electrosoft

Agreed. I only picked up the X670E Carbon because it was open box in April 2023 for $345. The difference between X870E and X670E is USB4 is mandatory and that's about it in regards to importance.

All the top end 2-dimmers side by side for Intel Z890: I like the Unify-X followed by the Taichi, Apex and Aorus last.

There is ZERO chance I'm upgrading to an X870 board for AM5. Ridiculous. One day enthusiasts will catch on that Asus is crazy overpriced. Even the Apex is crazy expensive but it brings much more bang:buck than the Extreme. For AM5, after testing quite a few 2-dimm boards on the lower end, I would go with either a low/mid 2-dimm board or if I'm splurging wait for the Crosshair 2-dimm or find a used X670e variant. Worse case, I'd just go ITX again. I'm not sure the entire lineup of 2-dimm X870/e boards that are going to arrive yet. Same for Intel with AL. It has to be a 2-dimm board even if I went cheap on the mATX/ITX level. 4-dimm is just garbage but I can see for those who need massive amounts of memory. At least it has a use case. I'm still waiting for day 1 results so we can get an idea of where AL stands. If results are equal or slightly better at best, it is a skip for me but we'll see. We're in a day and age where budget boards are routinely priced at mid or lower top tier pricing from a few generations ago, disgusting.

And yet you know some are going to buy it because...well.... EXTREME!!! EXTREME!!! EXTREME!!!!

We need more of this: A DIY laptop with real desktop components, awesome.

I'm almost sure it is going to be 11th gen all over again (which I liked!). Clear architecture uplifts both on P and E, enhancements but the reduced core count means equal or slightly better multithreaded performance but games will benefit all on a better node. Like 12th gen, it will initially hit with ok temps when tamed even running full tilt but if they decide to tack on more cores, it will start to inch towards a lesser version of 13th or 14th. If this turns out to be a single socket stop gap, that would be a slap in the face. Yeah, it truly is a monster. Thinking of the 5090 being that much better is crazy. Financially, the smart move for myself really would be to settle into the 14900KS/7950X3D (actually pick ONE lol), sell off everything so I'm left with my main desktop, wife's desktop, a few laptops THEN pick up a 5090 and skip 15th/ AM5 X3D for whatever comes next.... ....as I said, that IS the smart move.... 🤣 My daughter finished playing Hogwarts on the 7900xtx/7600x and is bored with WoW already so she's back on her mobile gaming as always so that's gathering dust atm too. And in this household, dust gathering tech gets sold ASAP.

It is an architectural upgrade like 11th was over 10th. Core for core, clock for clock it will beat 12th-14th. It has a vastly improved iGPU and other improvements from mobile on up. It does have a smaller core count, but even with that it will most likely match Raptor in performance even with the lower count because of the architectural improvements which is something to acknowledge. In the computing sector, there is much more to life than just sheer core counts and multicore performance. That is a very small subsection for the vast majority of users. I like it, sure but I also acknowlege and know these CPUs have to be multifaceted for many user use case scenarios. For your use case, it IS looking like 11th gen all over again..... 😞 With that being said I do like my cake and to eat it too and I wish it could bring the same core count / HT along with the improvements instead of regressing like 10th->11th. I am sure down the road, more cores will show up just as they did for 12th->13th. HT? Not so sure. Maybe HT is a thing of the past going forward as it might have been holding back their design decisions for whatever reasons or like you say it may be added back in later.

I'll wait all that early data to get a gauge of what we can expect. If it's close, I'll wait. if it presents some serious gaming and IPC uplift (in that order), I'm probably going to pick a few up and give it some runs. The early data isn't blowing me away, but once in hand we'll get an idea. I'm seriously on the fence with the 5090. Realizing just about all my bottlenecks at 4k in WoW and FO76 are all CPU bound issues with the 4090. 5090 would give me some nice overall uplift, but the gap would widen even more. This is the first time I've encountered this problem in forever. It doesn't help my incentive to upgrade when the 4090 I have has basically no coil whine till 144fps+ and then it is very quiet. It takes 300fps+ to really get it to even meaningfully wake up. It doesn't heat up my room like my 3090ti did either and clocks like a monster. 600w 5090 stock already is giving me flashbacks of my 3090ti turning my computer room into a sauna already. On the other hand, based on reports the last few days, it is going to be an absolute wrecking ball.....so there's that to consider too. 🙂 CPU utilization would go down even more but overall performance would jump nicely.

