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

[Papusan]

4 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I got rid of the worthless "server-grade thermal conductive gel" in short order on the 9070 XT Elite. It was junk. And, it also is not "gel" at all. It is a putty that is dry and not very sticky.

 

Hmmm. Very dry but still leak out from the card once the temps go up (vertical mount). Will the Gigabyte mods (shills) put up a Putty leak Megatread? And will Gigabyte accept it ? Or can it further destoy Gigabyte's reputation? 

 

 

China is a huge market for 5090(D). This could mean better availability of 5090's in other regions. Because  around 30% of all made xx90(D) will be removed from the China market. And less shortage means more normal prices as well. Or Nvidia's partners will reduce the production to keep up highest possible ASP. 

NVIDIA RTX 5090D Rumored To Get Nerfed To Just 14,080 CUDA Cores, RTX 5080 Ti/Super Expected To Release At The End Of 2025

[jaybee83]

8 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I got rid of the worthless "server-grade thermal conductive gel" in short order on the 9070 XT Elite. It was junk. And, it also is not "gel" at all. It is a putty that is dry and not very sticky. I replaced it with 1.0mm 13 w/mK pads, put Duronaut on the core and added 3.0mm pad covering the back of the GPU. Brought down all temps between 5° and 10°C depending on what part(s) you are measuring. Hotspot and memory junction temps are no longer at or above 90°C as they were with the stock trash.

---

@jaybee83 here are some settings you can mess with for 24GB modules. (Note that they are slower overall than 16GB modules at a given clock speed, same as Intel. 24GB need looser timings than 16GB modules, so you only gain with higher clock speeds, not tighter timings. Two steps forward, one step backward.) 

 These are stable settings. Runs TM5 without error until the modules hit 60°C  on air and error out.

 

duuude 8400 LOL

 

time for me to get crackin on binning ram kits. ill likely start by the end of the month 🙂 

[Mr. Fox]

4 hours ago, Papusan said:

 

Hmmm. Very dry but still leak out from the card once the temps go up (vertical mount). Will the Gigabyte mods (shills) put up a Putty leak Megatread? And will Gigabyte accept it ? Or can it further destoy Gigabyte's reputation? 

 

 

China is a huge market for 5090(D). This could mean better availability of 5090's in other regions. Because  around 30% of all made xx90(D) will be removed from the China market. And less shortage means more normal prices as well. Or Nvidia's partners will reduce the production to keep up highest possible ASP. 

NVIDIA RTX 5090D Rumored To Get Nerfed To Just 14,080 CUDA Cores, RTX 5080 Ti/Super Expected To Release At The End Of 2025

Mine was so dry that I was able to save what I removed by rolling it up in a ball and putting it in a sealable plastic container. It would be useful in a spot where there are numerous components of varying heights  in a small area that need some degree of cooling, even if it is not the best possible TIM. I did that on the 9070 XT with two inductors and MOSFETs that were away from the others and close together in a small space. But nowhere else. I could only see using this putty to be a good idea instead of a bunch of tiny thermal pads placed on individual parts clustered together that might fall out of the intended position or placement during reassembly.

 

When I took the GPU apart there was no sort of leakage and no mess to clean up. Just this putty that was not a challenge to clean up. Most thermal putty is very sticky and when you take things apart it is caked into cracks and crevices and a real pain in the butt to clean up completely. If I had to identify a similarity of the material to something else it was more like a bread dough with flour rubbed onto the outside and left to rise rather than a gooey putty or gelatinous material.

[johnksss]

On 5/11/2025 at 1:17 PM, 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.

The other alternative is abit more costly, but you can add a 4 nvme drive enclosure using those USB4 ports. 

 

The con to this is that the enclosure would need to be kept cool enough to keep maximum write speeds. I could be routed inside the case near the fans as an option. Read and write speeds up to 3.5K, but using TB5 it's 6K or so.

 

I use this as an option when running other drives, because taking out the GPU over and over gets annoying.

