electrosoft

In my dream scenario MXM continued on and true DTRs with desktop level components had at least 1-2 models across 2-3 brands year in and year out but we are the minority and that isn't what actual consumers want or need for their day to day needs or desires. 😞 So far so good. No dead pixels so that's a plus. Absolutely dead quiet during setup and updates. Let's see when I bring the stress and heat later....

Seeing the lifespan you extracted from your P870DM-G I have no doubt brother. 🙂

That would make for a great write up and posts actually. Hope you do order it and light up the MSI laptop section with some quality, indepth posts. I've just accepted market forces have spoken and BGA is basically it. The NH55 was the last, partial hurrah for a hybrid DTR (everything interchangeable except the GPU). Alienware, then MSI and finally even Clevo have fully left the "desktop hardware in a laptop" market. It's a sad, sad day but it is what it is. There was a time where it was predominantly all big and thick laptops with a small bit of lighter and thinner laptops but as time passed the market spoke and we progressed to where we are now. Bean counters only respond to what sells better and material costs overall to maximize profits. The point is the vast majority do not want to lug around monster sized laptops with poor battery life. They want light, battery efficient laptops first and foremost and raw power second. We are now officially to a point where those last gen (and older) true DTRs just can't keep up with this new BGA hardware on any level. 😞 Based on reviews, it looks like you could get the GT77 4090 in the same playing field as your stock 3090 desktop so you would have a comparable mobile workstation of serious power. The leap between last gen laptop 3080ti and this gen 4090 is massive yielding an overall gain of 50%+ across 1440p and 4k and 40%+ at 1080p. Even the mobile 4080 crushes the 3080ti by 25-30%.

7900X3D wasn't even on my radar. I'll be waiting for the 7800X3D to see some better priced final results and not have to worry about scheduler issues. I like them both but I'm leaning towards the Apex a bit in that match up too. Both are priced out of my acceptable motherboard wheelhouse either way. Last time I clung to an OS was Windows XP. After that, I kinda just go with the flow and install the new on its own partition and go back and forth till I am ready to make the switch. Windows 11 isn't bad at its core. What is bad is Microsoft using it as a means to data mine and push all types of services I don't want. There is no long term value in just selling the OS and that's that. Now it is a continual dynamic money making entity to the detriment of the end user. Windows 11 just extends that model moreso than Windows 10. But at it's core? I use it on multiple machines and it gets it done. If M$ wants to make me jump through hoops to strip away as many unneeded services as possible, challenge accepted each and every time.

lol, I like how he thinks he has some god like knowledge of memory tuning and system optimizations that no one else has...... He definitely craps all over EVGA though. 🙂

Apex Z790 vs Kingpin Z790:

Those are fantastic tuning results right along the lines of my P870TM1 w/ Corsair 3800 sticks that topped out at 3466 (motherboard limitations). nice!

That is how it progressed on my X170SM-G. It went from: Working (( was in the middle of setting it up for travel not even gaming or anything) Hard blink red dots Code 43 No Post No Post with a series of blinking yellow lights on the power on LED indicating GPU failure Popped in a Clevo 1060 I had and it booted up no problem Put 2080 S back in and step 4 again When ZtecPC got it after sourcing a brand new 2080 Super it wouldn't post at all even with the new 2080 Super no matter what they did so they swapped in a brand new motherboard and heatsink and it worked perfect after that. The blessing was I was able to get rid of all that K5 Pro mess and the heatsink with the LM soak damage from the original purchase config and go back to a solid 2080 Super + Motherboard and stock thermal pads right from the factory brand new. Common sense has to kick in at a certain point for laptops these days. Titan is a beast but with the Strix you're getting 100% its CPU, 80% of its GPU and an 18" screen for less than half the price along with a 2-SODIMM design that will give it a better chance of running higher frequency memory now and down the road. I'm more interested in the 18" display and 13980HX more than anything else. The 4080 is a nice uplift from the 3070/3070ti/2080Super laptops I have on hand atm. IPS glow doesn't bother me at all but having used mini LEDs and OLEDs before you can definitely notice those inky blacks and per pixel lighting on OLED or zone control with mLED. The Titan IS the best option but at a monster price. You could get a Desktop 4090 AND a Strix / Eluk for the same or less than the cost of a Titan to put it in perspective. 🙂

BUMP.... Barebones is for sale on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/175627221686 Once the Barebones sells, I'll be listing the GPU next then sort out the CPU as I've had a few people interested in it both here and messaging me via eBay. Of course you can get the Barebones cheaper here. PM if interested in individual components or all together.