Reading up on 15th gen on various forums and I feel myself getting excited.....I know I said I was going to skip or have a protracted waiting period but I swear if @Talon drops some day 1 decent results I fear I'm going to pick a few of them up.....🤣 I sense me dumping all my 12th-13th gen chips, keeping my lone SP109 14900KS (and cool hand 12900K in the NH55), plopping that 14900KS in the wife's system with the lightning Z790i board, selling off all my Z690/Z790 boards, dumping the last of my DDR4 and boareds and starting fresh with 15th gen and AM5 only. 🙂 I gotta kick this addiction....

Very nice bro! Definitely looking forward to the 9950X3D. 🙂 Looking forward to the IMC/PBO love (along with a static OC comparison is always nice)

My bad lol. I double checked my notes. I mixed up Asrock B660M RS with the Asrock B660M Riptide I had for a bit then gave to my niece + 12100F . My Nephew got the B660M RS + 12100F and my Daughter had the Prime B660 + 12400F before upgrading her to the Prime B650 + 7600X. It's quirky, but it does get you most of the functionality you will need to get the job done. Z790i Lightning is an absolute steal for its capabilities and memory OC. It also has the best VRMs for iTX boards.

Yikes, well incoming 7900XTX. I've owned and used the XFX 7900XTX, MSI 7900XTX and currently the Powercolor Hellhound (RAWR!) White 7900XTX. I've found they're all about the same and in terms of coil whine in the order presented from worst to best. First two 3x8 pin, Hellhound is a 2x8 pin model. Red Devil is one of the better designed PCBs along with Sapphire and top dog (again) is the Asrock Taichi. With RT off, 7900XTX is a pretty beastly card in 4080/4080 Super land and depending on games can nip at the heels of the 4090. RT on and it has problems competing with even the 3080 sometimes. If you're not an RT fan, it is a really good card overall. Hopefully you found a good price on it.

Very true on 12th and 13th. If you don't have a halfway decent IMC, you can be limited to as low as 3200-3333 easily on DDR4 (just ask my 12400F lol), but on DDR5 testing, it topped out right below a couple 12900k's I tested that capped out around 6600-6800. I don't have any non K 14th gen so I didn't know that unleashed VCCSA. Good to know. Unless they changed the rev, the Asrock Z690 RS mATX boards can bclk like a champ.

I have a 12400 and 12500 non K here and both have full access to memory OC/XMP on Asus Prime boards. You can also do Bclk OC (as @Mr. Fox indicated) if you want to go that route. I also tested a 12100F on an Asrock board a few years ago and it had full memory OC and I was pushing it with bclk before I gave it to my nephew in an A380 build he is rocking and loving.

Hey @Raiderman! Life will do that to ya. 🙂 Always glad to see ya brother. You're the first to break rank here and get a 9950X, but you weren't going to go X3D anyhow methinks.

I just have a sneaky suspicion with the 5000 series that the AI bubble will die down a bit (no pun intended) and this cycle we're gonna see a 5090ti with the full tilt 24,576 cores (vs 21732) even with the 5090 rumoured to have a 512-bit bus. We'll see. With that being said, the 5080 vs 5090 difference is massive if that holds true. The 5080 might not even match the 4090 at that rate or be effectively equal. The trade off is a much better price point. 5090 looks like it is going to be an absolute, power hungry monster.

If both have X3D, they will lock down the OC a bit because of temp sensitivity that's almost guaranteed but I'll take dual X3D CCDs over full OC'ing every day of the week.

My take exactly. So far, Zen5 and Arrow Lake are looking like a mild upgrade on both parts at this point. I'm glad the lackluster launch of 9000 is speeding up the release of X3D.

MUCH better and looks really nice!

I'd like to say with 100% certainty I'm NOT getting 15th gen.....but I can not. 🙂 As it is getting closer, I'm starting to get that "itch" especially being a new architecture. Hopefully reviews show it being close enough (or slower even) than 14th gen to scratch this itch adequately. 🙂 Problem is the 4090 is clearly NOT the problem in WoW.....

