*Official Benchmark Thread* - Post it here or it didn't happen :D

[johnksss]

2 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

Asus is grazy. $5600 USD for the 5090 Astral Gold Edition. But you get the badge button in Gold. That's something to remind you about your utter stupidity when  you boght it. I wonder what an 5090 Matrix Gold Edition would cost. 

 

 

That's the Dubai edition.

[Papusan]

12 hours ago, johnksss said:

That's the Dubai edition.

 

Yup. And who other than Asus would come up with the same? Maybe MSI will come close if they release their Lightning cards. With close I mean $1000 cheaper. But it won't come in Gold colors🙂 

 

Asus is soon more for the wealthy one. And Asus needed to change the name for their flagship to be able to charge more. A new SKU name is perfect if you want to increase already high prices.

 

 

[tps3443]

4 hours ago, johnksss said:

That's the Dubai edition.

I don’t really like that color and scheme. Standard Astral or Astral LC is fine. Asus and their colors that add thousands is ridiculous man. Remember the “White Strix Phase” if it was white and was a Strix it added like $500-$800 to the price 🤣

[johnksss]

19 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

I don’t really like that color and scheme. Standard Astral or Astral LC is fine. Asus and their colors that add thousands is ridiculous man. Remember the “White Strix Phase” if it was white and was a Strix it added like $500-$800 to the price 🤣

I was not joking when I said the Dubai Edition. They love everything in gold.😂

[Papusan]

Hmmm. The Gold OC Edition is close to $8000 and not the much cheaper $5600 price point. I wonder if more expensive will give you more value for your hard earned money. The more you pay the more you save. 

 

 

[electrosoft]

@tps3443

 

I'll assume you saw this owner with a 5090 FE and a majorly nice top voltage of 1.125 on his FE over on the forums

 

Ahhh, I see you did see it....

 

Yours topped out at 1.075v correct? If it's any consolation, my buddy's also topped out at 1.080. ~1.075 seems very decidedly average for FE cards which is good overall IMHO.

 

I know that block will help those temps though. 🙂

 

As for Asus, they are the Lexus of the computer industry. Sure, a Hyundai will get you equally from point A to point B like an FE or PNY, but for those who want the full "luxury" experience (barf) and the extra bells and whistles, you pay more knowing you can get the bulk of everything for much less if that's your choice.

 

------------------------

 

Gigabyte 9070xt open box edition arrived today. Definitely not mine I returned as it had its PCIE cover and port covers intact but absolutely clean and pristine otherwise. Not one fingerprint on it.

 

------------------------

 

That is an absolutely gorgeous block, wow.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tps3443]

58 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

@tps3443

 

I'll assume you saw this owner with a 5090 FE and a majorly nice top voltage of 1.125 on his FE over on the forums

 

Ahhh, I see you did see it....

 

Yours topped out at 1.075v correct? If it's any consolation, my buddy's also topped out at 1.080. ~1.075 seems very decidedly average for FE cards which is good overall IMHO.

 

I know that block will help those temps though. 🙂

 

As for Asus, they are the Lexus of the computer industry. Sure, a Hyundai will get you equally from point A to point B like an FE or PNY, but for those who want the full "luxury" experience (barf) and the extra bells and whistles, you pay more knowing you can get the bulk of everything for much less if that's your choice.

 

------------------------

 

Gigabyte 9070xt open box edition arrived today. Definitely not mine I returned as it had its PCIE cover and port covers intact but absolutely clean and pristine otherwise. Not one fingerprint on it.

 

------------------------

 

That is an absolutely gorgeous block, wow.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My card is just an FE so nothing spectacular!  That guy with 1.125v FE card benches his on cold air,  GPU temps in 40’s at 15,750 in Steel Nomad, I can’t really compete with that man. I can break 15,600 in Steel Nomad with GPU temps in 60’s. But I haven’t tried any cold air yet though. 🤷‍♂️

[Mr. Fox]

1 hour ago, electrosoft said:

@tps3443

 

I'll assume you saw this owner with a 5090 FE and a majorly nice top voltage of 1.125 on his FE over on the forums

 

Ahhh, I see you did see it....

