electrosoft

Speaking of EVGA, I just started the RMA process on my P2 1600w. I noticed EVGA no longer carries Platinum or higher rated 1600w PSUs so we'll see how that goes..... -- For the prices being charged for specialty 5090s, they need to be binned, unlocked and offer the owner unfettered access to all the top end BIOS variants and be able to cross flash everything under the sun. 5090 market is in shambles atm and prices returning to $3k+ for even budget priced models. Zotac Solid is the cheapest 5090 available on pcpartpicker and it is ~$3800.....insane. I think you and I took the right approach and waited for prices to get somewhat sane before picking up our 5090s. I came to my senses with that Astral 5090 and returned it on day 59 of a 60 day return window and just rode that 9070xt till a good 5090 deal came along. Best decision I ever made. I'll never gravitate towards the top end of the 090 series ever again. I'm loathe to think of the pricing of the 6090 whenever that drops.... -- I finally got a chance to watch the GN report on AMD and no surprise there just massive disappointment as always. Jensen laid the groundwork and AMD hopped right in schmoozing the administration full tilt. AMD really committed to schmoozing with the Biden administration and went full tilt with the trump administration. The current administration is, ah, much more open to increased "collabs" with big corporations and, um, "maximizing" their interfacing via Super PACs and other donations (Ballroom aisle one)......when we saw all the tech CEOs and high rollers sitting front and center at the inauguration, we knew what was coming. Unadulterated greed and an administration that is extra sensitive to pocket lining has relegated the common citizen even further down the food chain. I still want AMD to succeed because they are the GPU underdog and if only to counter Nvidia just as they did to Intel to keep both in check. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9070xt vs 7900xt with the newest drivers.... 7900xtx is still a beast and unless you want better RT and access to the newest technologies, zero reason to upgrade and you get an extra 8GB on top of it to boot with the 7900xtx: The only meaningful overall upgrade from a 7900xtx is a 5080 or 5090 IMHO: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The entitlement is insane. "Why can't I have it for free?" "It's stupid to charge for some stupid mod" @Prema did the right thing and only works with those he trusts along with an OEM. I know you're like me and every time I was given access to custom work, mods or files with a clear directive from the creator to not share them, I never shared them period. Most times, I never even mentioned it in forums and still don't because you're always going to have someone message you asking for it, pleading for it and getting mad when you say no. I just opt to keep that to myself and quietly work with it on my own. One reason why in the 5090 forums last year watching people begging then getting mad wanting those who had the XOC to break their NDAs or promises and share them was nails on a chalkboard to me. Yes, I wanted the BIOS but I also understood why I did not have access to them and they were basically going after and blaming the wrong people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MSI x870E Unify Max is looking very tasty....... Also MSI......raising prices and cutting back on lower end SKUs to compensate for supply shortages AKA the double Whammy.... https://videocardz.com/newz/msi-says-nvidia-is-supplying-about-20-fewer-gpus-than-the-market-needs "To protect margins, MSI plans to cut back on lower-end models and move more resources toward higher-end products. Money UDN says low-end models previously made up about 30% of the mix, and MSI now wants to focus more on mid-range and higher-tier products, with RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 class systems..."

Have the best, easily unlock enabled laptop bios this side of Prema, but purposely lock down the bios on the MSI B850M POWER?? Look how long it took Asus to let the XOC run free (ish) and then we have the Lightning situation. I get the position of both that in the wrong hands both can drastically increase the chances of wrecking cards but still.... I still prefer Asus BIOS over MSI. EVGA > ASUS > MSI. Still prefer MSI over Asus as a company.... Big ups to @svet!

