electrosoft

AMD CAN run hot but Nvidia pushing the TDP 575w AND removing the hot spot sensor can't just be a coincidence nor limited to the FE edition. It comes down to cooler design and fan profiles too for the 9070xt: XFX clocking in at 53 core, 69 hot spot and 82 memory respectively while pulling 358w on their Mercury OC..... I think we'll really see what happens when cooled properly once @Mr. Fox blocks his Gigabyte. I was surprised as you too. Last gen was pure garbage for WoW across every single 7900xtx I tested. From the first XFX I purchased right after launch to the last MSI Gaming I tried last October. So many problems from DX12 and crashes to horrific RT performance and lockups/stuttering. Turning on RT basically turned the 7900xtx into a 3080. Even when I swapped in the 7900xtx to my Intel rig the problems were still there just that then Fallout 76 performance was at its all time low out of all four configs I tried with the 4090, 7900xtx, 13900ks and 7800X3D. This generation has gone much better since the 25.4.1 Adrenalin drivers for WoW. Zero problems or issues on this 9800X3D+9070XT. I'm running 25.5.1 (newest). With my first 9070xt, the launch drivers (25.3.1) had all types of problems but the next revision cleared up most of that and it's just gotten better for WoW. ---- I'll reiterate. When unhindered due to CPU exhaustion, the 5090 is an absolute monster and trounces the 9070xt, but when both cards are suffering from CPU exhaustion, I have found the 9070xt plays smoother at those lower fps than the 5090 with higher fps overall. During normal game play, I find the 9070xt hitting 99% util more often than not whereas the 5090 would routinely tap out the CPU hitting 30-40% more frames than the 9070xt. I like the highs, but the lows are of more concern. This was my 5090 on the last Radiant Flame final boss before returning it: I'm to the point, I want to test another 7900xtx to see if the drivers have gotten this much better or if it is the 9070xt architecture or a bit of both. You should scoop up a 9070xt to play with and test out to compare it against your 7800X3D+7900GRE sad times.

Well, we have no idea what Nvidia's hotspot is because they took the reading from us....I wonder why that is? 😞 Memory temps are spicy though! Depending on which card you use, your OC can be much ado about nothing as all cards tend to top out under load around 3200-3300 or lower. The Gigabyte Gaming/Masters are already coming out of the box hitting 3ghz+ at stock settings so there's not much room left. AMD has made massive strides in RT and basically looks like they've caught up to Nvidia. I'll be real curious to see @Mr. Fox block his and bring those hotspot and mem temps down. His tops out at ~350w OC'd, while the Gigabytes are topping out ~360-365w OC'd with some transient spikes into the 400w+ range. So basically the same @tps3443 we've grown to love and adore over the last 10+ years..... 💙

You get what you pay for. $2k is already stupid money for a consumer level GPU. Then you decide, do I want the Toyota or Lexus of the GPU industry and pay appropriately so. In the long run, for true OC'ers who are looking to be in the top of the charts, it won't be the Founders Editions that bring home the bacon. It will be the Astrals, Masters and Suprims out there. And you know this. Upside as always is the cost. That is where the FE shines and always will.