 

Not sure what this means for you...

Edit: From their site.

AMD Ryzen™ 8700 & 8600 & 8400 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x8, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD Ryzen™ 8500 & 8300 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x4, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD X870E Chipset
1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 slot
1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot
* Please check the PCIe bifurcation table on the support site (https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1037507/).

 

 

Just an option to think about.

[Mr. Fox]

1 hour ago, johnksss said:

The other alternative is abit more costly, but you can add a 4 nvme drive enclosure using those USB4 ports. 

 

The con to this is that the enclosure would need to be kept cool enough to keep maximum write speeds. I could be routed inside the case near the fans as an option. Read and write speeds up to 3.5K, but using TB5 it's 6K or so.

 

I use this as an option when running other drives, because taking out the GPU over and over gets annoying.

 

Not sure what this means for you...

Edit: From their site.

AMD Ryzen™ 8700 & 8600 & 8400 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x8, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD Ryzen™ 8500 & 8300 Series Desktop Processors*
2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots with Q-Release Slim (only supports PCIEx16_1 & total bandwidth for x4, PCIEx16_2 will be disabled)
AMD X870E Chipset
1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 slot
1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot
* Please check the PCIe bifurcation table on the support site (https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1037507/).

 

 

Just an option to think about.

Thanks for the suggestions, Brother John.

 

Still trying to decide if I am going to keep it or return it within the 30-day window. It's nice in some ways, but not worth the sacrifices it requires in some aspects of functionality or the added cost. I cancelled the pre-order three times, but the allure of an Apex was too great. But, it is falling short of my expectations as a former Intel Apex owner. If I return it I will probably replace it with another AORUS Master and be done. It leaves more to be desired than I expected.

[johnksss]

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

Thanks for the suggestions, Brother John.

 

Still trying to decide if I am going to keep it or return it within the 30-day window. It's nice in some ways, but not worth the sacrifices it requires in some aspects of functionality or the added cost. I cancelled the pre-order three times, but the allure of an Apex was too great. But, it is falling short of my expectations as a former Intel Apex owner. If I return it I will probably replace it with another AORUS Master and be done. It leaves more to be desired than I expected.

If it's passable on benching and able to hold all my drives, then I would just give the Apex back and wait on next gen in that respect and grab another AORUS Master and call it a day. If I have no plans on a 5090, then the Master would be the final answer.

 

PS, I already gave mine back and went back to my Z790 Apex. I loved the options the new board had, but could not get past those crappy CPU's. In some respects, they did pretty well, but I felt that it was going backward because we were used to at least 32 threads, and 24 just wasn't doing it for me.

[tps3443]

DOOM Dark Ages is very fun! It is on Game Pass for free with subscription! 
 

 

[johnksss]

2 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

DOOM Dark Ages is very fun! It is on Game Pass for free with subscription! 
 

 

It also came with my Astral and my laptop. Plus a few other games I need to get installed.

[tps3443]

12 minutes ago, johnksss said:

It also came with my Astral and my laptop. Plus a few other games I need to get installed.

That’s excellent! I almost bought a copy from another guy who received a free copy as well. But then I discovered it’s free for Game Pass users, This new Doom game well, It’s not the typical Doom which are usually “Amazingly optimized on Vulkan” game, prior Doom mentality is = (run it maxed out on any GPU ya got) lol. 4K native pushes the 5090 ridiculously hard and actually uses it! Makes no sense though. Of course, DLSS+Frame Gen make it run really really easy. But, I don’t understand why they did this. It should not be this hard to run.. My 5090FE smacks it down hard, especially when I’m not recording gameplay, but not everyone has a 5090 lol. This game would whoop something like a RTX 5080 during 4K Native 🫠

[electrosoft]

Has anyone played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? It seems to be getting a lot of attention and pretty good reviews.

 

I'm taking a break from Fallout 76 for a bit so that opens up another slot for game play to go along with WoW.