Silicon lottery vs paying a buttload for basically the same card..... That lightning is gimped with that poor stock voltage and it's a poor sample. Even applying the extra voltage in AB can't save it. All that extra wattage can't save it. Clearly MSI isn't binning too much. Lightning for sale over on the OC forums with a nice, healthy 1.105v voltage cap and a good clocker and even then.......~$6600 USD (toss on a 15-20% tariff on top of that). The Lightning display causing erratic and lower 1% lows is the icing on the cake..... Insane. Two distributors screwing him over two different ways...... trump admin approach to Anthropic is disgusting. Basically using strong arm mafia tactics because they won't let their AI tools run automated and unchecked in battlefield situations or for enhanced surveillance. Hey you won't let us do what we want so we're going to label you a "supply chain risk," potentially catastrophically hurting your business because agreed upon restrictions you won't lift for us.....wow....just wow.... As for Nvidia, the golden rule is in full effect atm. Nvidia is the performance top dog with all the gold....or at least 94% of it. Dominating in every aspect from Steam to AI and more. Someone needs to make a better product to even have a chance of unseating them anytime soon and it isn't the current generation. AMD needs to have their next gen cards (10900xt? 10090xt?) match the consistent rumors and really bring the heat or Nvidia will just continue to dominate. 9070xt is a damn good card for what it is, but it runs hot and heavy for what it brings compared to the 5070ti. Node shrink is definitely needed along with architecture advancements but AMD has really caught up in many areas at serious speeds.

Nice! Make a nice chunk of change on the "almost as good as my main rig" setup and have a very competent secondary rig. New toys on deck or into the kitty for future consideration? Mine was destined for the kitty but got slammed with a larger than expected tax bill, so there goes that.... 🤑 5700xt is still one of my favorites. I had the AMD anniversary blower edition for over a year (~august 2019 to ~Oct 2020) before upgrading to a 3090FE fresh from BB. I remember Asus red fans and AMD cards era, so definitely an AMD card I think. I kinda remember those around when I got my EVGA Nvidia GTX 280 so circa 2009-2010?

Sheesh, that's a powerful micro atx build right there! What is it's final destination? I was just looking at that MSI B850M Edge MB for the Jonesbo Z20 I have. It is a portable SFF but supports MATX and I was just fighting an uphill battle trying to stick to an ITX board in it. I like that it is a 2 dimmer too.

A more indepth deep dive comparison from BBT 9070xt vs 5070ti. Trading blows, showing the massive improvements in RT, actually beating the 5070ti at 1440p and more.... Again, if priced equally, I would give the slight nod to the 5070ti, but at current prices (cheapest 9070xt 709.99 vs cheapest 5070ti 965.99) I would go AMD all day everyday. Unfortunately too much Nvidia bias in the market and it shows by Nvidia just dominating consumer sales scarily so.... Hopefully next gen with the rumors swirling around, AMD is going to finally produce a card that will compete not only with the 5090 but 6090. This feels like the 5700xt (which I rocked solid for a full year) all over again and the calm before the 6000 series storm that had them draw even with Nvidia in raster and in some cases beat them at 1440p on the flag ship models. The gains in not only fsr but ray tracing have been absolutely massive for AMD and they really have caught up quickly to Nvidia up to the 5070ti/ 5080ish level at least this generation. 9070xt does run hot and heavy though. They need to work on that. Seeing those 600w+ transient spikes on the 9070xt in OCCT was pretty eye opening..... so much so I restarted testing with GPUZ and HWInfo running to confirm.

Loving the updated HWInfo for WVP2 along with the MSI MEG 1600T data..... Still boggles my mind MSI stepping me up to the AI1600T as a replacement. I wonder if they took a gander at my "registed product" history and went "whoa!" including the Vanguard 5090 🤣 But with all things taken into consideration, and the effective death of EVGA, MSI is my favorite and has been for quite awhile. Again, new cable and Pin 2 runs a smidge lower and Pin 6 a smidge higher. This is across three cables (Corsair 600w native, MSI Tentacle, MSI single run AI1600T) and two PSUs (Corsair SL1000 SFX, MEG AI1600T) Only causes a bit of separation closer to 600w. I'm going to go ahead and wire the auto shut off interrupt cable and heat sensors because....well....why not? 90 min of FO76: vs 90 min of WoW Midnight (Harandar Region): -------------------------------------------------------------------- Man, your chip is brimming on golden status running 2200/6400 line my 9800X3D. I tried everything I could to get it stable at 2200/6600 but that was a no go. I was asking for a unicorn though..... I never thought to run tRCDWR so low.... I'll have to give it a whirl.