RTX Pro 6000 is absolute pure baller class. If price was no object, I'd scoop one up ASAP and pray it doesn't sound like Der8uaers.... 🤣 It is the 5090FE TI Super edition..... As for the Astral 5090, I had fun for two months playing around with it. Trying several vBIOS, OC'ing it, benching and collecting data in WoW, Fallout and Deus Ex along with 3Dmark stuff. Testing V/F curve offsets vs traditional, idle testing and all the fun stuff that was offered along with the 5080FE from launch moving through all the drivers and such. I'm good right now with the 9800X3D + 9070xt. $3600 is steep and personally I loved the 5090 overall but the bang:buck just wasn't there especially in WoW. I think I said it when I got it the problem was the 4090 was already being underutilized in PvP/PvE content and the 5090 just extended that even more. I really gathered a lot of data between the 9070xt and 5090 with WoW and I don't know if it is driver overhead in combination with the WoW engine but when the 5090 is firing on all cylinders, it is firing monstrously. Put the 5090 in an area with zero players and letting the CPU feed it properly and it was almost doubling the fps of the 9070xt (also at 5x the price) with both cards hitting 99% utilization. The problem comes back to player data/physics and when raids/orbs/assaults come into play, both cards tank hard but I found in let's say the new Radiant Flame assault and the final boss fight that the 9070xt actually gets better fps than the 5090 on the bottom end when the CPU is just getting hammered overall. I ran it over and over switching between the 9070xt and 5090 using two independent SSDs with their own W11 installs and the 9070xt just handled the CPU tanking better than the 5090 which results in better game play overall when fps really start to dip. I think I said it during my first round of ownership with the 9070xt when AMD fixed their drivers (understatement) and while the 9070xt was getting overall lower fps, the gameplay was just "smoother" than with the 5090 or 5080FE in WoW. Having run numerous Tier 11 delves solo, the gameplay, smoothness and responsiveness of the 9070xt is >=5090 even when it is getting ~160-170fps vs the 5090 clocking in at 238fps capped to monitor 240. This is with all the cards running 4k Ultra RT max. I'm tempted to pick up another (that would be my 4th or 5th) 7900xtx so I can see if it is fixed properly too with the newest drivers and runs just as smooth but its Achilles Heel was RT on just brutalized it and it was always recommended to turn it off. The 9070xt doesn't suffer from that problem in WoW. It seems odd to say it, but I'm finding the 9800X3D + 9070xt providing the best overall WoW experience atm especially during crunch time vs the 5090 when the CPU is gasping for breath and GPU utilization plummets. On the other hand, the 5090 absolutely wrecked the 9070xt in Fallout 76 and when dealing with outdoor bosses or dailies with plenty of other players, you can definitely feel that difference between the 5090 and the 9070xt. 9070xt is completely playable, but man that 5090 brought the high heat and then some. In the end, it was the $3600 just like in the end it was the $2665 for the KPE 3090ti that I could not reconcile.... The only cards on my radar now are potentially a 5090FE via VPA/BB because while it too is priced stupidly it isn't AS stupid but I'm in zero rush and that's because I want to dabble in some SFF build outs with it and that's the last area to explore with the 5090 for myself. When I get one, if it is a coil whine mess, off to eBay it goes.

Signal RGB is *almost* perfect for controlling all my devices. For some odd reason, it appears it won't work with AMD GPUs? It controls my Steel Series, Razor and Asus devices perfectly. Luckily the 9070xt has minimal RGB on it.

So I returned my Astral 5090 today (tomorrow was the last day), and I have to admit it feels like a monster sized weight has been lifted off my chest. No matter how I tried to spin it, I could not accept paying ~$3600USD for a consumer grade GPU to game and bench no matter how perfect it was. Pros: low to no coil whine, 1.110 ripe for XOC vBIOS, +3000, handled a +375 V/F curve offset no problem, clocked decently, aesthetically gorgeous, ran quiet, zero fans outside of meaningful load at all times. Cons: expensive, heated up my entire office within an hour turning it into a sauna so I had to keep the ceiling fan going and hoping the AC would kick on. I collected a lot of WoW data and swapped between the 9070xt routinely for various scenarios I would run including lots of LFR Raids, 5 mans and Delves along with ORBs and outdoor assaults and the 9070xt along with AMD made insane strides in driver stability and performance after launch on a level that has left me impressed but that's for another post. --- Fun convo with the guy who rang up the return. He immediately said "such a nice card." and once we got to talking, he said he noticed on my account I had picked up a Gigabyte 9070xt OC Gaming. I said I picked up an open box the second time around. He noted he used the same card and picked it up open box too a few weeks back. Yeah, that was the one I returned! It didn't even make it to an open box listing. He scooped it up. He games at 1440p, so you know it is tearing it up. In previous reviews of the 9800X3D vs the 9950X3D, gaming comparisons were basically a wash overall but I did not pay close attention to the 1% lows. I'll have to go back and take a look to test your theory. Before 9950X3D launch, the biggest wish was dual 3D-Vcache but alas..... Intel and AMD are both guilty for abandoning a proper monolithic and/or homogeneous design. At least AMD went back to it for their 9000 series GPUs. Raptor lake was too hot and a mess for more P-Cores (even though rumors of 10 and 12 core P-Core versions had hope springing eternal everywhere), but I thought they could have made an all P-Core variant of Arrowlake. At least 12 P-cores would have been enough for me. For RPL it is a per game hit or miss fest. For Alder, it was almost universal to turn them off. In Intel's defense, the E-cores on arrowlake are much better than RPLs but I still want a proper P-core only CPU. You might be right in the pursuit of Xeons.

