electrosoft

As much as they don't want it to happen, the market is correcting. We saw this with memory (DDR5 is plummeting in price), storage, CPUs (hello AMD) and now we'll see it with GPUs especially 2nd tier cards that are grossly overpriced. The only problem might be Jensen's stubborness. Look at how he managed to keep 3080 and below cards at or near MSRP even now with a glut of cards. He can do the same with 4000 series. Worst case scenario for consumers is you build up inventory and let it trickle out while you sell to other segments of the market. We need the glut of ADA cards to be so severe he has to cut prices or the bean counters step in and come to the conclusion sales are down regardless of cuts so keep it as is. 7900xt / 4080 / 4070ti are just simply priced too high and as we move deeper into the new year it will start to show. I've been saying over and over since October 2022 that ~Feb 2023 is when we will start to get real clarity. Now if only something could correct the motherboard market pricing....

If you're not happy with MSI overall why take a chance? Wait for an Asus Strix 4090 if that's what you want. I do know my bud's Suprim X 4090 air cooled model memory clocks to 1950 no problem. I'll be the first to admit if price is no object, I'd probably grab a ROG too. People get wrapped up (rightly so) on costs, but the first thing I do with all new hardware offerings is rank them on desirability then re-rank them on cost vs desirability. 🙂 I wouldn't get a Zotac simply because I can't have @johnksss smirking and gloating at me. 🙂 Never pay more than MSRP (or close to it) and never, ever buy from a 3rd party scalper who is a parasite and purposely buying up cards to jack up the prices and resell. Routinely "anti-consumer" results in "pro-profits" for resellers and we know it's all about the profits. Newegg is no different than Amazon, Walmart or eBay in this scenario allowing third party sellers to scarf up inventory and relist at jacked up prices for their marketplace cut. They also get a cut from the initial sale too. What card are you looking for to upgrade your current GPU?

System is on its way as I type. Didn't get it out till 1/3/2023. I asked Zoltan to let the techs know to not use K5 Pro but standard thermal pads and clean up all that mess as that stuff was a moist, weird, degrading mess that seemed to start oozing an oil type substance. When I get it back, I'll clean up the VRMs too and just use standard thermal pads there too if they don't clean that up and use thermal pads.

You would probably have better luck upgrading to a golden 10900k as those do pop up from time to time but more importantly the best bins from Intel were assigned to 10900k chips in general. You can ask on various forums for golden samples but for our use in X170SM/KM chassis, low pull and not leaky are priorities. I've tested a few chips including an SP114 that would have rocked on a competent desktop but in the X170SM-G was a lower vcore but hotter running chip than my golden SP101. I've tested ~8 10900k's now and the Silicon Lottery 10900k I have SP101 still reigns supreme even over an LTX limited golden 10900k and the SP114 I tested (all were delidded). But as long as you lock down a known good sample it will most likely be better than a raw out of the box chip unless you just get a crazy lucky pull like @Ashtrix who bought a boxed retail sample and it was an SP113.

NP. I really like this XFX both aesthetics, cooling, noise levels, no coil whine and more. It has crazy build quality and runs as intended even at stock hitting 2600+ on the clocks. It just is (as of now) a very poor WoW GPU. Figure out what programs and games you want to prioritize and especially for Linux as @Mr. Fox mentioned and it is a solid choice if it fits your criteria. Whoa, this makes the KP Z690 just like an even better buy! Nice!

Good pick. I was torn between it and the Enthroo 2. I would have been happy with either case. It will be interesting to see if all the problems clear up with a newer case. lol, he went in hard on AMD. 🙂 I find Jufes crudely enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the X3D results. I know for WoW the 5800X3D is a PnP monster. Only a finely tuned 12900k or 13700/13900k could best it. Apple is definitely hitting a wall with the Mx architecture. M2 felt very much like M1KS (M1SE?).

