electrosoft

Nice! Glad to see the SP117 finally made it there safe and sound. When you absolutely want the best, price:performance ramifications quickly fades into the distance.

4080 Super Stock in US is definitely near sold out as of 2/5/2924 6:33PM EST: 0 in stock on Newegg. Only PNY 4080 Super in stock at Amazon at MSRP (but with Amazon's wonky search engine a few may not be picked up): Only Gigabyte in stock at Best Buy: In a month this will all be a moot point as everything normalizes as always after that initial buyers rush, but as of now in the US, stock is sparse.

Ditto, the stages and the design for myself (I know you couldn't wait to rip that air cooler off as fast as possible and block it 🙂 ). With the various vBIOS's floating around but overall limitations, the only thing I like about the HOF more are the dual 12vhpwr connectors and that's about it but I wish more cards came with them. Unfortunately having seen many results from the HOF posted over the last year, it seems even those aren't really "binned" and you can still get a dud that won't do 3100+ OC'd or even 2800+ out of box. I started using sag brackets starting with the Aorus Master 3070 as it was the first real "chonker" of a card I encountered. I've used them for most since. I tend to run my GPU power cables from the top of the card vs the bottom as that also gives them a little more support or at worst doesn't add to the pulling down of the card. The fact that entire PCB was twisted in that repair video speaks volumes.

I do/did like having them flashing and testing beefier vBIOS's though that's true. For MBs, even the lower end MSI PRO line can handle a lot of overclocking for 13th and 14th gen and before. I ran their PRO models for 10th and 11th and the chips gave out way before the VRMs. That video does beg the question why he didn't send it in under warranty? And more importantly, why he didn't use an anti-sag bracket of some sort?

Ohhhh, look at all those extra premium stages! MSI over-engineering at its best. 🙂 "As you can imagine PREMIUM and CHEAP get damaged in the same way" -NWR Seriously though, with the way 4090s went, I can see the logic buying a $1600 MSRP model and calling it a day and avoiding over priced HOF, MSI and Asus cards unless you specifically are targeting a particular model for personal reasons.

I agree with this 100%😞 That's one of the reasons I ended my post before with, "I do think for children, some protective measure might need to be put into place more than what are currently active the same as are in place for all the other vices listed above. In regards to children, there is also a large degree of parental accountability too. " But what happens if the parents do not understand the technological jump that comes so intuitively to the current generation of kids?