If only to counter your "I ♥️ 5090FE" tramp stamp... 🤣 But in all seriousness, I like the 5090FE. It still is in my top three list based on price. size and aesthetics. If one pops on BB or VPA, I'd pick it up and give it the coil whine test. If it had bearable or no coil whine like my 5080FE (showing it is quite possible), I'd keep it. If not, off to eBay it would go. It is an amazing SFF card. I would then seek out a SFF case small as possible that supports either a top horizontal inverted mount so the card would exhaust directly out the top of the case or a classic vertical mount that could invert to exhaust out the side. You gotta dump that heat somewhere if you don't have a big enough case. 5090FE + 9800X3D air cooled tuned SFF build would be the end game for desktop and portable power.

285k vs 9950X3D both tuned (ish) Overall 9950X3D has higher fps, but the 285k has higher 1% lows sometimes substantially. Now THAT coil whine is identical to my 3090 FE. Just throw in a massive amount of variable pitch changes like the Aorus..... But with that being said, outside of the price, this is what the 5090 should have been from launch with just 32GB for the stupid prices being charged for the 5090. I LOVE the look and design of the Pro 6000 more than the 5090 FE plus you get the full fat GB202. Icing on the cake is the 96GB to run larger LLMs (well for me, I don't know about you). For AI work, it makes more sense for me to pick up a M4 macbook than a 5090. It makes more sense to pick up an M3 Ultra than the RTX Pro 6000. "The 5090 is the waste. The garbage from the production of these (6000)" - brutal. His end rant is spot on. You are getting the die rejects for the 5090 and yields for the full fat are much smaller. I'm sure Nvidia is stock piling the dies that can't even make it to mid range 5090 status and we'll get a 5080ti to dump those off. The fact the 6000 Pro can look and run like a 5090 is all you need to know in regards to Nvidia just pushing and upselling everything to absurd levels. Everything about the RTX 6000 Pro is the 5090 FE on steroids from the looks to the internals. 🤑 I still want a 6000 Pro though.....just not at $8k+

Hopefully it is just user error. I do know the dude who basically ghetto rigged his FE with that crazy pseudo water cooling was able to get some decent scores (I linked it here some time ago) but nothing like some of the AIBs are clocking in like @johnksss and his Astral for starters... ------------------ The benefits of not blowing $3k+ on a 5090 is you can buy so many other toys! I have ~2 days to return mine and I'm leaning towards just returning it and using my $656.99 9070xt. I've tried every way to justify blowing $2k+ on a 5090 let alone $3600 (ok, ok $3581) and the math just ain't mathing for me when I want to have room for some other toys to pick up and play with..... I sure have had fun gaming and overclocking it though for the last two months. 🙂

@tps3443 Have you heard the rumor that shunt modding the 5090 FE does nothing? I hope it isn't true. https://www.overclock.net/posts/29472599/

The Super 24GB variant will have 400w as it's official TDP. The 5080 FE is 360w. (or right around there). OC'd a bit more, but nothing like you will get with the vBIOS from Zotac or Asus. It isn't "practically" 400w. This from someone who tested theirs extensively before getting excited about the vBIOS then pissed off. 🙂 With all the extra headroom on the 5080, an AIB model (unless you want to shunt) is the way to go and flash it with Zotac or Astral vBIOS and really let it somewhat cap out nicely. 5080FE OC'd to +400 / +3000 99% utilization in WoW (I'll dig around for my other SS in TS/SN but I never saw anything meaningfully over 360w)

Yeah the 5080FE is a banger especially for $999.99 but it is limited to ~360w which is the official spec. It's still a killer card and third most powerful out there atm. You will need a different vBIOS to open it up to to even 400w or especially 450w on the Astrals/Zotacs of the world. 😞 BB drop, so $999 MSRP still on the FE's.

Well hello sailor! 😍 Why is bitrecover watermarked on every picture?

Unfortunately FE editions (5080 / 5090) can't cross flash vBIOS unlike the AIB variants. That's the #1 reason I sold my 5080 FE a few weeks back. You can shunt mod it, but no thanks. ------ and yeah, Best Buy had a drop of FE cards this afternoon including 5070, 5080 and 5090 models. This is their second drop of FE cards. Nvidia VPA is dropping pretty regularly now too. I've had at least 4 guildies / clan members score one now directly from Nvidia. Prices are definitely trending down on eBay for the 5090 FE now. Tons of other cards coming into stock across all brands too on the regular.