 

Yours topped out at 1.075v correct? If it's any consolation, my buddy's also topped out at 1.080. ~1.075 seems very decidedly average for FE cards which is good overall IMHO.

 

I know that block will help those temps though. 🙂

 

As for Asus, they are the Lexus of the computer industry. Sure, a Hyundai will get you equally from point A to point B like an FE or PNY, but for those who want the full "luxury" experience (barf) and the extra bells and whistles, you pay more knowing you can get the bulk of everything for much less if that's your choice.

 

------------------------

 

Gigabyte 9070xt open box edition arrived today. Definitely not mine I returned as it had its PCIE cover and port covers intact but absolutely clean and pristine otherwise. Not one fingerprint on it.

 

------------------------

 

That is an absolutely gorgeous block, wow.....

 

 

Nah, FE is not the Lexus of the industry. It's just a cult of people that love inferior products, like Alienware fanboys. 🤣

 

Congrats on the open box 9070 XT.

 

UPS has the Apex on the truck. Supposed to be delivered between now and 8PM today.

 

I will have to check out that Delta Mate block to see how she looks. Speaking of GPU blocks, I got the Alphacool CORE installed. It looks really good. Much more refined aesthetically than the Bykski block that has served me really well with the 4090 Suprim. It is much heavier than the Bykski block and brawnier in appearance.

 

@johnksss the WireView does NOT fit with the CORE block. Not even almost. It is about a half inch short of being able to reach the connector socket on the GPU. So, now I have two WireView to sell. I'm going to miss it, but not the end of the world. Another thing I noticed after the fact is the switch to change between vBIOS chips is also covered up. If I were testing different vBIOSes still this would be a problem. I am not so I don't care. At least for the moment.

 

Sorry for the low quality camera phone photos. My 5 year old phone camera does an amazing job of capturing dust and lint in photos, but not the finer details that one would want to capture. Too lazy to break out the DSLR for this, so these will have to do.

 

[electrosoft]

6 hours ago, tps3443 said:

My card is just an FE so nothing spectacular!  That guy with 1.125v FE card benches his on cold air,  GPU temps in 40’s at 15,750 in Steel Nomad, I can’t really compete with that man. I can break 15,600 in Steel Nomad with GPU temps in 60’s. But I haven’t tried any cold air yet though. 🤷‍♂️

 

Once you block it and give it a little chiller love it will perk right up! That's what I'm waiting for. 🙂

 

--------------------

 

MSI 18 9950X3D/5090 Raider getting trashed for several reasons (display, price, trackpad, other) but remember, this is LTT:

 

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

OK Brother @jaybee83 I just installed the Apex. I have not updated the BIOS, just disabled TPM, Secure Boot, WiFi, BT. Left all of the CPU settings on Auto, manually set an 8400 memory overclock (not tuned, just set what I thought would work) and *BOOM* - it worked. This shipped with a pre-release BIOS so since it is dual BIOS I will leave that alone and try one of the recent uploads from Safedisk on the secondary BIOS chip.

 

Also noticing no bifurcation issues. Sabrent NVMe Quad card running in top X4 slot and GPU is still X16. I am only using the upper Gen5 M.2 slot on the motherboard, both DIMM.2 and the Quad NVMe card. I left the other M.2 slots empty to avoid cutting the CPU back to X8.

 

Time to hit the sack. Will see if tomorrow I can get some play time after celebrating Mother's Day with my best friend, Mrs. Fox.

 

Next projects will be to delid the second 9950X and tune the memory and CPU overclock.

 

 

@Papusan and @johnksss having a backplate didn't do anything for the bowed motherboard. It's bowed just like the Intel Apex and Apex Encore were. It wasn't flat until I mounted it to the chassis and bolted it down.