 

 

[johnksss]

13 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

That’s excellent! I almost bought a copy from another guy who received a free copy as well. But then I discovered it’s free for Game Pass users, This new Doom game well, It’s not the typical Doom which are usually “Amazingly optimized on Vulkan” game, prior Doom mentality is = (run it maxed out on any GPU ya got) lol. 4K native pushes the 5090 ridiculously hard and actually uses it! Makes no sense though. Of course, DLSS+Frame Gen make it run really really easy. But, I don’t understand why they did this. It should not be this hard to run.. My 5090FE smacks it down hard, especially when I’m not recording gameplay, but not everyone has a 5090 lol. This game would whoop something like a RTX 5080 during 4K Native 🫠

Well load up the 4090 laptop and get to testing. I'll load it up on my laptop and see what it can do at 2k/5070ti

[tps3443]

8 minutes ago, johnksss said:

Well load up the 4090 laptop and get to testing. I'll load it up on my laptop and see what it can do at 2k/5070ti

It’s a crusher on native 4K! My 4090 Laptop will probably run it good, but it’s 2560x1600P, and Frame Gen will be its savior. But I think something like a RTX 3090 would really struggle. Frame Gen is excellent feature. 

[johnksss]

5 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

It’s a crusher on native 4K! My 4090 Laptop will probably run it good, but it’s 2560x1600P, and Frame Gen will be its savior. But I think something like a RTX 3090 would really struggle. Frame Gen is excellent feature. 

Running FG$ i get 400+ frames at times. Right now average is 350fps with no over clock.

 

But you are right, i was at like 70 to 90 with it turned off.

[tps3443]

20 minutes ago, johnksss said:

Running FG$ i get 400+ frames at times. Right now average is 350fps with no over clock.

 

But you are right, i was at like 70 to 90 with it turned off.

Yep, recording with Shadow Play is at least a 5% loss in frame rate for me. I did hear someone say the latest drive also improves performance by 2%. I was using the older driver. 
 

Too graphically demanding for a Doom game though. 🤣

[Clamibot]

1 hour ago, tps3443 said:

That’s excellent! I almost bought a copy from another guy who received a free copy as well. But then I discovered it’s free for Game Pass users, This new Doom game well, It’s not the typical Doom which are usually “Amazingly optimized on Vulkan” game, prior Doom mentality is = (run it maxed out on any GPU ya got) lol. 4K native pushes the 5090 ridiculously hard and actually uses it! Makes no sense though. Of course, DLSS+Frame Gen make it run really really easy. But, I don’t understand why they did this. It should not be this hard to run.. My 5090FE smacks it down hard, especially when I’m not recording gameplay, but not everyone has a 5090 lol. This game would whoop something like a RTX 5080 during 4K Native 🫠

 

Unfortunately, Doom: The Dark Ages is artificially demanding. It forces ray tracing, and you can't turn it off.

 

If you ask me, it doesn't look any better than Doom Eternal while costing significantly more performance to render. This is a significant regression in their game design as it doesn't make sense to use ray tracing for static environments. Baked shadows would've been much better.

 

The thing is, as a game developer myself, I actually have insight into this kind of stuff unlike regular players, so I know what's really needed and what isn't. I understand the team behind the game wanted to focus resources on making more levels, and that's great, but one of the selling points of Doom games were how easy they were to run despite how good they looked. Optimization went down the toilet with this release. Having said that, I still want to play the game as I'm a big fan of Doom, but now I need more powerful hardware again to reach my framerate target. It doesn't seem necessary for the game to cost so much performance to render though given what they achieved with the previous 2 installments. Hopefully we get a mod that allows us to turn all the raytracing crap off.

 

Seriously, it doesn't take that much effort to bake shadows on levels. It's an automated process, and you just have to let it run its course. Games run much faster with baked shadows. Rasterization will always yield superior performance, which is one of the most important things to consider with realtime interactive software like video games. If you can use baked shadows, you do that. If you have a static environment, use baked shadows. Raytraced shadows only make sense for dynamic environments where you can destroy stuff in the game world.