5090 owner told, "You should have gotten a 9070xt bro..." His response.... 🤣

I'd like just the display itself to take along with a laptop or SFF. They can yank all the other stuff out of it.

lol, yeah, I cancelled it after talking to my wife and really thinking if saving some $$$ was worth the downside for the next few years when I am 100% happy with the Astral (besides the price of course 🤣). I actually spent considerable time on BB looking at cards and then MC and NE and seeing the various levels of savings vs worth the potential issues and would I be happy with it weighing the pros and cons and each time was a no and so here we are. I could be equally happy with a Suprim I think, but they're so close in price what's the point and there's a chance it's a dud and/or has coil whine..... My wife knows me better than I know myself and at dinner we talked about it again in detail. And in her final words, "From what I heard tonight, there is like zero chance this 5090 is going to be anywhere near as good or well built or perks filled like your 5090 now and you've said numerous times your 5090 is perfect like your 4090. so I think this is stupid and you are going to regret it over $800 which is really nothing overall over two years. Either keep it or return it and use that rodeo (Radeon lol) thing and pass the rice." ------ True, the Windforce tier is one step below the Gaming OC tier. The Aorus Master level is where Gigabyte really starts to step it up a level. The price:performance level of your 4090 was great. Once costs get down to a certain point, you can start to say, "Well, I'm ok with this and that." I remember you weren't doing backflips over its clocks. FE build quality is lights out, period. It is streamlined and elegant. I have always loved the look and feel of the last three generations of FE cards. the 4090 FE was just a monster slab of beauty and the 5080 / 5090 FE is a compact eye catching engineering beauty too. Even Steve at GN lavished a ton of praise on it. It's gonna be painful watching you tear it apart, but it's worth it for the results. 🤣 Once you start pursuing quiet computing, it is really hard to go back to noisy setups outside of pure benching for a few minutes here and there. My system is absolutely whisper quiet during normal use and gaming I can have the speakers on low and still not hear my system.

All that is guaranteed (assuming compatibility) is what is stamped on the boxes regardless whether it is memory, CPUs or GPUs. For memory, you have to toss in MB compatibility and IMC along with other things on top of it. But yeah, when I grabbed some Patriot 8200 kits before that couldn't even do 7800 TM5 30 minute let alone 90 or Karhu on my SP109 + Asrock Z790i but turned right around ordered TG 8200 that worked no problem up to 8600 and could post 8800. Same problem binning B-die sticks too especially when it gets to voltages and timings. Same kits but others could go well beyond the others. Crazy. But good set of data to chew on! Glad out of all of that a set emerged that could do 8000!

Yeah, going for best bang:buck, but my wife legitimately had me cracking up over our morning coffee/tea. "I ordered a different cheaper 5090" "The GPU thingy?" "Yeah" "Why?" "Because it will net me the bulk of the 5090 at almost $800 cheaper" "So less than the cost of us going to Disney for one day in February?" (I can sense where this is going) "I guess so..." "And what if this card isn't 'perfect' like the one you have now as you've said a few dozen times" "I'll return it..." "and keep the the current one?" "Prolly or try another and I'll have to return it by then so it will be gone" <Audible Sigh on her part> "What?" "Can't you just enjoy it? You're like the most financially responsible person I've ever met even to your own demise" "Huh?" "Because if you end up having to return it during your 'Let's make a Deal!' swap fest, what if you never get another as good as this one? Am I gonna have to hear it on the regular?" "Prolly" "Just keep the damn card. Please. You even said in a few years you'll be able to sell it and get back everything most likely" "It's called an Astral by the way..." (in my snootiest voice possible) <Slow Eye Roll> "Why the eye roll" (We're both starting to crack up at this point) "Because you lucked out, first time, on this GPU thingy" "An Astral" "An 'Astral' (with finger quotes) that as you put it is 'firing on all cylinders' (more finger quotes) with zero problems and you're going to jump through hoops over $800 to chance receiving a not so good card over and over again if ever again?" "Yeah, but $800....." <Slow sip with eye roll and sigh> <Laughter for the next few minutes> She is right though. I'm going to try ONE Windforce since it is the cheapest one on the market outside of the FE but a traditional AIB model and I will have time to try and return it before I'd have to return the Astral. I have zero complaints about this Astral except the price and I do get her reasoning. 🤣 Clocks high High voltage max (1.110) Does +3000 Build quality is lights out love the aesthetics (understatement) runs quiet low to no coil whine (have to have the room dead silent to find it even the gpu fans) real time per pin monitoring High voltage waiting for an XOC leak Chonker heatsink shown to be able to handle the XOC bios quite nicely for some use Just hate the price. Yeah, the pricing is still high here but cards are coming into stock much faster across the board and staying in stock for many models (I'm looking at you PNY).