Feels more like AMD is quietly willing to price up versus really compete for market share. What little they own they want to extract maximum value. Nvidia is content to keep going as they're going since they control every aspect of the narrative at this point. They have the upper hand and they know it. Their product is superior and they will continue to charge what they want till someone challenges them enough or people have had enough and set hard limits and even then they have so many other interests and profit streams that are much more lucrative than their consumer GPU market they may just shrug their shoulders and keep on keeping on. Odd turn of events for AMD this time around. With their 5000 series CPUs and 6000 series GPUs they made both Intel and Nvidia really stand up and take notice. 6900xt full on competed with the 3090 and the 5000 series CPUs were flat out better than 10th and 11th so Intel and Nvidia had to respond in kind. Of course that is exactly what they did and ADL quickly knocked AMD back to pricing reality and Nvidia just ADA crushed them but I still do feel AMD can compete in the lower tiers at least where the true volume sales reside if they want to adjust pricing like they did with their CPUs. It isn't like the 7900xt/xtx are bad GPUs at all. I like this XFX a lot if it was priced appropriately. They just need a price adjustment if their goal is to truly compete and win market share.

I'm not sure what tests you're looking at in regards to rasterization of the 7900xtx vs the 4080 but it will come down to the games specifically in many cases but here was HUBs 50+ game 1440p and 4k shootout: 7900 XTX is 1% slower in 1440p and 1% faster in 4k overall. What I like most about this comprehensive shoot out is the inclusion of raster and RT along with such a wide range of games. You can find the game(s) you play and get an idea if they happen to be on this chart. For example, if you play CoD MW II, a 7900xtx is a very compelling choice. On the other hand if you're all about Metro Exodus.... Not sure why they included CP2077 but not RT enabled. Their few RT inclusions were hand picked which I did not like. They would have done a better presentation to present a pure raster chart and a pure RT chart for clarity. But even looking at their range of games tested and the massive potential percent difference (from +42% for the 7900xtx to -39% for the 4080) It will come down to the applications/games used but lets take RT out of the equation for WoW. 7900xtx is only ~26% faster than a 3080 10GB with RT disabled. To me, that isn't worth the upgrade as it doesn't get me where I want to go even in rasterization vs a 3080 10GB. RT is important to me especially in the newer Dragon Isles content as it is much more front and center. 4080 would have been >100fps vs ~76fps on the 7900xtx but more importantly those .01 and 1 lows would not have been nearly as bad. Having seen and played on a 4090 in WoW, I'd estimate the 4080 would be hitting around 110-120fps on average with RT enabled. I even did a clean install of W11 on another drive to give the 7900XTX its own complete, fresh, clean environment and performance was basically the same to the W10 DDU install (Score 1 for DDU). My base objective is 100fps avg everywhere (higher is better) on my 144hz display and no crazy 1% or .01% lows where I would also like to see at least >100fps so even if it dips down it won't really be noticeable to me. 3080 10GB = ~97fps vs 7900XTX = ~122fps average with RT off. Turn RT on and both cards are right around ~76fps with dips even lower. Even if I was running with RT off, it wouldn't be worth the price paid (and that was with a 10% off code so $1079.99 + tax, free shipping). While actually playing with the 7900xtx today it was the same "ugh" moments as the 3080 when you hit those problematic dips with RT on just not quite as bad as the .01 and 1 lows are a smidge better. 4090 will be here next week and having already seen a Suprim X 4090 air cooled model in action with WoW on my bud's 12900ks system, I know what to expect. After playing on his system for 20-30 minutes and watching the fps locked at 144hz everywhere and no dips below 100fps no matter what I finally admitted defeat and just picked up a 4090 instead of trying to shoehorn in a 7900xtx or contemplate a 4080 to save some coin and compromise. I didn't even bother picking up the 4080 and cancelled it. If I get a chance in the future somehow I wouldn't mind testing a 4080 to just add to my 5120x1440 data.