 

In regards to video game graphics in general, we're at a point of seriously diminishing returns. We need improvements in gameplay a lot more than pushing raytracing in every game.

[Mr. Fox]

10 hours ago, johnksss said:

If it's passable on benching and able to hold all my drives, then I would just give the Apex back and wait on next gen in that respect and grab another AORUS Master and call it a day. If I have no plans on a 5090, then the Master would be the final answer.

 

PS, I already gave mine back and went back to my Z790 Apex. I loved the options the new board had, but could not get past those crappy CPU's. In some respects, they did pretty well, but I felt that it was going backward because we were used to at least 32 threads, and 24 just wasn't doing it for me.

Honestly, that's the reason I am running an AMD platform. I took a look at how Core Ultra dumbed everything down and I was instantly uninterested. I've had no problems whatsoever with degradation on Gen13/14 and had the new Core Ultra been a worthy successor to 14900KS it is where I would be now. 9950X nudges out 14900KS by a margin on most things. But, not by much. 9950X only really distances itself from 14900KS in Cinebench and similar workloads because of not having any slow baby cell phone Atom cores that lack hyperthreading.

9 hours ago, tps3443 said:

DOOM Dark Ages is very fun! It is on Game Pass for free with subscription! 
 

 

9 hours ago, johnksss said:

It also came with my Astral and my laptop. Plus a few other games I need to get installed.

I've watched the trailers and it looks amazing. There has never been a DOOM title that I haven't liked and each new version in the franchise is better than the last. I will be grabbing it when I see it available for $25 or less. I did not notice it was released. I watched the trailers some months back before it was released.

[johnksss]

1 hour ago, tps3443 said:

Yep, recording with Shadow Play is at least a 5% loss in frame rate for me. I did hear someone say the latest drive also improves performance by 2%. I was using the older driver. 
 

Too graphically demanding for a Doom game though. 🤣

Have not upgraded to newer driver either and running onscreen display as well, but with that 4x help none of that really matters. About to turn it all off and see how it fairs.

[electrosoft]

9 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Honestly, that's the reason I am running an AMD platform. I took a look at how Core Ultra dumbed everything down and I was instantly uninterested. I've had no problems whatsoever with degradation on Gen13/14 and had the new Core Ultra been a worthy successor to 14900KS it is where I would be now. 9950X nudges out 14900KS by a margin on most things. But, not by much. 9950X only really distances itself from 14900KS in Cinebench and similar workloads because of not having any slow baby cell phone Atom cores that lack hyperthreading.

I've watched the trailers and it looks amazing. There has never been a DOOM title that I haven't liked and each new version in the franchise is better than the last. I will be grabbing it when I see it available for $25 or less. I did not notice it was released. I watched the trailers some months back before it was released.

 

I couldn't bear to part with my SP109 14900KS, so that's why I gave it to my wife to use in her rig at 59/45/45 on a 280mm no less and it is running like a champ dialed in. I was hoping Intel dropped that rumored 10 or 12 P core only monster but alas.....

 

And yeah, Doom looks amazing and I have loved the franchise since inception playing it on my 486DX266 WAY back in the day. I was in college and a buddy copied his disks for me and just said, "try this...." I was blown away. It was my gateway into playing competitive Quake for years.

 

I'll wait till it is on discount and pick it up. $70 is steep and $100 for the ultimate edition is crazy.

 

 

[electrosoft]

SFF build with the 6000....so nice....

 

 

 

Benchmarks w/ and w/o OC......

 

[Papusan]

 

Nice. And not even the Gold Edition of 5080. Yup, Dom 5080 now at 5090 prices. Tempting bro @Mr. Fox? But if you dont like the game, maybe a vanilla 5080 Astral at sub $1700 looking better?