Nice quick guide and one thing I like (and many other hardware w/ software makers could learn) is to allow the ability to completely decouple software from the hardware or at least allow settings to be retained in the hardware and software uninstalled at a minimum. EVGA installs were minimum and never required them to remain installed with their hardware. It looks like Asus *might* be learning with their new web based approach to setting up various devices and using them. The Armory Crate backlash may have finally caught up to them. No surprise with China. They have over 4x the population size (~1.41billion vs 345million) than the US and continue to advance and grow as a first world, consumer based, high tech market of western proportions at a voracious rate with plenty of disposable income. They are a massive market that continues to grow for consumer goods and products from McDonalds to Nvidia, their citizens want it and companies want to sell it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Steam Survey continues to skew towards them. We went through the same thing with Japan ~30 years ago when exports were grossly larger than imports and they were a tech paradise buying up everything. To realign the market like the world did with Japan will take a bit more coordinated effort with China but eventually a certain level of give and take has to be established. Personally, I've been to China and loved it. I also love all my state side Chinese friends and family. I'd go back in a heartbeat to visit. -------------------------------------------------- As for the drivers, good to see it was yet another bug. My big takeaway from it all with @Mr. Fox testing is EVC2 can override the limitations placed by Nvidia even if accidentally and If they were to implement such a bogus system, all cards would operate normally, better binned / better voltage models would continue to boost better naturally and only if someone tried to implement a decently sized OC would it then cap you at the knees which is trash. Even 5070 owners were reporting being capped when OC'ing. ----------------------------------------------------- Nvidia will continue to "innovate" by offering tiers of cards and performance while restricting memory as much as possible. Based on their need to redirect memory, the 5050 9GB doesn't make sense but the return of the 3060 (GDDR6), 5060 8GB variants and even a 5070 8GB makes sense for their goals. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 5070ti 12GB suddenly appear..... consumers low man on the totem pole as always when push comes to shove.... I installed the newest beta, but the last two I installed, 2101 and 2004, were problematic for me and I actually had to bump my voltage up by .05v to get them stable-ish. Previously they would boot and perform fine at 1.40 but suddenly i needed 1.45 at 8000 (8200 rated TG sticks) to even get them to post let alone pass any tests. I ended up rolling back to 2133/6400 settings with 2101 because it just would not stabilize at 8000 and I was getting sporadic crashes in WoW which can be memory sensitive. Long time players know the dreaded "Memory could not be 'read'" error..... I did notice Asus pulled 2101 completely in favor for 2102 beta for the x870e hero so something must have been off with it. I also noticed this in the notes for 2102 beta "2.Provide additional stability margin during high-frequency DDR5 training. 3.Addresses potential boot failures and stability issues observed on certain Ryzen 9000 configurations." I'm going to run 2133/6400 for a bit on 2102 to make sure it is rock solid, then recertify at 8000 again in a few weeks.

Thanks for giving it a run with the new drivers! Hmmm, even as you scale up the offset (let's say +250) it still holds that voltage and doesn't drop and/or cap your frequency to 3ghz or lower? I am going to give Nvidia the benefit of the doubt and say it is a driver bug just like they had with the fan issue previously, but you never know with Nvidia and locking things down instead of admitting potential defeat with this connector. If this is Nvidia's plan of attack, an EVC2 could prove to be even more valuable for overclockers who want to retain their voltage control if their particular card falls prey to it.