Summed up perfectly. 3090/3090ti = Get a 4090 or just ride it out till 5000 series 3080/3080ti = Get a 4090 or maybe a 4080 (especially 10gb model) or just ride it out till 5000 series Anything below the 3080 your options start to open up nicely as to what constitutes a meaningful upgrade. 7900xt/xtx? Having worked with it late yesterday and today some more swapping back and forth between two installs and comparing it to even the 3080 in both FO76 and WoW? It is most definitely going back to Best Buy next week. Even if I didn't have a 4090 coming in I would be returning it. I would pick a 4080 over the 7900xtx everyday of the week.If you have something under a 3080 it does start to have value though but the fact it is basically equal to a 3080 in WoW with RT on and is only ~30% faster than the 3080 10GB in FO76 has now officially made it DOA to me. I will say though that if you're an AMD fan and bent on getting an AMD card, the XFX Merc 7900xtx is about as good as it gets for cooling, build quality and performance. The temps are fantastic and like I previously said, fans never even get to 40% under full load and hot spot stays nice and cool(ish). 🙂 I'm glad I had a chance to remotely work and see the PC 7900xtx in action and I don't regret picking up an actual beefier model to run my own tests but I am just so disappointed with AMD this time around. I feel like HUB when they basically said to find the additional $200 and get a 4080 over the 7900xtx.

Agreed. One thing I like about my old Corsair 540 is the extra top space and it is a mid size cube. It is one reason I still kept it after the KPE 3090 wouldn't fit is because it is so easy to work within. When I buy a monstrous full tower, I'd like at least 1-2" more in the back and on top. You've already committed to a monster size form factor. Why not make it deeper and taller clearance? Nvidia MSRP for 3090 was $1499.99 before there was the mining and crypto boom. 3090ti was $1999.99 at launch too. In comparison to the 4090 (and to an extent the 4080) that inventory glut of high end Ampere cards had no choice but to drop in price as it was nearing its EOL with ADL on the horizon but the 4090 pricing is based on 3090 MSRP pricing. For those who paid $2k+ (including myself) for a 3090ti I salute you. 🙂 Launch pricing: 2nd tier ------------------------- 980.........$549.99 1080.......$599.99 2080.......$799.99 3080.......$699.99 (This was so out of character for Nvidia. Maybe fear of AMD and RDNA2?) 4080.......$1199.99 (Jensenmania full overdrive engaged) Halo -------------------------- 980ti.........$649.99 1080ti........$699.99 2080ti.......$999.99 (Jensemania activated) 3090.........$1499.99 (Jensenmania full overdrive mode) 3090ti.......$1999.99 (Still high on the Pandocrypto) 4090.........$1599.99 (Jensenmania in low power mode) 4090ti........$1999.99? I'm sure Nvidia has run pricing model after model after model and now realizes what some are willing to pay. Even in this small, fireside chat group we keep here we've had 3 (now 4) buy 4090s with a few on the fence who will eventually bite. We know it...they know it....we're just waiting for the ball to drop. 🙂 I've lost count how many posts and reviews I've read elsewhere basically saying, "I wanted a 4090 but couldn't find any in stock so I settled on a 4080." I almost did the same thing. Within that group you have a subset who are using a 4080 to tide them over till they can get a 4090. I managed to hold out a little over 2 months and finally succumbed for a few reasons: A> The initial 4090 I wanted (Suprim X Liquid) popped up and I was able to grab it B> Lackluster 7900xtx results a few weeks ago running some tests on the PC 7900xtx (followed up with XFX testing) C> Seeing how close the 4080 and 7900xtx are in tests D> I was able to sell my KPE 3090ti and get back everything I paid into it. Sensible is subjective. Only thing that matters is market conditions and supply/demand. Nvidia will continue to push prices upward and sell as long as they have enough buyers. Even removing the crypto mining distortion field, Nvidia was steadily increasing prices (see above) and raking in profits. All the crypto mining phase did was push prices to 3k+ for 3090s and 2k+ for 3080s. Now we're back to our regular schedule program and the MSRP on the 4090 is in line with the 3090 which was a massive jump over the 2080ti which was also a substantial jump over the 1080ti. Applying CPI numbers is meaningful as it allows you to evaluate price hikes in context (where does inflation end and profiteering begin?). MSRP is meaningful and valid and has been set for the last previous 4 cycles for comparison for all the top end models at least usually dictated by FE pricing. 3090ti is a bad example to use due to its introduction timeline, pricing and changing market conditions. You can't continue to use that as an example and apply it to somehow Nvidia is going to reverse the trend they've implemented over the last three product cycles. Nvidia tried for a massive money grab end cycle with the 4000 series right around the corner banking on the Cryptodemic sustaining a bit longer and fell flat on their face and had tons of Ampere inventory to now move which they wrote down to $1499 then $1399 and eventually $1099 because it price wise made no sense with the upcoming 4000 stack coming to market. You can't continue to charge $2000 for a card that gets beat by a $1200 card and gets destroyed by a $1500 card. Ampere MSRP pricing for the 3090 and 3080 was announced before any of the outlier conditions of the past few years were even here. This time around we had what turned out to be a not so bad (relatively speaking) jump in the 4090 which actually makes sense in a warped kind of way and then you now have Nvidia trying to shift the lower product stack pricing up to reflect the 3 generations constant price hikes of the top dog products. I do agree with you depending on if/when the 4090ti lands Nvidia will initially offer it at a sky high price then adjust accordingly. If it comes 6 months before the 5000 series I can definitely see an adjustment downward across the top end stack to make room. If it comes sooner than later, they will just slot it in at $1999.99+ for awhile and business as usually until AMD either responds (giggle) or 5000 series is close to launch then adjust accordingly based upon sales figures. In an ideal world, I'd like to see summer roll around and AMD and Nvidia having had to slash all their prices due to many factors including GPU fatigue and the looming recession which is gaining speed. It will be curious to see how it plays out.