 

Asus RTX 5080 Doom-inspired GPU costs as much as an RTX 5090

[tps3443]

2 hours ago, Papusan said:

 

Nice. And not even the Gold Edition of 5080. Yup, Dom 5080 now at 5090 prices. Tempting bro @Mr. Fox? But if you dont like the game, maybe a vanilla 5080 Astral at sub $1700 looking better?

 

Asus RTX 5080 Doom-inspired GPU costs as much as an RTX 5090

Well, not quite but I get what you mean. My 5090FE was $1,999. But not sure if any one else on here got one for that much. 😕 It was really a select few. The market is crazy. I think that Doom inspired 5080 is really cool though, and if someone did not own a 5080/5090 already. I can see my self buying that for $1,899.99 with the T-Shirt. It comes with a few other goodies too. 
 

PS: Bethesda Gear store has a 10% off promotion code for first time orders. So, $1,709 (Still terrible for a 5080, but it’s a really cool 5080 at least!)
 

This brings back nostalgia for me mainly. Because my first Nvidia graphics card was a eVGA  Doom 6600GT. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was 14 years old and you wouldn’t believe what I did. I removed that tiny dinky cooler, bought me some Artic Silver 5, and a massive CPU heatsink, and I zip tied it to the 6600GT. I was running 3Dmark01SE and 3Dmark03 and whooping all the other 6600GT’s 🤣 I loved my Doom edition 6600GT. This is when it all started for me. 
 

I think the Astral is pretty cool already, and a Doom theme Astral is even better! The only thing I dont like is the 16GB GDDR7, but still, if I didn’t own a 5090 ready, I’d get that. 
 

foto vinden op internet

[Mr. Fox]

3 hours ago, Papusan said:

 

Nice. And not even the Gold Edition of 5080. Yup, Dom 5080 now at 5090 prices. Tempting bro @Mr. Fox? But if you dont like the game, maybe a vanilla 5080 Astral at sub $1700 looking better?

 

Asus RTX 5080 Doom-inspired GPU costs as much as an RTX 5090

I don't need it. I just today received a brand new 3080 from Israel that has more of them for under $350. These are like what they use in servers so they're a bit loud and hot, but I can fix that. An aftermarket backplate and waterblock will do the trick. This is indeed brand new and it shipped in generic whitebox type of packaging as though it was never intended for retail consumer distribution. Works like a normal 3080 though. Just stripped down with a crappy blower cooler. They've got more old stock on hand.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/187160768672

 

[electrosoft]

4 hours ago, tps3443 said:

Well, not quite but I get what you mean. My 5090FE was $1,999. But not sure if any one else on here got one for that much. 😕 It was really a select few. The market is crazy. I think that Doom inspired 5080 is really cool though, and if someone did not own a 5080/5090 already. I can see my self buying that for $1,899.99 with the T-Shirt. It comes with a few other goodies too. 
 

 

 

Well, you also have to think of the vast majority, especially over on OC that flat out do not want an FE regardless of the cost. For every @tps3443 you have 10 @Mr. Fox 🤣

 

Personally, after the 5080 FE vBIOS disappointment, I'm good on the 5090 FE even at $2k. That really chapped my hide and I can't really put exactly into words why and made it an easy sell off on the 5080 FE. I don't like to be contained or not have the options I want for no good reason except control issues.

If we get an XOC vBIOS, you can't even flash that on it either. That just grinds my gears.

 

4 hours ago, tps3443 said:

This brings back nostalgia for me mainly. Because my first Nvidia graphics card was a eVGA  Doom 6600GT. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was 14 years old and you wouldn’t believe what I did. I removed that tiny dinky cooler, bought me some Artic Silver 5, and a massive CPU heatsink, and I zip tied it to the 6600GT. I was running 3Dmark01SE and 3Dmark03 and whooping all the other 6600GT’s 🤣 I loved my Doom edition 6600GT. This is when it all started for me.
 