Or leave free will and choice in place as there are plenty who can just choose not to use P2W, purchase cosmetics or walk away when they want / limit gaming time which is exactly what I do. I talk a lot about WoW and Fallout 76, but I only play 2-3 hours and not everyday. I routinely skip multiple days or in some cases weeks. You don't ban or enact even more laws to fix the "problem" of humans selecting bad vices that are detrimental to their well being. If that was the case, we'd also ban chewing tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, gambling and more.... I see absolutely nothing wrong with cosmetic items. *I* think they're stupid and a waste of money, but who am I to tell someone else how they want their onscreen avatars to look? Then again, I think blowing wads of cash on fancy cars, overkill sized houses, jewelry, designer shoes, sneakers and clothes is a colossal waste of money but yet again....personal preference. I'm a hardware junkie but that's my personal preference and I've had friends or family (same ones spending gobsmackingly large amounts of money on virtual items and wasteful designer items) wonder why I do. I do draw the line at P2W, but it is what it and has been around in some way, shape or form in gaming since the 90's (Diablo II, EQ, etc...). I even remember people spending real money to get items from other players in AOL's Neverwinter Nights multiplayer in the early 90's. I do think for children, some protective measure might need to be put into place more than what are currently active the same as are in place for all the other vices listed above. In regards to children, there is also a large degree of parental accountability too. That is a good question what metrics were used to derive +23%. 50+ to 70+ is a little vague I'll admit (50+ could be anything greater than 50, same as 70+) maybe with a *touch* of excitement of a new card but I don't think you can fairly classify a 3090 as a 3090ti with an OC. I also think TPUs numbers are a little suspect vs their relative performance chart with the 3090 vs the 3090ti. Hub has the performance of the 3090 vs the 3090ti at ~3% at 1080p up to a max of ~10% at 4k. When I compared my KPE 3090 vs my KPE 3090ti stock for stock, it was about 8% on average across games and synthetics (one of the reasons I sold it in the face of 4090 early testing which just decimated it). Back to @tps3443 and his MSI 4080 Super.... He overclocked his 4080 Super just like he overclocked his 3090. I'm sure he got more out of his 3090 though being a KPE and on chilled water and Ampere being a bit more overclockable than ADA along with his MSI not having a great cooler (one of the lesser ones actually overall). This is also a case of never compare OC A vs non-OC A or especially OC A vs non-OC B and declare them the same (I've had this same argument with @tps3443 before). Use stock and go from there of what the card actually is which is a 3090. The 3090ti also has ~2.4% (!) more shaders, higher base/boost clock (irrelevant to a degree with boosting technologies) and slightly higher clocked memory. In the same vein, while looking at TPU charts for stock to stock comparisons, the 4080 Super has a healthy uplift over the 3090. Quite honestly, more than I expected before clicking. I'm pleasantly surprised. On average (across all their games tested as YMMV based on individual games tested): 4080 Super vs 3090 --------------------- 1080p ~+28% 1440p ~+31% 4k ~+29.4% --------------------- 4080 Super vs 3090ti --------------------- 1080p ~+18.5% 1440p ~+18.9% 4k ~+15% Then you have this from their 3090ti architecture page: ---------------------------- One last note, looking at their results vs the myriad of 4k results on the OCN forums, here and personal testing, I can almost guarantee their hardware hasn't been dialed in and that 4090 is CPU bound in a lot of those results especially at 4k which routinely happens to 4090 owners (present company included) even with dialed in and tuned hardware. Last January, watching my 3080 and 7900xtx peg to 100% in WoW (did you know I play WoW? I don't know if I mentioned it before....) at 4k then watching the 4090 sit at well below 100% utilization on average even at 4k ultra (while still trouncing both) along with Fallout 76 sitting even lower on the 4090 at 4k ultra let me know it was time to upgrade my CPU stat. 🙂 As I mentioned in my other WoW benchmark post, the X3D and 13900KS helped to feed the 4090 even more with boosted results that separated it from the 3080 and 7900XTX even more, but I was still seeing more GPU under utilization more often than not overall at 4k. Probably a few years from now with CPU and memory advances, we'll revisit this topic and you will see the 4090's lead over the 4080 Super and 7900XTX will continue to grow at 4k as it will finally be properly GPU bound in the majority of tests close to across the board just as the X3D and 13900KS/14900K started to make a more sustained dent in the 4090's utilization at 4k. If I was a 1440p gamer, I wouldn't even consider the 4090. I'd pick up a 4080 Super or a 7900XTX when the prices adjust. It usually takes 4k to really separate the 4090 from the pack where it is still sometimes CPU bound.

For those of us a bit more seasoned, Carl Weathers was a childhood and teenage icon from Rocky to Action Jackson and Predator and more. Seeing him in The Mandalorian was just the icing on the cake.

The board I sold to you. I had a 980 Pro 1TB in there I was using and after I broke everything down for selling to the three buyers, I took the spare drive and upgraded my daughter's system from a 500GB no name M.2 to the 1tb 980 Pro since she only had ~20GB left of space from her Steam games and WoW. @tps3443 was asking for my settings when I tuned 8000 awhile ago and after looking through some of my USB drives, I realized I left them on the desktop of the drive which is now formatted with a cloned copy of my daughter's original 500GB nestled snug in her desktop. 🙂

The X170SM was the last one to truly get everything right especially with Prema having put in a lot of work on the BIOS and it is built like a tank. If they could add 11th gen support, that would be something fun to play around with it too. I had both and outside of the dual PSU and very hefty size, I loved them both. I'll be curious to see your progression with it in the X170SM-G thread!

I was looking through my files to post them up for you when I realized I left these on my desktop drive (980 Pro 1TB) I had in the MSI in notepad.....which I then installed in my daughter's system to replace her 500GB which only had 20GB free so they're gone..... I did laugh when he overslept by ~15min and missed the window. I remember back during EVGA drops I set my alarm to be up and ready to get in the queue ASAP! The extra $150 still boggles the mind but I did drop an extra $120 on my Suprim Liquid X 4090 over retail ($1720 vs $1600) but I wanted this model specifically. I would have just ponied up the extra coin for a 4090 if I couldn't get the $1k model seeing as $1150 is nipping at the original MSRP of the 4080 normal. On the other hand, I do like the look of that MSI 4090 he picked up.