Like we saw in many reviews, the 7000 series can perform like last gen all the way up to a near 4090 type experience depending on the game. WoW is known for liking Nvidia hardware and it shows. The flight runs were done in Ardenweald which is still one of the most challenging zones in WoW especially for RT effects. Both cards stock settings. WoW @ Ultra 10 settings, render to 98%, Super Fidelity on. With RT off 7900XTX beats the 3080 10gb (like it should...) 122fps vs 97fps = ~26%.....that is not great but the 1% and .01% lows were better too. Both with RT on 7900XTX is about equal (or a touch better) with a Strix 3080 in WoW. That is trash results. I did the whole DDU song and dance so that shouldn't be the problem as Timespy is right where it should be. I'm going to throw in a test 128GB M.2 and give it a clean install run to double check but these results are right around the ballpark of the PC 7900XTX on a 4k display so I'm not expecting miracles. I was hoping the hotspot issues we had were going to be partially responsible with a touch of throttling but alas.... I'll give Fallout 76 some love later as it is loves AMD hardware. I suspect I'll be returning this card next week. I know the 4090 is going to shatter my 3080 in WoW (in a good way).

First run... Impressions: Monster card. Might be the longest I've seen. Solidly built. I love the basic illuminated XFX logo and industrial design. At stock fans only went to 37% running TimeSpy w/ 56c on GPU and 74c on Hot Spot pulling ~429w. XFX heatsink is a beefy beast. Even with the front glass off while running TS I had to get up and search to find any coil whine. It was barely audible. I was wondering how it would sound with all the horror stories of insane coil whine from 7900xt/xtx cards. I'm glad to report it is one of the quietest cards I've tested. Stock clocks top out at 2667mhz. I plan on keeping it in my case till the 4090 arrives sometime next week and running it through its paces. I already collected some WoW FP data runs on my 32:9 display with my Strix 3080 to kick things off. Using fps monitor to grab fp run averages and other data. Sidebar: I really need some new computer furniture and a room redesign lol. My wife keeps telling me to gut it and go full geek lol.

