today. With discounts and rewards = $739 after tax. Not doing back flips over this one, but could be much worse. Can't wait to dig in on this one next week and run some tests with WoW in my known testing spots to see how it fairs against the 5080 and 4090 data. ---- I also snagged an Astral 5090 on BB Total price after rewards and discounts = 3403.46. Seriously on the fence about this one, lol. If the 10850k is your best CPU, that has to be the benching rig CPU with hopefully decent (>=3600) DDR4 sticks. I can't see regressing to a 9700F for a benching rig but that's just me. And it starts..... The march to an EK block..... 🤣