Well look at @Talon making the TPU and YT news! TPU: Intel "Bartlett Lake-S" Flagship Appears, Won't Boot on Consumer Motherboards | TechPowerUp Hopefully more subscribe to your YT channel and get to hear Bill Hader discuss tech! 🤣 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That would definitely help! If, with the 800w and 1000w vBIOS we can just adjust them up manually like with the other Asus 2000w XOC vBIOS (down in this case from 1.15), that rocks. My main issue now are the new drivers from Nvidia purposefully capping voltages when you overclock. The problem looks like the newest drivers might override even native vBIOS relaxing. In the OCN forums, someone running the XOC found they suddenly were limited to 1.025 vs ~1.1450 If this and future drivers put a hard lock on voltages based on certain criteria when overclocking regardless of BIOS limits, that is going to suck. @Mr. Fox any chance you can try the new drivers with your EVC2 and a >+190 core offset to see if it keeps your voltages and clocks suppressed even in the face of a hardware control mod? Those running stock vBIOS and try to OC are getting capped when overclocking and even those running the XOC are suddenly neutered down to 1.025 when overclocking. The good news (?), is if you're not overclocking or doing a mild OC (sub +190), the drivers are decent. Yeah, I slurped the 2500w for my collection as soon as it appeared. 🤣 Seems to be her son murdered her and a few others in the same location before officers put him down. Mental health issues. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article314852958.html He didn't start it. Someone else did to help out with funeral and other costs with a cap. I'm ok with GoFundMe requests but I've seen some truly wacky ones. Heck, you could throw one up for a "need" for a Lightning MSI 5090 or RTX 6000 and Threadripper and attach a need/sob story to it or a Kickstarter about how you want to, "Research AI via daily immersion in simulated battlefields" aka play BF6/COD! 🤣 I always have a soft spot for medical GoFundMe because we shouldn't be in a place in this country where people are routinely driven to bankruptcy or financial straights over medical issues. Seeing a few "big name" hollywood stars who had to start one and digging into the hundreds of thousands of dollars they had to spend if not millions for medical treatments is a pretty disgusting statement on the state of our healthcare system in this country while big pharma and insurance companies continue to rake in the profits. On a personal note, I have a very close family member that is having to rip through whatever they have for medical treatments for a variety of ailments that in any other country would be covered and that's with insurance here in the US. It's pretty disgusting. The fact we are one of the few, if only, first world countries without universal health care is pathetic.

I don't know what's more insulting.... Not sending a replacement set which they do have in stock but it now costs almost 3x as much or having the balls to deduct 15% from the refund for the original cost because of use depreciation when in actuality the items valuation depreciation actually increased over two fold..... In this situation, you either offer a product replacement equal or better than sent in for repair. You don't offer a refund because the replacement set is now worth so much more and you DEFINITELY don't then have the cojones to lop off 15% use depreciation. That is absurdly greedy on a gobsmackingly large scale. Not that Silicon Power was ever really on my list except besides a few freebies tossed my way for evaluation, but they will never be on my list to buy pretty much anything. 😠 Heh heh, what I liked most was him flat out saying he won't be soldering on another connector for him. Makes me think Dufus asked if he could also add another connector with the repair and was told, "nah bruh." 🤣 Ended on a sad note, though. His sister was murdered in Washington State. 😞 It was good to see the large outpouring of support though via his sister's gofundme and messaging. ♥️

New Xpac, new central city, same ole performance hit via CPU bottlenecking my 5090 in WoW due to player physics on what is basically still a single threaded engine..... 4k Ultra + RT everything on max. This is before the actual launch. This is early access. When the floodgates open up tomorrow, expect performance to tank even more.... I'm not sure what Blizzard did with the pre-xpac launch patch, but performance suddenly tanked in the previous Xpac in the main city Dornogal and it looks like it will most likely carry over into the new Xpac. RAM memory usage is off the charts now..... ~28GB allocated.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSI Lightning officially listed at my local MC for $5090 https://www.microcenter.com/product/707151/msi-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-lightning-z-overclocked-liquid-cooled-32gb-gddr7-pcie-50-graphics-card Or grab yourself an RTX 6000 for $9500..... https://www.microcenter.com/product/694549/pny-nvidia-rtx-pro-6000-blackwell-workstation-edition-dual-fan-96gb-gddr7-pcie-50-graphics-card On a budget? Snag a Gigabyte Gaming OC 5090 for the low low price of $3500.... https://www.microcenter.com/product/690449/gigabyte-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-gaming-overclocked-triple-fan-32gb-gddr7-pcie-50-graphics-card

