electrosoft

Yeah I watched this last night. I absolutely refuse to use Armory Crate. Last time was on the wife's system and pure laziness setting it up decided to give it another chance. She kept getting stutters and freezing in games and random BSODs. It was a clean install and the only difference was Armory Crate. I removed it and everything went back to working like normal. I installed it again as a test and the crashing and game issues returned. This was with as minimal of an install as I could get on there for RGB controls. I ended up just nuking the whole thing again and used SignalRGB and smooth sailing since. You definitely need AWCC to control the power modes. Balanced is king. CPU is almost to max and the 5070ti pulls 175w. I didn't even know a 5070ti could be rated this high. I thought it was 140w. In Overdrive mode the CPU pulls 170w+ and the GPU drops down to 140w. Everything just stays so cool. Hardware wise, Dell knocked it out the park this time but I agree with the forced updates. I'll have to check to see if there is an option in BIOS to disable BIOS updates. The redesigned AWCC isn't that mad or intrusive. What is intrusive is all the other Dell custom software crammed on there as always. The 5070ti in there performs like a 4080 mobile even down to the benchmarks. I used an Asus Strix 18 with a 13980hx in it and a 4080 before so performance is good. It can't touch the MSI A18 Raider's 23k+ 4090 Timespy with it's 18k+, but still gets it done. I wish they offered an 18" version of the Hydroc. I see it will have a 9955HX3D option soon which is nice! I expect the 9955HX3D to come in like the 7945HX3D and rule the roost..... 9955HX vs 275HX is a wash. Both are fantastic mobile chips:

Usually antagonizing and/or inflammatory post, even steeped in some truth, are frequently removed. Sometimes you have to know your audience and think about what you're saying and how it is presented. I say this not even knowing exactly what you posted 😁

I've been quietly putting an Alienware Area-51 18 2025 sent to me through its paces and Dell/Alienware has an absolute winner on their hands this time around. If the BIOS was at least somewhere between Asus and MSI/Prema for customizing, I'd declare it near perfect and their first worthy 18" since the Alienware 18 I had w/ the 4940mx many moons ago. One downside for many is the lack of an mLED or OLED display. On my laptops, I'm fine without either and sticking with good 'ole IPS. This one is rated for up to 500nits. I could only get a 5070ti variant but beggars can't be choosy and I'm not going to look a gifted horse in the mouth. MSI could learn a few things about cooling. How it is able to handle 170w+ CPU power and also allow the 5070ti to pull up to 175w and make that level of noise and stay that cool is damn impressive. Zero overheating anywhere. Build quality is the best I've encountered in an 18" laptop in years. Much more solid than the Acer Predator 18, MSI 18 4090 or Scar Strix 18 4080 I've used or tested in the past. Imagine if/when they find a way to allow you to properly undervolt the Ultra 9 275HX in this thing.... It's already hitting ~38k in CB23 in balanced mode. Loving all the ports on the back now except for a card reader and headphone jack on the side. 5070ti is hitting 18k+ in Timespy out of the box. Can't touch the 23k+ of my MSI and it's 4090 but it does it much quieter. Decent review of the 5080 model:

Makes total sense 13th and 14th gen laptop variants are equally susceptible to the degrading issues since they really are just clock/power downed desktop variants at this point.

While trying "new things" with the desktop I built him a few years ago, my nephew managed to nuke all his drives (sans the one mechanical 1TB drive I put in there and told him to use it to backup everything important which he did) on top of his system running oddly. He was trying to learn how to install Linux and use Mint. The more he did the worse it got till eventually his mom dropped it off for rescue work. They live 2-3hrs away. I ended up upgrading his system with the components I picked up from gtz over on OCN: 12100f -> 13400f A380 -> 3060 12GB 128GB boot -> Samsung 980 Pro 1TB Gave it a most needed cleaning from head to toe (it was chock full of dust and dog hair), recert/tested all his components. Replaced a faulty Sata cable, discovered the distro he was trying to use failed sha256 checksum, created a proper mint distro install for him and reinstalled Windows 11 and made a proper dual boot Mint system for him along with reorganizing his data properly. He will be pleased. Games wise, this is a pretty decent upgrade since he games on a 25" Dell 240hz IPS 1080p display I gave him along with his system 🙂 I closed up my desktop. Glass and front panel back on signifying it is in final AMD boss form. The 9800X3D and 9070XT run cool enough that I only have the three AIO fans on the 420 as intake and everything else passively exhaust cooled and the case is so big and porous enough and the 9070xt doesn't pull the sun into orbit like my Astral 5090 did that temps are the same even after hours of gaming on the 9800X3D and 9070XT. In addition, my computer room doesn't turn into a 1970's sauna within an hour of playing.... I just can not get over how well the 9070xt handles the lows/fps when the CPU is being assaulted with all that player data. It can never soar as high as a 5080/4090/5090 when being fed properly, but in WoW how it handles the lows is most important and routinely in Raids, PvP and ORBs, utilization drops under 100% same as the other cards and that is where it shines.... One thing I do miss though is the locked 240fps in delves. That was just a super, silky smooth experience on the 5090. Fallout76 on the 5090 was beast mode too.