If you're wanting to play around with 4000 series and HX processors, MSI Titans are stupidly expensive but as close to true DTR as you will get for BGA laptops. For myself, I would go for this: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-strix-18-intel-core-i9-13980hx-16gb-ddr5-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-v12g-graphics-1tb-ssd-eclipse-gray/6531333.p?skuId=6531333 I have one of these arriving Tuesday. Step down in GPU, same CPU less than half the price and hand pick your memory. I will say I do like that MSI uses a direct variant of their desktop BIOS on their laptops though. Asus, Gigabyte and MSI also make 2 slot MBs now for the Z690 and Z790 chipsets.

It is literally a crap shoot on the memory and GPU. No company it seems truly bins for higher quality samples on either. What you CAN control is the PCB design they are placed upon and the cooling included (which means nothing if you're going to block it). You literally have to bin cards like you bin GPUs and that's sad. Wish a company would properly bin GPUs and offer the top tier chips in cards as guaranteeing certain performance parameters. Didn't @Talon get a Strix 4090 that could hit +2000 on the mem?

Like razor said, extract old bios via chip programmer and flash it to the new old stock or desolder/resolder the BIOS chip manually from the older model to the newer model.

If Nvidia would allow MXM again, at least 200w options would be on the table for MXM or more. They continue to clamp down and become control freaks. The day they lose their silicon advantage is the day they experience a strong case of the "Intel's" as we saw as soon as AMD offered a competitive product their market share was immediately hit and just like that they can no longer hold back their "Ti" level hardware and have to bring everything to the table now. Ugh..... $2000+ card with no return option performing worse than your Suprim...boo. I've been testing my memory and I can hit ~+1650 for benching and GPU clocks as always are 2800+ right out of the box and 3100+ gaming and benching on stock BIOS with a standard OC. Aesthetically that Strix 4090 is an eye sore but I know plenty love the design. I just really love the looks of this Suprim liquid. I liked the look of last gen Strix cards more than 4000 series hands down. I was hoping it was a monster sample or at least reached the levels of your Suprim 4090. Hows the coil whine on it? I'm always curious.

It might boot. When it black screened I didn't realize the motherboard failed too but when ZtecPC got my X170SM-G swapping in a brand new RTX 2080 Super didn't make a difference and it still wouldn't boot / blank screen. I am not even sure if they re-tested the original RTX 2080 Super with the new motherboard so I would be curious to see what happens.

Nope auto fans. I try to maximize my thermals for the least amount of fan noise around standard clocks out of the box both CPU and GPU. I rarely overclock my laptops because they're fighting a losing battle anyhow with constrained cooling versus a desktop. I never overclock my laptops. They are running toasty versus a desktop as is anyhow. 😞

Congrats in the Strix purchase! Hopefully this one can make it outside of a month. Hopefully it is a monster clocker. My Unify-X had problems with anything over ~225w with random and immediate shutdowns with my 12900k so it had to go back too. I had purchased for pickup up a Trio 4090 from BB with a 10% off coupon no less and still couldn't bring myself to pick it up even at that price. I hemmed and hawed for over 10 days while it sat there waiting for pick up before I ended up cancelling it.

200w:

I used Nanogrease Extreme on my original X170SM-G. Also to a smaller degree Silicon Lottery always comes into play even with GPUs. Nope no OC.

No on Prema but members have been able to get Prema fairly easy it seems from Prema for this model. Yes on the screen. It is the 1080p 144hz panel. It is my original screen that had a perfect pixel guarantee (no bad pixels). And no on the Corsair memory. It ships with the original 2x4GB as purchased from ZtecPC (along with the original 256GB M.2 from ZtecPC). I'm keeping the Corsair for when I install the unlocked BIOS on my X170KM-G. I listed in the original post it ships with the original 2x4GB. I'm tempted to keep the 10900k myself and use it in my X170KM-G too! 🙂 ZtecPC X170SM-G: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2x4GB 2x256GB M.2 in Raid 0 config (1 of them is the original ZtecPC 256GB M.2) Nvidia RTX 2080 Super Silicon Lottery 10900k delidded 1080p 144hz screen 2x 280w PSUs Intel AX201 WiFi Windows 10 Pro license included/embedded with unit Ships in original ZtecPC box w/ accessories Brand new motherboard, GPU and heatsink. Full accidental warranty till 11/26/2023 $1750 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Individual component prices: ZtecPC Barebones X170SM-G w/ 2x4GB memory, 2x256, Intel AX201 WiFi, Heatsink, 2x 280w PSUs, Win 10 Pro, fully warrantied till 11/26/2023.....$700 Brand new Nvidia RTX 2080 Super MXM..............$600 Silicon Lottery 10900k delidded........................$550 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hope that clears it up @1610ftw for ya. 🙂