EVGA always made sure their top tier chips hit certain boost goals and would hand number their chips and clocks for verification. The 3090ti, like the 3090, came in different classifications with different certified boost clocks certified. Anything more than that was up to the silicon lottery. I loved how the EVGA KPE 3090ti was built along with the FTW 3090ti Ultra which I had picked up May 2022 and returned to Amazon because it was $2199 on launch and not worth it in any way, shape or form but it was a beautifully built card and solid as a tank and ran very cool. Crazy so see even 3090/3090ti prices are some crazy upswings. Bodes well for 4090 owners and 5090 owners for resell value even more but sheesh. lol, what were the pin out readings on the WVP2 when it was >1500w?

Jay disappointed in the Lightning.....and also experiencing the disappointment of a 1000w BIOS meets a 1.030v bin...... 1.030v stock 1.045v maxed Crashes at 3200 Locks at +300 slider Remember last year when I kept saying voltage and stock voltage was important early on here and over on the OCN forums? As we've seen, they go hand in hand especially now that all these 800w/1000w/1200w/2000w BIOS are in the wild. The fact MSI didn't even bin the chips for voltage to at least complement the 800w/1000w BIOS files for normies is crazy. If you're needing EVC2 for a $5500 card after tax to try to even attempt to get your 800/1000w where it needs to be, something is wrong. I'm fine with most FE cards being the baseline for its price and they can afford to be trash voltage bins for the most part, but $5500? Fail MSI. Fail. Timestamped:

Sigh.....🤑

I do memtest, OCCT, TM5 and that locks it in for me so I get it. That is standard across the board. DDR5 Ultra testing has really locked in temps being so finicky way more than any other memory I used before though >=8400. I can definitely see water cooling letting memory rip properly. I've never been one to say, "hey it booted and gave me an Aida score.....I'M STABLE BRUH!" 😅 But yeah, for some it has gotten to that point where they will just keep moving the goal posts instead of just saying, "Nice OC bro!" No I don't need to run my CPU, GPU or memory into the ground to make you feel better or less salty about my OC thank you very much....😉

I flashed numerous P870s from DM up to TM with Dsanke some time back and it was hit or miss. Never hurts to give it a try, but make sure you have a programmer in case it is a miss. You were lucky @Scruffy to have one that worked with the software based flashing, nice.

He runs a pretty beefy MO-RA setup and bins the snot out of his gear each and every cycle and tunes it up pretty good but I don't remember Sugi being into all the Y-cruncher / OCCT/ Karhu e-peen swinging contests so I'm not sure.... Clearly stable enough to game tho! 🤣 Nice! Got to play around with it for almost a year and a bit of pocket change for more toys. Can't ask for more than that. Did you try G4 just to rule out the CPU and focus on the memory and to a degree MB? I did that just to make sure I could lock down the memory as far as the Strix would let me go and it topped out at 9066 G4 but that is what the Strix is rated, so there's that. That was with Memtest, TM5 and OCCT. I know at first glance those Corsair sticks wouldn't even boot and when I finally got them to boot they were problematic at 8200-8400 till I did what always ends up happening and just meticulously hand tuning them. How were the temps over 8400? That might be entering the land of needing a dedicated RAM cooler or janky 120mm/140mm fan over it to keep temps at bay. Did you order the epic edition of WoW? I usually pick it up so I can get 2-3 days of play before the unwashed masses come rushing in and gunk things up. 1984 was a reflection on humans and control. For some reason, we end up with those in power that want to control everything, take everything and overstay their welcome.... What I notice about the 5080 being the most popular on that chart for Nvidia cards is the absolute DOMINATION of AMD 9070xt (#1) and 9060xt (#2) which is nice to see. If they got a bit more realistic with their prices (which they are, as prices are trending back down), they could dominate even more in that segment.