Yup, upgrade in every aspect except that VRAM. Now imagine if you had caved and picked up a 4070ti Super..... The aluminum foil crack pipe....lol..... 🤣❤️

As long as cosmetic upgrades do not give any gaming advantage, I'm fine with them charging all they want for them. I have never nor will never buy anything cosmetic in a game ever. Blame Fortnite for this new trend where people will drop insane amounts of real world money on skins and other external cosmetic items. Fallout 76 makes the bulk of its money off of cosmetic items and even WoW is overrun with cosmetic items that can be purchased for real money or in game for gold (which you can conveniently buy from Blizzard now laundered through players selling their extra gold to blizzard for blizzard tokens which can be redeemed for either a month of game time ($15) or a $15 credit in the Blizzshop). While I have never spent real money on cosmetic crap, my daughter, wife, nieces and nephews all have in the various games they play along with numerous friends so it is definitely a thing especially in mobile gaming. I don't get it and I remember looking at my daughter incredulously that she spent $25 REAL dollars on a flying horse mount in WoW like she had grown a foot out of her forehead. My wife wanting to spend $50 on a clothing and pet cosmetic set on WoW just had me staring at her like she had sprouted wings.... When I tell you cosmetics, pets, camp/housing items, special decorative abilities and more are huge sellers it is an understatement. Don't get me started on the sheer number of people that P2W in games like Candy Crush and similar to get bonus turns, items and more to have chances of advancing farther in the game. It's insane.... With that being said ... One crucial thing here in his video is he has fallen victim to , "correlation is not causation" Correlating the continued rise of cosmetic purchases with the causation and decline of quality DLC content (and neither has been properly quantified or qualified) is tenuously subjective at best. His core argument is, "Companies no longer care about quality games/DLC but instead would prefer the easier revenue stream of cosmetic items." He effectively has set up his own straw man to knock down. But again, personally, the idea of spending real world money on cosmetic items seems insane to me but to each their own. Knowing one person in particular who spent well over $1000 buying bonuses and power upgrades in Candy Crush, I will only pay for the games and valid Xpac/DLC gaming content. No more; no less.

True, the 7800X3D definitely smacked down the 12900k which also topped out around ~6800 stable / 7200 benching and actually performed better on tuned B-die 4133 DDR4 (but still lost to the 7800X3D), but the 13900ks did 8000 no problem and once tuned was easily on par with both my 7800X3D and 7950X3D. WoW loves tuned memory especially with Intel where we are talking a 10-15% difference in performance from highs to lows and even more if you pick up junk 5600-6000 memory and just leave it at XMP settings. The biggest difference is in the lows. Anybody who picks up a 13th or 14th gen system and doesn't tune their memory is leaving so much performance on the table. With an architectural overall from Intel and a rumored IPC bump of at least 10% for AMD 9000, I think we're in for a nice round of exciting CPUs this year. (fingers crossed).

Speaking of which (just for you @Etern4l 🤣), I reran my WoW 4k RT on/off benchmark for Dragonflight which flies point to point over the entire Dragonflight continent there and back with the 7950X3D + 4090. This is with the 7950X3D untuned but memory tuned the same as with the 7800X3D: 7950X3D (memory tuned. CPU untuned) 7800X3D (memory and cpu tuned): 13900KS (memory 8000 tuned, CPU stock): I still need to tune the 7950X3D along with isolate CCD for X3D only for comparison (I'll probably isolate the other CCD just for comparison sake too). 13900KS and X3D chips were finally able to have the 4090 bouncing off of 100% gpu utilization in some spots but still left the 4090 waiting in others. As soon as you introduce player data and the CPU has to work extra hard, GPU utilization drops into the 80's or lower. Hopefully next gen 9000 or 15th gen will tap out the GPU entirely but much more GPU utilization than the 12900k from both camps.

Final conclusion by HUB 7900XTX vs 4080 Super. "For me the 4080 Super it's a pretty easy pick here given that they both do cost around $1000" Again, AMD is going to have to lower that price.... (Timestamped)

Good overall comparison and same conclusion. AMD is going to need to cut prices on the 7900XTX stat as there really is no compelling reason to pick it over the 4080S especially as RT is viable and meaningful at this performance point and like in Avatar it seems to always be on with no option for non RT. Considering the last year there has been basically a ~$200 gap between the 7900XTX and 4080, it would be nice to see a $850 7900XTX price point come into play or even $800 to compete. Push the 7900XT down to $700 or even $650 to really compete.