I just pulled the trigger on a Gigabyte Windforce 5090 for $2639.99. If it turns out to be a decent card (IE no or low coil whine which is all I care about really), I'll return the Astral and pocket the ~$800 difference as for what I do it will get me what I want and slap that $800 back in my pocket. It's priced closer to an FE than an Astral. Astral is a monster, don't get me wrong with a top Voltage range of 1.110 and satisfies every thing I could want in a 5090 except the price. If everything works out as planned, if one of you (this thread only) wants it for exactly what I paid ($3582.59) + S&H, let me know else back it goes by next Sunday no harm; no foul. I won't sell it on OC. I'll just return it and avoid the headaches from over there. I'm also going to be testing a few sub $200 budget x870 boards and maybe selling off the Crosshair too while I finish setting up these two other systems to sell off a bunch of my other parts laying around. Time to reel this ship back in a bit. 🙂 --------------------- Yeah, I double checked and it is 100% compatible so most likely identical PCBs but better cooling on the elite. It doesn't list the normal 9070xt gaming though which is odd unless there's a difference between them. I do have the OC though. One down, a few more to go. They will sell. It is just AMD is "hot" right now and moves much quicker, but outside of a few grossly overpriced samples, the 13th and 14th stuff does move and your chips are priced nicely.

Playing some WoW switching between the Gigabyte Gaming OC 9070xt and Astral 5090 still seeing if I could get by with the 9070xt to tide me over as my primary GPU and wait on a cheaper 5090 and return the Astral (I have till the 3rd) and some of the newer areas the performance difference is just savage. In many of the areas out questing and doing dailies, I'm getting 70fps with the 9070xt capped at 99% even on a 12700kf and in the same exact area on the Astral 5090 with a 9800X3D tuned up I'm getting 186fps and 93% utilization. Just brutal stuff like this happens all the time in open areas playing and questing. I routinely look up at the OSD and the 9070xt is huffing and puffing at 99% with sub 90fps and the 5090 is wanting for more sitting at 50-60% utilization at 120-130fps+ looking at the 9800X3D going, "common bro...." Whew, that moved quick! Quick sale on AMD stuff these days but Intel stuff, even the 14th/13th gen goodies, lag. Who wudda thunk it? I think it is AMD being overall the better choice to many, degrading fears and many do not want delidded CPUs for their use (maybe warranty fears). At a certain price point, many buyers are just going to pick up a 9800X3D/9950X3D or go buy a boxed CPU unless the SP is really good. As always, eventually buyers will mosey on by..... Will it fit the Gaming OC line too? I agree on the temps. 9070xt is a hot and heavy beast including Gigabyte's cards. Memory and hot spot temps are crazy hot. Both I've had and have ran/run pretty toasty.

Ditto with my main rig card, but you water cool the CPU or AIO? You know what, just slap up a refresher pic of your rig.... 🤣 w00t! on the 8000! on a 2DPC x670e board, that is a massive win!

Very nice! Top three on air....boom! I'm pretty sure @jaybee83 doesn't watercool his cards. I think I asked him before and the answer was no.

As a checksum, I would pick up a 1dpc board from Asrock (or similar, rated at 8200+) for testing everything memory wise unless you've come to the conclusion your MB is limited to ~7600/~7800 and or CPU? https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162201?Item=N82E16813162201 This is what I did with my Carbon x670e to figure out what was truly giving up the ghost and to know where my topped out vs CPUs and kits of memory.

Watching the XOC bios pulling 950w+ on an Astral cooled by De8auer's block.... No real need for CAMM memory outside of potentially more exposed area to cool better.... Crazy builds....