 

[win32asmguy]

6 hours ago, electrosoft said:

MSI 18 9950X3D/5090 Raider getting trashed for several reasons (display, price, trackpad, other) but remember, this is LTT:

 

Not a bad review. I never realized the trackpad being centered like that with the Raider 18. I guess I did not use it enough on the go without a mouse.

 

For price the Micro Center deals on the Intel model are better, $3000 for the 5080 and $4100 for the 5090. I cannot say they are enticing though as the included memory and storage would just be chucked and replaced with better performing options from known good brands instead of the lottery system of OEM components.

 

MiniLED panels should always have a switch to disable local dimming. Having now used the panel on the Hydroc G2 it is finally an experience that can be the same as you would get on the IPS variant.

[johnksss]

19 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

Once you block it and give it a little chiller love it will perk right up! That's what I'm waiting for. 🙂

 

--------------------

 

MSI 18 9950X3D/5090 Raider getting trashed for several reasons (display, price, trackpad, other) but remember, this is LTT:

 

 

 

I have the MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XWHG-061US. I7 255HX/512GB/16GB/240Hz 1600P/5070TI.

Already changed the memory to 32GB and about to change the 512GB to 4TB of storage.

It replaces an older MSI laptop I had for work.

[Papusan]

On 5/11/2025 at 12:58 AM, electrosoft said:

Gigabyte 9070xt open box edition arrived today. Definitely not mine I returned as it had its PCIE cover and port covers intact but absolutely clean and pristine otherwise. Not one fingerprint on it.

 

Congrats. But why not wait for the cheaper RX 9060 XT @8GB Edition?  Brand new and no one have touched it before you😀 Even the 16GB Edition will  be cheaper than your Gigabyte 9070xt open box. And you don't need more than three Display Outputs (because the Navi 44’s primary purpose is for mobile graphics, which means it has a limited display engine). But you get an single 8-pin Power Connector. The best of both worlds... You get mobile hardware in desktop clothes. Can't be better.

Radeon RX 9060 XT cards spotted on Amazon for $450 and up

[tps3443]

I remember Star Wars outlaws giving the 4090 a serious work out. And with the 5090 it seems like the performance difference is huge! 
 

I never played with Outlaw graphics settings daily before, but the 5090 laughs at this game. I think they have done some optimization as well.

Starwars Outlaws with "Outlaw" Graphic settings uses power just like Steel Nomad benchmark! 

This is some serious power consumption, and a serious Ray Tracing work out!  FE is in a closed case only reach 50% fan speed at 600W. My card never reaches power levels like this in a game! So it must be something serious I suppose. If something were to burn, this is where it’ll happen lol. 

[Mr. Fox]

12 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Also noticing no bifurcation issues. Sabrent NVMe Quad card running in top X4 slot and GPU is still X16.

Maybe my excitement about using the top X4 slot not ruining the motherboard caused me to speak too soon on bifurcation issues. Using the bottom PCIe slot with a PCIe card is definitely a no-go. GPU gets castrated to X8 if I do. It's fortunate that the top X4 slot allows me to use it or the Apex would be flat-out rejected as an unacceptable product. The AORUS Master still has it beat here. Gigabyte did it right. All three of the PCIe X16 slots can be populated without effing up the GPU lanes. So I have 9 NVMe installed in the Master without affecting the GPU and it looks like the Apex is going to limit me to 7. Same as the Gene except for the Gene runs the Sabrent card at X1.

I'm going to try disabling USB4 in the BIOS and see if that changes anything with the PCIe bifurcation and lane distribution since I have no use for USB4. I am also going to test an X1 PCIe card in the bottom slot and see if it still kicks the GPU in the gonads. C'mon ASUS, pull your head out. If none of those tweaks works, then I'm going to put a dust plug in the bottom PCIe slot since will be viewed as worthless waste of motherboard space to me. Not sure why the idiots included it if it can't be used without pooping on the GPU.