About time! Looking forward to the results. Intel CEO is accepting real world realities. The fact is their fabs and semiconductor standing has fallen so far behind and financially they are in such dire straits that they can not commit the time or resources attacking that AND trying to compete IP wise. AMD realized this years ago and sold off their fabs and focused on IP advancements and using superior fabs to deliver their products and it paid off big time. There is a reason the US is trying to get TSMC fully integrated in the states. It not only puts the premiere fabs state side but also ties us directly to Taiwan while China continues to threaten a take over. Intel brought much of this on themselves not innovating but instead extending and milking product lines like they did for decades until AMD caught up and surpassed them in many ways. Throw in 13th/14th gen woes and it just worsened. Intel has to figure out a way to continue to innovate CPU wise, regain trust and push hard in their GPU department because that is one area they are doing very well. ------------ As for Jensen, like many corporations, he's all about the $$$ and appeasing shareholders. If the US government hadn't started to force corporations to look elsewhere, these corporations would keep on with business as usual to maximize profits using China's cheap labor to the detriment of the US and the world. I'm not saying the last 3 presidential cycles were the best in the US (people keep ignoring the fact Biden was also extending and enhancing the trump 45 policies on China), but one thing across both political parties was consistent and that was checking China. I still do wish that trump was a bit more reserved and pragmatic in his second term approach to tariffs and world economics and focused primarily on China first then rolled out the next phase a bit more structured. ------------------ As for AI, anybody with a few firing synapses could see the writing on the wall with AI workplace replacement. It is the ultimate production tool both white collar and blue collar workers. Automation on a sweeping scale but we will reach a tipping point where that automation will cause humans the inability to properly participate in the economy....then what? Intel is where Nvidia was at the start. All open arms and welcoming anything and everything to break through and gather market share. Given time and if they somehow make a dent against AMD and Nvidia, you will see those same control freak mechanisms slowly return. Remember, this is Intel. The same company that used to either bribe or coerce resellers and OEMs to not offer AMD and forced parts down their throats. The same Intel that priced their CPUs continually upward and left us with stagnant nodes and core counts till AMD was a viable threat. The same Intel that persists on tossing out chipsets every few cycles forcing consumers to upgrade their motherboards. There are plenty of other examples.... ------------------------ Nice roundup of 9070xt models. XFX Mercury is the best all around cooler by far. Gigabyte Gaming cooler is taking some hits but it is the smallest, shortest model in the mix and clocks aggressively. No way I'm paying $200 more for a Mercury over my Gaming though ($859.99 vs $656.99).... Albeit the Gigabyte Gaming makes his least recommended list heh....

Also knowing some EVGA engineers went to Sparkle is good to know. I'll put them on my to watch list. Nvidia is just a greedy tyrant now and the only reason they are allowed to run rampant is because they do have the superior product from the 5080 on up and mind share and good products from the 5070ti on down. They also dominate AI but AMD is steadily making gains and all it takes is a series of mistakes and Nvidia can be Intel'd very quickly. Also nice to know that Intel is literally selling out consistently of every GPU they can get out the door. They are consistently sold out everywhere at MSRP. I remember when some were saying Intel was shutting down their GPU division after arc..... tsk tsk tsk.

*** SOLD *** (again) 🙂

That's a slick idea. Kudos to both playing. My wife is going on 5 years strong soon playing WoW since Fall of 2020 during the pandemic. Find something that can at least play it but draws low power to WoW it up while on the road! My daughter uses an Acer Swift Edge 16 OLED 7840U w/ a 65w charger that can handle WoW and even Hogwarts on lower settings. I'll have to float that idea by her when we settle in for fall travel. It never even crossed my mind!

We know exactly why this happened.....some just don't want to open their eyes unfortunately. 😞

You understand why this is a fallacy right? Like, you get it..... Cooling procurement is irrelevant. On a hardware level, the 6000 is superior to the 5090FE and every other 5090 out there. Just because you can douse it in water to handle shunted power draw doesn't change that reality... If the dude who binned 16 of them and plans to either modify or fab a WB finishes up his project, you will see the reality of your fallacy.... 🙂 Price:Performance? Absolutely. Overclocked/WB/cooled vs out of the box? Absolutely. But you still understand why that way of thinking is flawed. It's the 2080ti all over again like I said before. 🤣

But the 96GB of VRAM! I will give Nvidia a little leeway depending on yields of near perfect dies versus the much larger margin of error for 5090s along with 96GB of VRAM, but not 4x the price worth vs the 5090FE. I think the market agrees as 6000 Blackwells can be ordered for $8k at multiple locations and are continually in stock.

Some YT testing 5090FE vs 6000 stock for stock out of the box experience on a poorly setup 9950X3D system. ~15% faster in Steel Nomad ~8.2% faster in CP2077 Obviously an absolute monster for LLMs....