What model(s) are you looking for specifically? From what I saw, they had the Sapphire (both models), Speedster and Nitro in stock for 7900xtx. $1199.99 is the new official price of the Speedster now. They had the MSI (both models), PNY and Zotac in 4090s in stock. Looks like MC and NE have both trickled their 4090 prices up on some models. BB prices are still the same but they never get much of nothing in stock these days for 4090s or I should say as frequently as MC and NE. I camped out their site for weeks while sick with site check streams going and it was just sad. Lots of regional ghost drops, hardly any country wide drops. BB regional drop system is a blessing (if you get some drops in your region) or a curse (your region gets the short end of the stick). They seem to have a sporadic trickle of 7900xtx's. I haven't seen the air cooled Suprim 4090 listed anywhere recently including BB, NE or MC. Not sure why. These are their stock Newegg prices (not 3rd party scalpers):

We are officially in the end game in regards to true DTRs being a thing of the past. Everything is BGA and we feel "lucky" when we can change or upgrade the memory and storage now. Apple set the standard, companies see their crazy profits and follow suit. I'm just accepting of the fact most users (and I do mean most) do not want to crack open their laptops and get under the hood. They just want to open and use it. When it fails they get it repaired. When it gets too slow they just toss/sell/hand it down and get another newer model and keep it moving. They want them light as possible too. Me? I don't mind a large body laptop as long as I can get in there and tweak/tune/optimize and hand pick components as I see fit. the X170 series is so far the last in the line to allow that with the NH55 close behind since it has a subpar cooling system for the CPU and a BGA GPU but it is miles better than everything else out there for user upgradability. We've also officially reached a point that with all the tinkering and self upgrades in the world these new laptops, even locked down and hindered, are going to bury all the older true DTRs in performance both CPU and GPU.

If you can't think of a use for a second 2080, sell it. How did you end up with 2x of them in your TM?

Not sure which case you're using, but I know I had an old Thermaltake Tai-Chi case back in the day and it sent a few motherboards to their graveyard due to shorts. I used to line the perimeter of motherboards and add insulated washers to the posts after a few motherboards died. I used that case for well over 5yrs though. Huge and heavy with enough sharp edges to give the Iron Throne a run for its money I loved it. Having gotten to know you over these I want to say past 10yrs on the forums (or close to it), you seem very detail oriented and highly technically skilled so generalized user error seems to be close to 0 but sometimes it is the most outlier of situations where you rely on a parts supplier to having done enough testing to rule out what could clearly be seen as red flag conditions. If you still have interest in the platform you could hunt down another case or even use a plastic protected post open stand and see how it fares. Or just sell off the parts and move on to new adventures.

Newegg had / has a massive drop of 4090s and 7900xtx's happening now if you're looking for one.... Edit: And they're all gone. I ended up ordering an MSI 4090 Liquid X and cancelled my 4080 since all my BB coupons are now expired post holidays. I still plan on testing the 7900xtx extensively seeing as I have 60 days to return it to BB and I'll see if I'm keeping the 4090 or 7900xtx and putting the differential back into my account. Seeing @Papusan and @johnksss have garbage memory OCs, I'll be curious to see if it was just random Silicon curse or a 3-peat trend.

Yep, I use no online keychain anything even Apple. As much as I love my iphone/ipad, I keep everything external and portable. Keeping anything like this in a cloud based service is just asking to be compromised. Once compromised, all your information is open for the taking.