[tps3443]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Maybe my excitement about using the top X4 slot not ruining the motherboard caused me to speak too soon on bifurcation issues. Using the bottom PCIe slot with a PCIe card is definitely a no-go. GPU gets castrated to X8 if I do. It's fortunate that the top X4 slot allows me to use it or the Apex would be flat-out rejected as an unacceptable product. The AORUS Master still has it beat here. Gigabyte did it right. All three of the PCIe X16 slots can be populated without effing up the GPU lanes. So I have 9 NVMe installed in the Master without affecting the GPU and it looks like the Apex is going to limit me to 7. Same as the Gene except for the Gene runs the Sabrent card at X1.

I'm going to try disabling USB4 in the BIOS and see if that changes anything with the PCIe bifurcation and lane distribution since I have no use for USB4. I am also going to test an X1 PCIe card in the bottom slot and see if it still kicks the GPU in the gonads. C'mon ASUS, pull your head out. If none of those tweaks works, then I'm going to put a dust plug in the bottom PCIe slot since will be viewed as worthless waste of motherboard space to me. Not sure why the idiots included it if it can't be used without pooping on the GPU.

How come you are not running the 4090 Suprim with that fresh new waterblock in the X870 Apex rig? That waterblock looks amazing. I wanted one of those for my 4090. I love the full enclosure design. They are a little more expensive than the basic Alphacool Blocks, but you go and look at a review of those. And that Alphacool Core block actually matches the ($500 dollar) EKWB double sided BPSP blocks.

Could you share some temps of that block, and also show your water temp? 

[Mr. Fox]

58 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

How come you are not running the 4090 Suprim with that fresh new waterblock in the X870 Apex rig? That waterblock looks amazing. I wanted one of those for my 4090. I love the full enclosure design. They are a little more expensive than the basic Alphacool Blocks, but you go and look at a review of those. And that Alphacool Core block actually matches the ($500 dollar) EKWB double sided BPSP blocks.

Could you share some temps of that block, and also show your water temp? 

Because I wanted to confirm that I was going to keep the Apex before disturbing the chassis with the AORUS Master. Whenever I get around to delidding the CPU in the Apex I will swap cases with the motherboards. The only thing that saved the Apex from RMA was my ability to use the top X4 PCIe slot with the Sabrent Quad NVMe card. Otherwise, I'd be getting my money back today. It still sucks that it has other worthless PCIe slots that castrate the GPU to X8. I think I may still like the AORUS Master better overall. Will see if that opinion changes as I get used to tweaking the Apex.

 

One feature that I LOVE to pieces on the Apex is this new Q-Dashboard screen. You can interactively click through all of the attached devices, see what is connected to them, etc. It is stinking awesome. I also like that you can change the display resolution in the BIOS to FHD instead of the lower default resolution.

 

  

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

I'm going to try disabling USB4 in the BIOS and see if that changes anything with the PCIe bifurcation and lane distribution since I have no use for USB4. I am also going to test an X1 PCIe card in the bottom slot and see if it still kicks the GPU in the gonads. C'mon ASUS, pull your head out. If none of those tweaks works, then I'm going to put a dust plug in the bottom PCIe slot since will be viewed as worthless waste of motherboard space to me. Not sure why the idiots included it if it can't be used without pooping on the GPU.

Yeah... neither one of those things worked. Bottom PCIe slot may as well not exist. Waste of SMDs, solder and an X16 socket. They should have knocked $20 off the price and skipped it. It has a rubber dust plug in it now. Worthless. Just like the two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots under the GPU. Their existence is pointless and a demonstration of engineering incompetence.

 

[Mr. Fox]

So, I hadn't intended to hurry up and sell the Gene, but a guy on OC.net approached me and really wanted it. We agreed on the price but when it came time to consummate the sale the shipping cost to India was insane and they were going to charge him like another $150 in duties and taxes, which came to over $300 extra counting the shipping. I will keep kicking the tires on the Apex for another week or two and if I decide to keep it I will sell the Gene at that time. I feel sad for the guy because motherboards like the Gene and Apex apparently are not sold in India. You can only buy mainstream consumer garbage that none of us (or he) would want to purchase.