Nice! I noticed those two fans immediately. I really like the over/under stacking you seem to use for your setups. Really lets you pack the hardware in there.

Two things: #1. Nice IMC! #2. That's really nice and cool of you to delid and test chips for others bro.

Just ran the raids last night on my 7950X3D/4090 and yeah, some big time chunk a few times and fps dipping to 80-90fps a few times in fights. As expected, it isn't the GPU as GPU utilization classic WoW style dipped as low as 51%. I'm going to rerun them on my 14900KS/7900XTX later for a quick baseline/comparison and just to see where GPU utilization bounces around.

"WoW 2" was a game in development for years called/code named Titan but they ended up turning that into Overwatch as WoW just seemed indefatigable at the time. WoW is still a monster, but nothing even close to the soaring heights of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King releases where I remember camping out for my copies and everyone being crazy excited. Wrath of the Lich King was perfection and then we got Cataclysm and things started to decline.... After that, it became very Microsoft in that one would be good then the next would be trash. Vanilla? Epic The Burning Crusade? Good Wrath of the Lich King? Epic Cataclysm? Not so good. Mists of Pandaria? Good Warlords of Draenor? Absolute trash ( I stopped playing this one) Legion? Epic Battle for Azeroth? Not so good Shadowlands? Very good Dragonflight? Almost as bad as Warlords (I actually quit this one for over a year it was so boring) The War Within? If it follows the pattern, it should be good. So far, I'm enjoying it. In terms of my favorites: 1. Vanilla 2. Legion 3. Wrath of the Lich King 4. Shadowlands 5. The Burning Crusade 6. Mists of Pandaria 7. Battle for Azeroth 8. Dragonflight 9. Cataclysm 10. Warlords of Draenor The way WoW is now, if you're a new player, you can level 1-50 in a previous Xpac. It makes the game fun if you want to level alts and try an Xpac/era you maybe missed. Fallout 76 just lumps everything together so all it's expansion content and such just integrates and flows seamlessly.

Absolutely. Even Blizzard knows "with or without" player data/FX is massive. They have that option for Raid settings in the graphics menu because anywhere there are lots of players along with spell/FX calculations, the CPU gets a major workout and fps dive along with GPU loads. Project Lasso (PL) really is a fantastic tool not only for AMD but Intel and those pesky e-cores. Early on, PL was basically the only way I could run a 7950X3D both CCDs enabled and not have WoW (and other games) drift onto the non X3D cores and take a hit. Recently, I've been testing a lot between PL, X3D CCD only and GB only and I'm not really seeing much of a difference but I want to take those tests into the new raids where the CPU takes a pounding. I also found for Raids, Cities and ORBs that optimizing your memory makes a pretty significant difference especially on Intel systems for the lows. Timings > Frequency (but try to have your cake and eat it too). In the end, Blizzard really needs to overhaul the engine again and make it truly multithreaded versus the now dual threaded-ish nature it works which is a major upgrade over the single threaded nature it had for almost 15 years. It can get pretty rough once you get to level 7ish and lower but for me my priority is always distance view and resolution first then I flesh out everything else. New content with my array of laptops (some of these will need to go soon lol. My collection is grown again): My NH55 with the 12900k golden chip, pair of the killer binned OLOY DDR4 sticks and 3070ti handles it well enough at 1080p. I can run Level 10. If a custom BIOS eventually shows up, first thing I would do is tighten up the memory even more and dial in the 12900k even higher. I'd love to get this SP109 14900ks in there with a killer 0.969v 4300mhz V/F point. My Dell G15 with 13650HX + 4050 does 1080p pretty decently and sits around setting 8 My Acer Nitro 5 w/ AMD 7535HS (glorified 5600x) + 4050 does 1080p around the same setting-ish but the 7535HS struggles compared to the 12900K and 13650HX My Asus notebooks with Ultra 155h/185h and 3050 not so much and I have to dial it down to level 6 at 1080p and might have to go even lower. I'll need to retest all of these once I finish questing and doing the normal campaign. With Fallout 76 new content/season and WoW new Xpac, I've been playing a bit of each everyday so my journey is taking longer (albeit I'm level 80 in WoW already).