 

Ok, now that's cool and awesome that is your first introduction to Doom. Funny you ripped off the cool heatsink and slapped on an aftermarket one for better performance though. Setting the seeds for you now. 🙂

 

Tearing down a ~$200 dollar (~$275 in today dollars) to replace the heatsink vs getting ready to shunt and block a $2k 5090FE hits different though but speaks volumes bro. 🙂

 

4 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I don't need it. I just today received a brand new 3080 from Israel that has more of them for under $350. These are like what they use in servers so they're a bit loud and hot, but I can fix that. An aftermarket backplate and waterblock will do the trick. This is indeed brand new and it shipped in generic whitebox type of packaging as though it was never intended for retail consumer distribution. Works like a normal 3080 though. Just stripped down with a crappy blower cooler. They've got more old stock on hand.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/187160768672

 

 

Killer price, but 2x PCIE and rear placed power placement might be a problem. Looking forward to you hooking it up.

 

 

[Clamibot]

7 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I don't need it. I just today received a brand new 3080 from Israel that has more of them for under $350. These are like what they use in servers so they're a bit loud and hot, but I can fix that. An aftermarket backplate and waterblock will do the trick. This is indeed brand new and it shipped in generic whitebox type of packaging as though it was never intended for retail consumer distribution. Works like a normal 3080 though. Just stripped down with a crappy blower cooler. They've got more old stock on hand.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/187160768672

 

 

I love blower fan cards!

 

Although they're louder than axial fans, the noise doesn't bother me as it's not a high pitched whine. Blower fan cards also tend to be the cheaper models too (yay!), and they exhaust heat directly out of my case instead of dumping the heat inside. That's the reason I prefer them.

 

Also, blower fan cards are only 2 slots which makes it easier for me to build out multi GPU configurations.

[Mr. Fox]

3 hours ago, electrosoft said:

Killer price, but 2x PCIE and rear placed power placement might be a problem. Looking forward to you hooking it up.

The card has like a 350W power limit, so 2X PCIe power is fine. Unless building in a small case or one with obstructions, end mount power cables are ideal. I loved that about the 3090 Ti FTW3.

1 hour ago, Clamibot said:

I love blower fan cards!

 

Although they're louder than axial fans, the noise doesn't bother me as it's not a high pitched whine. Blower fan cards also tend to be the cheaper models too (yay!), and they exhaust heat directly out of my case instead of dumping the heat inside. That's the reason I prefer them.

 

Also, blower fan cards are only 2 slots which makes it easier for me to build out multi GPU configurations.

This one would be good in a SFF build. Especially one with the chimney design with the GPU mounting vertical and on end. It is loud, but as you said, it is not a whine as much as high velocity air noise. It really dumps tons on heat out of the rear I/O. And, yikes... It did run hot (over 100°C memory junction and like 95°C hotspot). Remarkably similar temps to the 9070 XT. And, like the 9070 XT, it improved with better/thinner pads and I replaced the PTM pad with Duronaut. This thing has a large copper heatsink and vapor chamber. The Titan blower cards have similar thermals.

 

Overall, for a brand new GPU (as advertised) this was a really good value. I am not making it my primary use GPU, but it's good to have another toy in the toy chest and a backup part if something dies unexpectedly or you need something to use during a warranty claim/repair.

 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/133507978

---

I think tomorrow I am going to put the Gene back in the Antec C8, box up the Apex and return it for a refund. It is expensive but doesn't offer me any notable performance gains over the Gene or Master, and has an unforgivable appointment of PCIe slots. I really irks the crap out of me that the only usable PCIe slot apart from the GPU is the one right above it. I do not like having the Sabrent card on top of the GPU. I don't like the fact that using the PCIe X16 slots below the GPU slot cut the GPU bandwidth to X8 (inexcusable - Gigabyte wins here). I think getting back $800 will yield more personal benefit than what the Apex can deliver. I feel like there is nothing to be gained by keeping it. It's functional limitations combined with little or no performance gains are the deciding factors here.