Sugi pushing AM5 rig to the max: 5800 on all cores 9950X3D 8800 C34 5090 running 2500w Lightning BIOS clocking 3427 pretty much rock solid the entire play session

Yeah he just got that 5070ti the other day. I watched the quick unboxing. He's actually one of my favorite YT'ers to watch as he owns multiple platforms, tunes his hardware decently enough and always buys AMD and Nvidia top end cards with a sprinkle of midrange when he wants to bench. He also keeps Intel and AMD platforms too. He's not wrong and I agree with him. Like I said in an earlier post (and the video I posted is the same argument):

Red Devil is so much quieter and boosts higher than my Gigabyte. IMHO, this is the "premier" card to get this generation of 9070xt's especially using 3x 8pin vs 12v2x6. What makes it worse is the positioning of the connector on the Taichi 9070xt which is overly recessed or Nitro+ which is on the back of the card and will force a substantial cable bend in every scenario. Best argument for the 9070xt vs 5070 and 5070ti: Red Devil hitting 3300+ and 3400+ in FO76 at stock:

Whoa, you sold your 5090? I guess it makes sense considering you game at 1440p which keeps consistency across your desktop and laptop 1440p displays. In WoW, so much performance is left on the table at 1440p with a 5090. My wife games at 1440p and the 9070xt is near perfect for that at Ultra RT Max, but if given a choice I'd go with a 5070ti depending on price. Hope you got a good price for it. Did you ever tune and push those V-color 9600 sticks? Those should slot in nicely for Nova.... You're the second to sell off their primary/only 5090 so far. You and @tps3443. I wonder if he kept his Acer laptop or sold that too?

He's fun to watch though..... 🤣 He definitely has a very small following but 40k isn't terrible and enough to grift a decent amount of $$$ his way via discord paywalls, tuning classes, custom tuning for $500 a pop and constantly soliciting donations, hawking his classes or directing his followers to publicly thank those who donate over and over again.....