Love those aesthetics and definitely not RGB! 🙂 Yeah, looking at most charts all you see is bunched results and then usually the 4090 with the "long bar" Pricing is definitely our fault no question but I also believe in different strokes for different folks and everyone has their own price points and right to do what they want with their money. What one person considers a rip off or price gouging another considers a deal or more than fair. Neither is right or wrong. It is perspective and usually a bit of bias thrown in. And inflation is definitely an economical factor to be considered along with other costs and of course a need to make a profit and as much of it as can be sustained for corporations. Inflation will always be a factor here and everywhere when determining real time costs versus previous costs along with several other factors. As I told @tps3443 using the best is a recipe for experiencing diminishing returns rather quickly. We didn't establish anything with the 3090ti. That is incorrect. What we did establish was the 3090 launched at $1500 and the 3090ti launched at $2000. I don't think we're going to get a 4090ti/Super either but if we do, I can guarantee you it will launch for $2000 or close to it just like the 3090ti launched for $2000 over the $1500 3090. 4090 prices won't come down anytime soon. They've actually gone up on average vs launch MSRP even after they "came back down" after the gouging the last few months when stock was dry due to 4090D fabbing. AD102 dies are wanted and needed everywhere atm. I'm so glad I grabbed my 4090 over a year ago as it has provided me with top tier gaming and video editing for my daughter when she can't take the slowness of her laptop or 3070 equipped desktop and wants it "done fast." 🙂 Reasonable is subjective but I'm glad that is what you think they should be priced. Of course the final indicator is how much Nvidia sells and what the market can bear at their price points. While we see 4090's overall trend up from launch MSRP, we see the ultimate joke in the 4000 line get its comeuppance and had to adjust down by $200 with a minor performance boost on top. We also saw the 4070ti Super get a memory bump and the 4070 Super get a pretty substantial core boost and they all stayed the same with their original launch MSRP. That tells us Nvidia felt the backlash from consumers and had to save face as best as possible and adjust pricing either directly (actually lower it) or indirectly (add more value at the same price). This is the market working as intended. I want to consider AMD and as you have seen I've tried them three times now (Merc 7900XTX, Powercolor 6700XT, MSI Gaming 7900XTX) and they just can't get it right for my needs unfortunately. If the Asrock dips to 899 I'll probably give it another try.......that's how much I want AMD and Intel to check Nvidia but in the end the superior product stack wins for me. With the demise of AMD's next gen offerings in the rumor mill and everybody gobbling up AD102 like crack, what incentive does Nvidia have to rush Blackwell to market this fall? None. I wouldn't be surprised if they extended Ada into 2025. They have no competition right now and the GPU market overall is soft for consumers. I could see a Titan if AI slows down. I could see a 4090Super/TI if AI suddenly really slows down but unlike Crypto, there's a long term end game to ML and hardware will be in demand for quite some time. No way I would pay an extra $150 just to have it NOW. You just paid an extra 15% for no reason at all. Return it/cancel it and just wait. Why rush? I agree with this conclusion 100% and AMD is going to have to price down the 7900XTX sooner than later. Unless you need 24GB at the $1000 price point for some reason, there is ZERO reason to get a 7900XTX at $1000 and I agree even $900 for a 7900XTX is a hard sell for some unless you want to go AMD just to be team RED (which I completely understand). Problem with AMD is they have had several opportunities to compete with pricing but they opted to also maximize profits and play the Nvidia way with their products and pricing just not as egregious in nature.They keep shooting themselves in the foot. Then again, for those who think AMD is the "underdog" we saw exactly what they're capable of when put into the drivers seat with AM4 and sky high pricing on their CPU line up (I'm looking at you 5950X and 7950X). When all was said and done, I picked up my 7950X3D for ~$476.

3090ti launched at $1999 before the Cryptocrash fully took hold and companies were loaded down with grossly overpriced cards with ADA right around the corner so reality settled in quickly and they lowered their prices to ~$1099-1199. 🤑🫢 The 3090ti launch price was based on the 3090 launching at $1499.99 just as I expect if or when we get a 4090ti it will launch at $1800-$2000. That's just Nvidia being Ngreedia. I purposely mentioned the original MSRP of the 3080 ($699) and how the crypto-pandemic dark times caused prices to skyrocket. Once crypto-stupidity kicked in that's when scalping and re-sellers were letting the market forces speak and those same cards were now commanding $2k+ and 3k+ respectively.....crazy. Nvidia responded exactly as I expected them to respond to seeing that if given a certain set of circumstances even normal consumers (IE not crypto miners)would pay outlandish prices for GPUs. I'm not shocked prices continue to go up as long as there is demand. Fortunately demand hit a hard brick wall for the original 4080 and Nvidia finally had to price/feature correct. We have also seen a much more toned down price adjustment with the other Super cards with Nvidia giving them a spec bump and not raising prices but keeping them the same as original launch MSRPs. The bump to the 4070 Super is pretty substantial that has it nipping at the original 4070ti and yet the price stayed the same as 4070 MSRP launch pricing. The 4090 is a halo product and kind of sits out in its own world doing its own thing with plenty of demand for AD102 chips on several levels. I still see a pretty big gap between the 4080 Super and the 4090 for a 4080ti for ~$1250-$1300 if Nvidia wants to give it a go with cut down/defective AD102 dies I'm sure they're stockpiling. Agreed 100%. This is the point I keep trying to get across is corporations like Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Goggle, Apple, etc... are here to maximize profits and please their shareholders. Expecting altruistic or pricing that is incongruent to their shareholder's desires is not firing on all cylinders. Expecting prices to not reflect increased costs and inflation along with oodles of profiteering just doesn't make sense. Good value goes out the door once you want top tier gear and the law of diminishing returns kicks into overdrive.... .....for example..... .....your 14900k. 🙂 So pick your performance poison!