Yeah this was a proper case in point from early revisions to near end game versions of the bios. It is my certified SL SP101 cool hand luke that is not leaky at all to boot for X170SM-G use as I yanked that one and put in a Celeron G-5900 before shipping it off for repair. I also pulled my Corsair 3800 sticks too and put back in the stock 2x8GB sticks. Don't want anything to go "missing" while the faulty GPU is replaced. Better to be safe than sorry. Speaking of SP not being the end all of all, I actually tried an SP114 10900k in my X170SM-G a few months back from a guild bud who let me give it a whirl as he was upgrading to a 7950x. I never got a chance to test it on a desktop (didn't have a MB then on hand) but it was super leaky and ran 10c+ hotter than my SP101 in my X170SM-G same test conditions. I even re-delidded/relidded it to make sure. It ran slightly lower Vcore under load but spit out much more heat. Wish I had a Z490/Z590 board then though to see where I could take it on the desktop as it would clearly shine as I pushed it above 5.1 with better cooling. Thanks Bro! Definitely feeling physically better. For V/F's you would also need to view them external of the BIOS (XTU) because before the update my V/F was all wrong. It was reporting an SP71 but with 5200/5300 only needing 1.138 which was way off. Once updated, it adjusted it back to its proper reading. We went through this with early Strix Z690 BIOS too but not as severe as after a mid cycle major update my SP went up by one point (!). Others ranged from going down 1-5 points to up to 1-3 points as Asus made adjustments based on continual refinements. Even now you have to jump through hoops to get the Strix Z690 BIOS to properly read the SP on a 13900k (Update ME, Update BIOS, unseat/reseat CPU, check....). My Z590 will never see a 4000 series but yikes....Asus "magic" I think my main problem with MB makers and the industry as a whole right now is the gross uptick in MB prices overall. We lament the GPU industry but MB prices are soaring up like crazy overall too. I was already on the fence with Z790 but those prices definitely put the brakes on everything. Tonight's fun time project..... (Not the $100 new open box special Asus Z590-E binning board. It is already installed in my test case).

Massive SP change in action....today finally installing this Asus Strix Z590-E in my testing case after the worst December of my life (understatement): Before BIOS 0902 After BIOS 1701

Overall 7900xtx and 4080 beat a 3090ti in gaming but nothing earth shattering....nothing that would make you stop and go, "whoa." I will say the 4080 does run much cooler and pulls much less power though while outperforming it so if those additional metrics are of concern to you, it does increase its value especially depending on your high load uptime and energy costs. I'm 99% sure I'm going to cancel my 4080 FE. I'm just not excited over it in any appreciable way especially knowing the 4090 is out there. This is a good review on the 4080 vs 3090ti I've been a diehard WoW player since launch and I've played since Jan 2005 so it is my mainstay and metric for performance. I've never played at less than 2560x1600 resolution even back then as my rig was an Apple Dual G5 tower w/ an Apple 30" display but as time has passed so has the increase in graphics and CPU requirements as the engine has gone through 4 major upgrades that require current content to really take advantage. The last major upgrade was the Battle for Azeroth Xpac where it got a major rewrite then Shadowlands where they added in 1st gen RT. Dragonflight extends that a bit more. Up until earlier this year, Fallout 76 was trash on PCs but finally it is coming into its own with real fps and the ability to take advantage of CPU and GPU upgrades properly. I've been playing since August 2022 and I very much do enjoy it. I'll end up benchmarking it too. It doesn't support RT though (which isn't a bad thing). The blessing and the curse with Asus BIOS and SP rating is nothing is set in stone as it continues to be refined with subsequent releases especially early on. I saw several 11900k's have their SPs change based on the BIOS installed with my old Z590 Hero and I suspect the same will happen with this Z590 Strix-E I picked up brand new open box for $100 recently for some more future 10th and 11th gen binning fun albeit the BIOS is as refined as much as possible. Since I know have an X170SM and an X170KM, time to casually spin up the binning station.

On the other hand, lest we forget the 3090ti can still bring the pain.... I said it before and I'll say it again. If you have a 3090/3090ti the only real upgrade is a 4090.

Monstrous 50+ game title shoot out. The differentials based on exact games played is pretty staggering comparing AMD vs Nvidia. It ranges anywhere from a 4080 substantially beating a 7900xtx up to a 7900xtx sitting at or closer to 4090 levels performance than the 4080. Always hard to find real, valid WoW or FO76 testing/comparison between cards. Hardware Numb3rs seems to have gotten real spotty posting lately which was my go to for WoW benchmarks. Hopefully he gets something up sooner than later.

Yep, Best Buy. If you're near a MC that is always the easiest check too. Hopefully they will offer a GH1600 model too for those who want a bit more of overhead and punch.

Beautiful setup and SP113 10900k? Mmmmmm........... that's a banger of a chip right there!