[Reciever]

Just posting in case anyone else on the net needs to know.

PowerColor Red Devil 7900 XTX GPU retention bracket uses M2x6 screws 

 

Hopefully tomorrow i'll get the vbios flashed, been trying to do a little reading on ch341a. 

[jaybee83]

12 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

One feature that I LOVE to pieces on the Apex is this new Q-Dashboard screen. You can interactively click through all of the attached devices, see what is connected to them, etc. It is stinking awesome. I also like that you can change the display resolution in the BIOS to FHD instead of the lower default resolution.

 

 

 

daaaaaaaamn, now THATS a feature id want across all motherboards, no matter the socket! i am annoyed by the fact that theyre stonewalling the upgrade to FHD resolution in Bios and limiting that feature to X870 boards. i guess theres not enough other "features" to distinguish X870 from X670, so for now theyre not planning to backport this to X670....meh

[Papusan]

5 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

daaaaaaaamn, now THATS a feature id want across all motherboards, no matter the socket! i am annoyed by the fact that theyre stonewalling the upgrade to FHD resolution in Bios and limiting that feature to X870 boards. i guess theres not enough other "features" to distinguish X870 from X670, so for now theyre not planning to backport this to X670....meh

 

Yup. New small features to increase sales of newer and more expensive products.

Gigabyte incorporates 64MB BIOS chip on X870 motherboard to integrate the WiFi driver

Maybe Microsofts next hardware requirements.... And you pay premium for an feature you don't want.

 

This makes it easier for you to create a Microsoft account for the first time.

 

Quote

THE GREED....

 

Here, you can see why it was almost empty for 5090's globally and at awful high prices.... Nvidia and their partners feeded China with loads of cards... Perfect if you want to increase profits and make shortage. Same as with the miner boom. And I'm sure they shipped out the 5090's for the better paying customer before release.

 

For example, the high-priced RTX 50 series is in short supply. When the RTX 5090 was launched globally at the beginning of the year, it was snapped up at a marked-up price. In particular, AI chip buyers from China bought it as soon as it was available without asking the price. As a result, the channel price of the RTX 5090 doubled from the launch price of approximately NT$80,000 at the time.

 

And now Nvidia want you to pay even more... Becaue they need too keep up their high profits margins.

 

NVIDIA reportedly raises GPU prices by 10-15% as manufacturing costs surge — tariffs and TSMC price hikes filter down to retailers

 

[tps3443]

2 hours ago, Papusan said:

 

Yup. New small features to increase sales of newer and more expensive products.

Gigabyte incorporates 64MB BIOS chip on X870 motherboard to integrate the WiFi driver

 

 

Here, you can see why it was almost empty for 5090's globally and at awful high prices.... Nvidia and their partners feeded China with loads of cards... Perfect if you want to increase profits and make shortage. Same as with the miner boom. And I'm sure they shipped out the 5090's for the better paying customer before release.

 

For example, the high-priced RTX 50 series is in short supply. When the RTX 5090 was launched globally at the beginning of the year, it was snapped up at a marked-up price. In particular, AI chip buyers from China bought it as soon as it was available without asking the price. As a result, the channel price of the RTX 5090 doubled from the launch price of approximately NT$80,000 at the time.

 

And now Nvidia want you to pay even more... Becaue they need too keep up their high profits margins.

 

NVIDIA reportedly raises GPU prices by 10-15% as manufacturing costs surge — tariffs and TSMC price hikes filter down to retailers

 

Just imagine 6090. It will attract every scalper in the world. And it will be $2,999.99 for 6090FE. I think 5090 is my last GPU. PC gaming is coming to an end for the masses. We better enjoy these last 2 years. 

[Papusan]

1 hour ago, tps3443 said:

Just imagine 6090. It will attract every scalper in the world. And it will be $2,999.99 for 6090FE. I think 5090 is my last GPU. PC gaming is coming to an end for the masses. We better enjoy these last 2 years. 