Price: 1599.99 Condition: Very good Warranty: Full Accidental till 11/26/2023 Reason for sale: Too many laptops (Sitting on about 6 of them atm) Payment: PayPal, local pick up Item location: Vineland, NJ Shipping: FedEx, USPS or UPS. Your dime, your choice basically. International shipping: Situational (If I know you personally) Handling time: 3 days Feedback: eBay: https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/electrosoft More details and pics on the actual eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/175636386845 Specification: 17.3" Screen 144hz Gsync CPU - INTEL Core i9-10900K Silicon Lottery binned delidded GPU - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB SSD - 2x 256GB SSD in Raid 0 RAM - 64GB DDR4-3200 MHz SODIMM (2 - 32GB SODIMMS) WIFI - Intel AX201 PSU - 2x 280w PSU OS: Windows 10 PRO (Eligible for Windows 11 PRO upgrade) Timespy ran to certify hardware on 3/2/2023 (See pic). This system achieved LEGENDARY status amongst comparable systems. Ships fully insured and signature required. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there is enough interest in enough of the individual parts, I will part it out to interested parties: 10900k SL delidded CPU. I binned many CPUs and this one was the champ hands down. Originally sourced from Silicon Lottery and delidded by me. It wrecked every other 10900k I tested in the X170SM-G including an LTX Golden Sample and an even higher SP 114 for cool running and non-leaky performance.......$550 Brand new RTX 2080 Super: ZtecPC sourced this one and ordered it brand new directly from Clevo. It has less than an hour on it from basic testing / Timespy and WoW.....$600 ZtecPC barebones: Full Accidental warranty on the barebones. If you buy the GPU it is covered too. Comes complete with the chassis, 2x 280w PSUs and new Heatsink. It has a brand new motherboard too. They even replaced the damaged bottom with a shiny new one. I will be including the 2x4GB and 256GB M.2 ZtecPC parts too.....$600 Everything will ship in its original box as shipped from them signature required fully insured. Proof of ownership:

Who wudda thunk it? Tuning memory is important.... (Sarcasm == max;)

I wasn't expecting anything outside of gaming gains with the increased cache kinda like what happened with the 5800X3D. Hopefully we see some meaningful gaming gains with the 7800X3D. I had a couple of those and I never saw spots like that. I can't say whether they are harmless or not. Is that for your 8700k or a 9900k?

As suspected once in the capital city where player data and RT are in full effect, CPU is bottlenecking my 4090 like a beast at 5120x1440. I sat there watching the CPU bounce off of 90-100% over and over while the GPU sits there at 55-65% tops. FPS are right around 70-90fps tops too in Valdrakken while the 4090 is waiting on my 12900k at 5.2 all core. (All the shadow and lighting on the Dragon is RT). I know raids are going to be brutal with all the spell effects and RT being thrown around.

I'll be returning my MSI Z690 Unify-X for a few reasons: Primary reason: I think I know why this was an open box model. It keeps shutting down randomly under any type of heavy load when the VRMs are pushed >225w. CB23 or even CB15 will just shut down. It is consistent in its randomness. If I cap or keep the pull around 200w it never shuts down. This is with temps well under 80 >225w. Secondary Reason: After tweaking and optimizing the DDR5 and seeing nice (really nice) gains in WoW vs standard XMP timings it still can't match the DDR4 sticks in performance. It's close enough that if this was my first board / DDR5 combo I would have kept it but I still have the Strix D4 and B-Die sticks. Aida64 looks great, the numbers are there and locking it to 5.3 all core E-cores disabled to match my DDR4 setup. I'll revisit DDR5 during the next round (or with X3D depending on how it performs) I did have a blast tuning and working with it though and it is the future but 7400 DDR5 tuned can't quite beat out 4100 DDR4 tuned. I'd be curious to see what 7600+ could do with another board also down the road. Good thing is I can sell these Trident lovelies and just keep the M-die for a potential X3D buildout since they top out at 6600 and X3D sweet spot is 6000 and usually tops out at 6200 if I end up going that route.

I'll be putting my X170SM-G up for sale in the For Sale forums in the next couple of days. I have too many laptops and just picked up another laptop so I need to sell off 2-3 of them for balance. I'll also be offering it parted out so if enough people want individual pieces I'll go that route. Still under warranty till 11/26/2023 full accidental coverage. Just serviced from ZtecPC with brand new motherboard, 2080 Super and heatsink. Partout would be laptop, GPU and binned CPU (still on the fence with the CPU. Might keep it for my X170KM-G).