I'm sure I would enjoy a 5090 FE shunt modded.... 🤣 As I slowly amass parts and do research for a SFF 3.0 buildout for fall travel, I'm thinking the Gigabyte 9070xt might be all I need along with an external 23.8" portable display and wireless KB/M but we'll see. If a 5090FE drops before then I'll probably give it a whirl but I haven't even been following the stock bots or anything for weeks now if that tells you anything. This tuned 9800X3D+9070xt combo is really punching above its weight in WoW. But I'm liking everything you've done with the 5090FE so far bro! Really good results even if it is close to causing a black hole with that power draw. 🤣 I saw over on the OC forums that dude who binned 16 6000's and is looking to take it to the extreme from platform selection to either a modified or custom fab blocked. That will be fun to see unfold.

Shout out to Lian-Li! 😂

Don't even know if it matters much with AMD based on Steam's new survey showing the dominant selling card is easily the 5070 with the 5080 and 5090 far distant but still making the chart and the 9070/xt didn't even make enough of a dent to get its own entry on the chart classified as "other" atm.... /facepalm Nvidia continues to rule the roost top to bottom but they still continue to make a fantastic product so it is hard to get people to jump to AMD. I completely understand. AMD's biggest folly was not making a reference "control" card and not sticking to MSRP pricing. I said this before, but if pricing is close between a 9070xt and a 5070ti, I'm picking the 5070ti as would most unless you're sick of Nvidia and/or already a AMD supporter. But clearly AMD did enough damage to get Nvidia on track faster to release the Super variants so there's that.

We're still only 6 months in to the 5090 cycle so hopefully some tools and flashing love will make its way to the 5090s including the FE for some XOC love in. I'm not doubting your calculations. It just seems to be a staple item in just about ever OC'ers box of tools for manual/physical readout vs software sensor readings. Another tool in the arsenal and dirt cheap.

TL;DR: Test each program you use to see if it is beneficial or not for your setup (which most of us have been doing for some time now)... Nvidia reached out to Blackbird basically saying the same thing that it is a case by case situation. With that being said, JayZ2Cent lives in the moment and with his heart on his sleeve. It has its pros and cons. I enjoy his videos but he rates right there with Linus. Entertainment only..... Say what you want about GN, but he is OCD/anal to a fault and puts the 'P' in Pedantic. I take Steve's videos more serious but I skim through them a lot because he can just go on and on and on and he's got the charisma of a brick wall....

Do you have a Wireview at least then? You want to have something to verify on screen readings. I just find a wall meter really lets you know what is being reported vs what is actually happening. I've used it numerous times to sort out bad readings in software especially for outlier laptops over the years that could sometimes misreport how much they were actually pulling. @Mr. Fox I ordered one of the meters you use as I'm still rocking the original from 16yrs+ ago and I definitely like that backlit screen.

Go drop a trip to Starbucks on a proper wall meter....... 😁

I said it before and I'll say it again. It makes no difference. Prices keep dropping because no one is buying. Prices can creep up and a large margin of buyers will still not buy. Nvidia can cut supply and again no one is still buying at these prices. Those who had the deep pockets and/or early adopters have bought already. The first 2-4 months were always going to be shortage based and AIBs sure took advantage of it. Supply and demand needs the demand side to cooperate at that certain price point and clearly many are not buying at the several rounds of price cuts we've already had. Eventually prices will drop to a point where those who are interested enough at a certain price point will decide to pick one up but we're not quite there yet for many of the cards. I tend to monitor which cards sell out pretty quick versus those which languish. Top tier brands are holding somewhat strong with their top end models, but the mid and lower tier brands or top tier brands with their mid and lower tier models are dropping prices on the regular. It's like somebody offering that proverbial sports car for $500k and slashing it over and over on the regular. Eventually someone will deem the price acceptable and buy it. Kind of like a Dutch auction.

I'm kinda surprised. A wall meter is bread and butter for most overclockers and enthusiasts. I've had several since 2008? 2009? First was the classic Kill-A-Watt model. I even posted my first YT video back in 2010 using one showing the original Alienware M15x pulling 190w+ power under load when someone on the old forums said I was lying and no way does it pull more than 150w so a bigger PSU wasn't needed when I said the 150w PSU was inadequate even for a stock model. That was my original straight from Dell 920xm w/ 260m stock model pulling that much lol. Yeah, a wall meter is almost mandatory to validate screen readings sometimes.... I figured he had one laying around. And watching the prices continue to fall really reminds me of the 3090ti launch at $1999.99 and watching prices rapidly fall like crazy when the Crypto market went BOOM. Pricing is getting saner and like I told @Papusan if they hit ~$2100 (or lower) I'm most likely back in the game even an open box I'd give a whirl. People return items all the time and it isn't always because of binning. Yikes.... If it was sub $200 I could give it a pass but anything else? again, yikes....

New 5090 brand new low price.... PNY and Zotac coming back to reality.... PNY ARGB which at one point was $3499.99 is now down to $2599.99 PNY OC Edition which at one point was $3299.99 is now down to $2499.99 MSI and Zotac are heading down too.... These are NEW and SEALED prices....

You don't have a kil-O-watt or comparable wall meter device?

And if it pops up in fair condition for $1847.30 I'd definitely cave and pick it up. After points that's $1754.94! 🤣