I started having weird little freezes with my main rig about a month ago. I caught the flu and was down for the count for 10 days and did not care about my computer, but getting back to D2D usage and just very random little issues. On the 17th the errors went into full tilt hardware errors overdrive: That was when I pulled my 5090 to swap into my Ultra rig and it had no problems and my main rig "calmed down" a bit without the 5090 in there. Still, something was up. Pulled out good 'ole AIDA full suite stress test, no problems. Pulled out OCCT and ran extreme tests on every sub system no problems. Ran OCCT combined extreme and started getting random errors every different run within 5-60 seconds: "VRAM failed," "GPU failed," "memory failed" and even "CPU failed". Each run was a crap shoot which error I would get so I was pretty sure it was the EVGA P2 1600w that was slowly failing and then suddenly took a turn for the worse. Installed the MSI AI1600T tonight and combined passed with flying colors. As a checksum, hooked the EVGA P2 1600w to the Ultra Rig with the 9070xt and OCCT combined crashed and burned on it too with the 9070xt. Bonus was seeing transients on the 9070xt hitting 600w+..... Getting the AI1600T couldn't have come at a better time.... EVGA P2 1600w has a 10 year warranty so it will be interesting to test the "new" EVGA for an RMA.....might as well get an RMA for a dead/dying K20 keyboard I have in the closet too from them. wasn't worth the postage to send it back but combined with the PSU probably worth the round trip.I tossed one of their wireless mice that just died a bit ago. Shoulda held onto it to toss in there too for an RMA...... Wife's EVGA K20 keyboard is still going strong and she beats the crap out of that thing playing WoW..... MSI AI1600T is gorgeous.....too bad you'll never see it in this Phanteks case. Good thing is switching to a single 12v2x6 run and the way the cables are thinner and braided meant easier runs and management. It has a USB-C to USB connector to the MB, but you need to run MSI Center Bloatware to access the features and yeah, no thank you. I'll use it as is. Almost in final boss form ( need to make a few cuts to the brackets for the DDR5 fan): ----------------------- Yeah, that was a pleasant surprise on the Ultra when running the original MSI octopus connector directly vs through the WVP2. I'll take every bit of coil whine reduction I can get. Definitely going to go back to 800w Matrix as my daily vs just testing but I also want to test the 1000w Lightning. Nothing wrong with the gigachad, but I'm leaving a lot of the 1.125v cap on my card on the table with the 600w variants. One thing I learned during the Pandemic was to scroll on by comments and positions that make zero sense. Better for your mental health. Politics? Religion? Absolutely stupid takes on tech? Scroll Scroll Scroll! I feel bad for family and friends that sit on forums and social media for hours on end just arguing. You won't walk away feeling better and you will carry that luggage with you for an indeterminate amount of time. Most forums and groups I quietly extract nuggets of useful information and absolutely refuse to engage in any type of flame wars. It's just not worth it. I didn't join OCN till 4-5 years ago, so I have no idea what it was like during its heyday. I am not. I'll have to give it a whirl. I'll have to check, but outside of outliers that heavily favor X3D (IE Fallout 76), Arrowlake is solid at 4k IMHO. I was a little bummed they cancelled the 290k. I was tempted to pick up that nice 285k over on the OCN forums that is delidded and 9200 C40 certified to play with.... Arrowlake felt a touch like Rocket Lake and almost a prototype calm before the big storm coming. I'm expecting big things at the end of the year from Intel. At least almost all of the XOC bios files are out in the wild now to play with so that's a plus....unless you're an FE owner or an Asus/Suprim AIO owner. As for the 9070xt? Marketshare tells us if given a choice, gamers will pick Nvidia all day everyday still but with 5070ti prices through the roof, 9070xt is viable....if priced properly. All the market conditions in the world won't force gamers to exceed a certain price point. I knew the writing was on the wall when Newegg started lowering their 9000 series prices a few weeks ago. Either lower the prices or get stuck with a glut considering 9000 series has been on the market for almost a year and 5000 series for over a year. Many who wanted them have bought them. Same theory applies to ram prices. You can jack up the prices all you want, but all I'm seeing is plenty of stock, eBay kits priced lower than the MSRP ones not moving and Newegg and MC now offering bundle deals. Nevermind the price of many things overall has gone up in this economy. Comparing my grocery price history today vs a few years ago and it's a bloodbath. Comparing many items on subscription on Amazon and prices are up easily 10-15% overall if not more. Prices in restaurants is so outrageous now and/or shrinkflation we eat at home now or do pick up orders to avoid a savage 20%-23% "recommended" tip (remember when 15% was considered generous?) Good times!

Installed the WV2Pro while testing on the Ultra for setup, taking the Corsair SFX SL1000 for a real run and some basic looking around. SFX 1000w has held up nicely.... Testing with the MSI Yellow tip of death adapter during Steel Nomad runs before I get around to the big transplant. Still collecting some Ultra WoW data for my archives. Verdict with MSI's yellow tipped 4 headed octopus? Not doing backflips.... Saw pin 2 dip as low as 6.8 and Pin 6 as high as 9.4... Interesting coil whine test. Connected directly to the Corsair SFX SL1000 and the Vanguard was definitely noisier than in my main case (inversely, the 9070xt is quieter in my main rig case with the P2 than with the Corsair), but when I hooked up the WV2Pro, that extra coil whine went away. That bodes very well.