electrosoft

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?

Does ram matter for X3D? Conclusion, frequency is irrelevant (as I found out in WoW several months ago testing 4800->8000), but EXPO and especially tuned timings definitely matter..... For WoW, best bet is to run 2000/6000 and get those timings as tight as possible or 2133/6400 and tight depending on quality of ram (which is what I'm doing). Fallout 76, again, is X3D dominant but tighter timings definitely help too. Does RAM Matter For AMD Ryzen X3D CPUs? - YouTube

Asus is raising prices across many of their laptops too. We had 9070xt's at $599.99 and even as low as $569.99 last August/Sept. Microcenter had the Challenger at that price point and the reaper back down to $599.99 but, well,......like the 5090 that pricing is long gone now. Some of these GPUs are hitting a hard reality with these price increases with every card being in stock everywhere. Just like DDR5, you can yell and scream about shortages, but customers are only going to pay so much. Problem is MSI is only offering the 800w and 1000w variants of their vBIOS and locking down the 2500w version for availability, so the best way to get the most out of your card is to run the 1000w and shunt mod. Imagine paying ~$5400 after tax for a 5090 that still requires a shunt mod to get it running fully open and unfettered?

I agree, they let me know my old PSU was indeed failing when I asked and an RMA exchange was authorized and on the way. Didn't expect to open the box and find a Titanium. I only sent the PSU back, so now I have a massive swath of P2 1600w cables. I'll have to check to see if they're compatible with the T6. I know they're compatible with my EVGA P2 850. Sounds about right for EK.... I am genuinely curious to see what the 9950X3D2 can do but the fact they're not really touting it has faster than the 9850X3D is pretty telling. That was a good pick up I saw over there. Hope you had a good Easter brother @Mr. Fox! Love seeing the 12 core monster get slowly unraveled and working on real Z790 boards....hopefully you get over that cold on your YT video sooner than later bro. Probably a bit of fear of voltage issues again if left to run on consumer boards that allow it to overclock and push more voltage. The 13th/14th overvolting issues really did some damage to their name brand and consumer confidence. As @Talon showed, that industry level board he tested the Bartlett on initially was locked down like crazy. They need these P core chips to slot in and run locked in. On the other hand, Intel is boasting that Raptor Lake is alive and well and more boards both DDR4/5 are on the way.... https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-says-raptor-lake-is-not-going-anywhere-hints-at-more-ddr4-ddr5-hybrid-boards Now they need to officially support Bartlett Lake-S on current and future boards and open the floodgates. Depending on where it eventually lands, I wouldn't be adverse to picking one up. A 12 P-Core only chip is just yummy. What a cool rabbit hole you've gone down @Reciever on many fronts from the AC ducting to using a 9070xt for FG support. Which model did you swap the 3090ti for? Nice! All that's left is to block the GPU..... Industrial white with all black is always the slickest look IMHO. ------------------------------------------

Forgot to follow up on the EVGA PSU RMA... I ended up having to pay return shipping. It was a snafu in the original RMA saying a prepaid label would be provided. Ah well..... So I got my EVGA replacement PSU in today and in MSI fashion (which replaced my AI1300 platinum with a MEG AI1600T), they sent me a SuperNova 1600w Titanium T6 to replace my Platinum 1600w P2 which I've never even heard of before. It has 9x PCIe connectors. Model #220-T6-1600-B1 (but with the 10yr warranty still intact). Has anyone heard of this particular model? -------------------------- 9950X3D2 runs toasty or EK trying to pump up business? EK is recommending water cooling to extract full performance....

https://videocardz.com/newz/chinese-memory-stockpilers-start-to-panic-as-falling-prices-leave-them-stuck-with-modules "Reports from Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei market say traders and resellers that bought DDR5 in bulk during the run-up are now struggling to clear inventory, with some sellers cutting prices quickly to avoid being left with stock that keeps losing value. Yicai says some new 16GB DDR5 sticks that..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Microcenter with 270k "coming soon" already marking down the $349 to $329 while still not putting stock out (they haven't been listed for sale yet since launch) to push as many combos and in house prebuilts as possible.....yuck. I cancelled my combo deal as it made no sense as all I want is the damn CPU and no desire for another MB or trash 2x16GB DDR5 memory. I'll just wait till they drop back to $299.99. Newegg is flush with them now as is Amazon as expected after that initial FOMO rush.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top end mobile Nova Lake HX will finally differentiate core count wise from desktop for the first time since 11th gen due to the sheer size and power draw of all those cores. We're moving into Nvidia mobile land now but what else can you do? Mobile Nova Lake HX will have half the overall P core count as top end Nova Lake Desktop (8 vs 16) and 28 cores overall vs 52 on desktop. " The new leak suggests Nova Lake-HX will not mirror the desktop configuration. As previously reported, Nova Lake-S for desktops is rumored to scale up to 52 cores, combining 16 P-cores and 32 E-cores. The mobile variant is said to be more conservative, topping out at 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores. " --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looks like iBOT does tinker with the binary code of applications.... https://videocardz.com/newz/geekbench-says-intel-bot-rewrites-benchmark-code-geekbench-6-7-will-detect-optimized-runs I'm ok with this for non benchmark applications and Intel finding ways to optimize games and applications over time, but "optimizing" benchmarks is a grey area I'm not too comfortable with if this is true....

Yeah, I continue to look and it will take something major to pry this free Alienware 18 out of my hands because it runs so quiet and only comes to life under gaming/heavy loads and even then it is quieter than the previous MSI. I was wondering how the newer Raider did under load conditions and when pressed. How were the CPU/GPU temps? Memory temps look absolutely dismal. I'm sure under those conditions it was extremely loud. On paper, it looks ideal with a 285hx, 5090, 1600p but if it uses anything close to the same fans as the previous iteration.....yikes. You know they always say couples who WoW together......Does the media center have it on display to see or is it hidden away behind a panel? I contemplated picking up the Midnight darker edition for a build out they look so cool for the wife who immediately loved the darker version for her case. She passed her 5 year anniversary back in September (she started playing during the pandemic out of sheer boredom) playing WoW and is officially more hardcore than I am. She routinely clears ALL the content weekly and that is with working a full time job too. Weekends she is locked into Azzeroth with laser focus lol...she gets up before I do, so I make her cafe con leche the night before and place it on her timer warming pad so she's able to get up and rock and roll the Saturday and Sunday mornings...