 

As long Nvidia's ceo Jensen can continue feed China with graphics cards, then expect higher prices for next gen cards. And be you sure, Nvidia won't stop their practice/let their partners do whatever they want. None can stop China from get what they want. Just see the link below. 

 

GPU imports to Malaysia surge by 3,400% in 2025, raising alarm amid smuggling investigations

[electrosoft]

Linus building out the fastest PC on the planet  9800X3D + Astral 5090 with Splave.

 

Splave opted to go with the Taichi over the Asus....

 

Timestamped at the point they are "flashing a top secret unlocked BIOS" to the 5090:

 

 

Note the (sorry you can't do this part at home)....

 

Slider now goes to 120%

 

Pulling 890w during the last run....

 

Watching all the pins trip red.... 🙂

 

Crashing and after a few more crashes Splave to Linus "Is your card worse than mine?" and a subsequent bit on Silicon Lottery.

 

21 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Because I wanted to confirm that I was going to keep the Apex before disturbing the chassis with the AORUS Master. Whenever I get around to delidding the CPU in the Apex I will swap cases with the motherboards. The only thing that saved the Apex from RMA was my ability to use the top X4 PCIe slot with the Sabrent Quad NVMe card. Otherwise, I'd be getting my money back today. It still sucks that it has other worthless PCIe slots that castrate the GPU to X8. I think I may still like the AORUS Master better overall. Will see if that opinion changes as I get used to tweaking the Apex.

 

One feature that I LOVE to pieces on the Apex is this new Q-Dashboard screen. You can interactively click through all of the attached devices, see what is connected to them, etc. It is stinking awesome. I also like that you can change the display resolution in the BIOS to FHD instead of the lower default resolution.

 

  

Yeah... neither one of those things worked. Bottom PCIe slot may as well not exist. Waste of SMDs, solder and an X16 socket. They should have knocked $20 off the price and skipped it. It has a rubber dust plug in it now. Worthless. Just like the two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots under the GPU. Their existence is pointless and a demonstration of engineering incompetence.

 

 

Kind of like a draw unfortunately. 😞

 

Was the Gene able to do 8400 too?

 

And yeah, the Dashboard and higher resolution BIOS is always nice. 🙂

 

 

On 5/11/2025 at 8:40 AM, win32asmguy said:

 

Not a bad review. I never realized the trackpad being centered like that with the Raider 18. I guess I did not use it enough on the go without a mouse.

 

For price the Micro Center deals on the Intel model are better, $3000 for the 5080 and $4100 for the 5090. I cannot say they are enticing though as the included memory and storage would just be chucked and replaced with better performing options from known good brands instead of the lottery system of OEM components.

 

MiniLED panels should always have a switch to disable local dimming. Having now used the panel on the Hydroc G2 it is finally an experience that can be the same as you would get on the IPS variant.

 

Yeah, I thought they were ok with it till it went off the rails at the end. I just kind of went, "whoa, whoa, I thought you liked it?" 😕

 

4k non G-sync was an issue. I don't like 4k panels on laptops. QHD for 17.3" or greater or FHD for 16" or smaller is my preference.  I never had a problem with the trackpad but I'm a lefty. I don't know if that makes a difference. There is a new BIOS out for my unit I plan on trying along with tearing it down for a repaste and eval on extra copper under the hood soon as I get some time to start truly tinkering.

 

As for pricing, yeah they've come down a bit. On launch, they had a "special" price of $3999.99 for the Raider 285/5090 then it went back up to its "regular" price of $4899 but was then almost immediately discounted to $4499 and now it's at a regular price of $4099. 6400 speed ram and 2tb SSD isn't terrible but still....

 

Even the normal Titan dropped below $5k almost at launch.

 

9950HX3D models are all I would be interested in on the top end atm for gaming for 5090s though as the overall uplift versus the previous generation is mediocre.