Agreed trying to scale performance per $ that model holds true, but it isn't as black and white as that applied to Nvidia and that historic price:performance modeling doesn't apply here (except coincidentally) unless applied across the entire stack as we see pricing on other models did not scale like the 4080 performance per $. The 4090 $1599 MSRP actually produced MORE value than the 3090 (of course that's currently being subtly and not so subtly adjusted out of existence for many cards). The 4080 was just an insane price hike to see what the market would bear coming off of ludicrous pricing during the crypto-pandemic era where cards were commanding stupidly high prices due to demand especially the 3080 which was immediately seen as a fantastic value for a great card and was routinely going for triple its $699.99 price for many months on eBay, StockX and more. You will always have maximizing profits vs what consumers will bear and you tend to meet somewhere along that price curve. Nvidia wanted a piece of the insane profit pie and then some. Nvidia clearly made a course correction with the xx80 class cards as they FAFO'd for various reasons (poor value even within the entire 4000 stack, AMD 7900XTX, recession, inflation, etc...) sales were poor enough to merit a significant price reduction along with a modest (to say the least) bump in performance.

Glad to see it finally arrived safe and sound! The MSI Z790I Edge (along with this Carbon and previous Pro variants I used....even the Tomahawk) has really solidified MSI as my favorite followed closely with Asus now that EVGA has exited stage left. The memory sticks I sold same day as your MB shipping to MO are STILL in the wind parked in Kansas City since January 24th....grrrrr. 3080 10GB at $700 in Sept, 2020 is the same as ~$825 today. Over three years later. More advanced across the board and costs have and will go up on everything starting with TSMC. The idea of XX80 cards being the same price generation to generation just isn't realistic with real world economical factors but it is clear that Nvidia was super greedy (Ngreedia!) with the 4080 on launch asking $1200 and the fact we're getting more for $200 less when costs have gone up everywhere shows you they hit a wall and had to adjust down. I'd like to think AMD and their 7900XTX had a bit to do with that too with gamers who don't care about RT and just want pure gaming rasterization weren't willing to pony up an additional $200 for a card with substantially less VRAM and basically the same performance when all was said and done.

Must fight temptation.....Down to $999.99 for the Asrock Taichi 7900XTX white edition... https://www.newegg.com/asrock-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-rx7900xtx-tcw-24go/p/N82E16814930090?Item=N82E16814930090 🤣

The problem is getting laptop makers to re-invest in large, thick bulky laptops and that's just not where the money is for them profits wise. The NH55 was their attempt to address the true DTR crowd while appeasing the thinner and lighter audience and based on no other follow up models (including just releasing a slight revision with 13th and 14th gen support) it was the last nail in the coffin. I fully tamed the NH55 so it is power limited not heat limited now with this 12900k and I won't be upgrading for some time unless a worthy model comes along. Like I mentioned elsewhere, I bought and returned the Asus G18 13900k HX 4080 twice to Best Buy as there's just nothing you can really do with it.....oh and Armory Crate garbage. There's just no way to cram enough heatsink and thicker fans in these thinner and lighter chassis to support real hardware and mobile computing is close enough now the makers see no reason to go in that direction ever again.

You just answered your own question if you're limited to $1200 dollars. 4090 is out of the question, so it is either a 4080 Super or buy something dirt cheap (since you're casual at the moment). 4070 Super or 4070 ti Super make no sense as you could have just held onto your 3090.

I think the 4080 Super is an upgrade. Outside of the memory, it is better in every aspect over the 3090 and it would be a fun new toy as you've had your 3090 for over 2yrs now. Worthy? Well, that's in the eye of the buyer as you'll pay $1k and sell your 3090 for $700-800 (minus fees) so for ~$200-300 you get a new shiny to play around with. A significant upgrade would really only be the 4090. If it were me, it would be a 4090 or wait for the 5080 but I'm the guy who is also still trying to shoehorn in the idea of selling my 4090 and going with a 7900xtx even after two rounds of "meh" with them so maybe don't listen to me! 🤣