 

On 5/11/2025 at 12:22 PM, johnksss said:

I have the MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XWHG-061US. I7 255HX/512GB/16GB/240Hz 1600P/5070TI.

Already changed the memory to 32GB and about the at like 4TB of storage.

It replaces an older MSI laptop I had for work.

 

I'm still waiting for Acer to send out their unit to me with a 275hx/5070ti OLED but they are currently switching distribution lines because of China tariffs for eval units because they will be hit regardless of import status. They had to push everything back to June according to their rep while they realign their supply lines.

 

8 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

daaaaaaaamn, now THATS a feature id want across all motherboards, no matter the socket! i am annoyed by the fact that theyre stonewalling the upgrade to FHD resolution in Bios and limiting that feature to X870 boards. i guess theres not enough other "features" to distinguish X870 from X670, so for now theyre not planning to backport this to X670....meh

 

Here's the cure to all your ills Brother.... 🤣

 

Or step into the 2 dimm land of the Apex

 

 

4 hours ago, tps3443 said:

Just imagine 6090. It will attract every scalper in the world. And it will be $2,999.99 for 6090FE. I think 5090 is my last GPU. PC gaming is coming to an end for the masses. We better enjoy these last 2 years. 

 

Yeah, this has rolled around in my mind for quite some time every since the launch of the 5090 series. The market continues to show Nvidia it can charge more and more for their halo products but I am a firm believer a product is only worth as much as consumers will pay.

 

For the lower tiers, Nvidia has routinely hit walls or competition and has had to price down accordingly, but the top end? Sky's the limit and even 5080 AIB models have skyrocketed into formerly 4090 land and brimming on 5090FE/PNY/Gigabyte launch pricing.

 

It really doesn't matter who won't pay but moreso who WILL pay.

 

Supply and Demand baby......supply and demand.....

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

On another note, my friend finally wised up and I snagged an Astral for him from Best Buy and he sold off his FE for $3500 locally cash. I just had a chance to test it earlier today. It hit +3000 no problem on memory but it's boost lock is only 2919 and 2970 vs 2977 and 3060 on mine. Voltage is 1.065 and 1.085 max vs 1.085 and 1.1105 on mine. It also as quite audible coil whine but nothing compared to his FE which sounded like R2D2 taking a shot while navigating. We just finished up with a two hour FT jam session and I told him I could return it and wait for another unit if he wants but he still wants it and plans on blocking it (well, having his son block it for him) so off it goes tomorrow to its new home.

 

 

 

 

 

[win32asmguy]

2 hours ago, electrosoft said:

As for pricing, yeah they've come down a bit. On launch, they had a "special" price of $3999.99 for the Raider 285/5090 then it went back up to its "regular" price of $4899 but was then almost immediately discounted to $4499 and now it's at a regular price of $4099. 6400 speed ram and 2tb SSD isn't terrible but still....

 

Even the normal Titan dropped below $5k almost at launch.

 

9950HX3D models are all I would be interested in on the top end atm for gaming for 5090s though as the overall uplift versus the previous generation is mediocre.

 

It sounds like there may be a temporary tariff pause so over the summer pricing may be less volatile. The addon RAM and SSD has always inflated their prices. All of the good deals last year were models that shipped with 32GB and 1TB. Their QHD+ also seems to be much cheaper than the miniLED panel too.

 

The 275HX is actually pretty good. Runs great with WoW and any other games, much cooler temperatures overall than 14900HX. Best of all I can finally get something with ability to tune the CPU, control the fans, max GPU TDP, and with an iGPU TB4 port just like the Precision series. Memory latency is higher but luckily it can atleast be tuned to get closer to what I have heard with the 285K.

 

I have heard rumors that 9945HX3D has seen some AGESA bug fixes and does have higher TDP than 7945HX3D. Its a shame MSI has decided to only pair the new chip with UHD+ panels at the moment. Maybe Micro Center has enough pull with them to get a 9945HX3D config with QHD+ at a good price as they seem to have done that with the 285HX variant this year.