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

[Papusan]

41 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

Looking good! I prefer liquid metal tape over kapton for the absolute 100% seal and it is easy to remove anyho

 

Hmmm🙃 I fix it for you.

[electrosoft]

53 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

Hmmm🙃 I fix it for you.

 

Nah, Liquid Metal all the way. Keeps those contact points nice and sparky! 🤣

 

But seriously....

 

Definitely nail polish or equivalent over kapton. I usually use conformal coating.

 

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

 

Best Buy is completely sold out of 5090s. Only models they have are third party market place models.

Microcenter has ~3 models in stock cheapest is $2800 Zotac AIO

Newegg cheapest model is the $2800 Zotac AIO and 5 models total in stock.

 

 PNY is back at $3460 / $3499+ shipped and sold by Amazon/Newegg....yay

 

Stock in the EU/UK still plentiful for 5090's @Papusan @jaybee83?

 

Cheapest 5080 available now is $1129.00 Shadow here in the US.

 

 

[Papusan]

18 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

 

Nah, Liquid Metal all the way. Keeps those contact points nice and sparky! 🤣

 

But seriously....

 

Definitely nail polish or equivalent over kapton. I usually use conformal coating.

 

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

 

Best Buy is completely sold out of 5090s. Only models they have are third party market place models.

Microcenter has ~3 models in stock cheapest is $2800 Zotac AIO

Newegg cheapest model is the $2800 Zotac AIO and 5 models total in stock.

 

 PNY is back at $3460 / $3499+ shipped and sold by Amazon/Newegg....yay

 

Stock in the EU/UK still plentiful for 5090's @Papusan @jaybee83?

 

Cheapest 5080 available now is $1129.00 Shadow here in the US.

 

 

 

It starts to dry up. But still no problem get the 5080 or the 5090. And the prices haven't moved much. Cheapest 5090 is GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5090 WindForce 3 OC at around $2018 MSRP (without taxes). Otherwise around $2850. Not bad but  the good deals on flagship tiers is gone. 

 

Edit. Cheapest 5080 is $1151,61 MSRP so no thanks. Even nope at $1000. See also HU latest for 5080. A bad buy. Or a bad product for the prices. xx80 class cards today should have minimum 20GB vram for the prices. 

 

[Mr. Fox]

Just fill the space around the die with low melt solder to protect the SMDs from liquid metal. 🤣

[Rage Set]

On 12/26/2025 at 2:43 AM, Reciever said:

Well turns out there is a wrinkle on part of the server 😕

 

Gigabyte did not enable bifurcation on the motherboard, it can be enabled with a BIOS mod just really didnt want to do that sort of thing. The Sage has it enabled by default and works on my Precision Towers so I fully expected it to be commonplace on this one. I'll look at the guide in a bit and toss a coin for looking for the hardware programmer I have somewhere. tl;dr the 4xNVME PCIE adapter is only showing 1 drive from the 4.

 

Otherwise Unraid just booted right up, reallocated the array of drives and the cache on its own, didnt even have to point anything anywhere. See's the 80 threads available to it now with no issues. Just been cleaning up what ever I was doing at the time, server is nice and cool, and more importantly more than quiet enough to be placed in the second floor living room (hybrid office kind of setup).

 

Overtime I do plan to replace the older 4/6TB drives there are still present in the array, they are getting looooong in the tooth so if I do anything with this system that will likely be the first step. drives on the right are 12TB each but 2 of them are being used for parity, so it doesnt add much to the "useable" pool of storage.

 

Onto the next project for now 🙂 Decided to go with the server build first to get my confidence back, its been some time since I built something outside of my wheel house. Damn near thought I had some crap karma for a minute there because the server wouldnt post when I tested the motherboard. Turns out, its not guaranteed that it will default to a GPU for video out since they have a chipset video output via the VGA port on the I/O. Once that was squared, then realized, sadly, one of the sticks of RAM was bad 😞

Anyone got 2933Mhz/3200Mhz 32GB DDR4 ECC laying around? Damned things are stupid expensive now 😞

 

All of my 32GB ECC DDR4 are in use, unfortunately. I do have one W-1290 server that I only turn on once per month with 128GB of 2933MT/s RAM (32GB x4) that doesn't particularly need that much RAM. I only purchased that much RAM to max out the server. They are UDIMMs though.

 

The crazy part is the price for them didn't change. I paid around $850 for the two kits around three to four years ago. They cost the same now. I am starting to realize I only buy RAM during shortages...LOL. 

[Talon]

https://videocardz.com/newz/cinebench-2026-released-with-support-for-amd-rdna4-and-nvidia-blackwell-gpus

 

 

Cinebench 2026 has been released. New software to punish our chips with. 

 

https://www.maxon.net/en/downloads/cinebench-downloads

[Mr. Fox]

3 minutes ago, Talon said:

https://videocardz.com/newz/cinebench-2026-released-with-support-for-amd-rdna4-and-nvidia-blackwell-gpus

 

 

Cinebench 2026 has been released. New software to punish our chips with. 

 

https://www.maxon.net/en/downloads/cinebench-downloads

Nice. Thanks, bro. 

 

They finally gave it a new program icon so you can tell at a glance which Cinebench version the shortcut is for.

[Mr. Fox]

Seems a little bit inconsistent between runs for some reason. Not sure if the 3D-Vcache is helping the EPYC or what. The clocks and power limits are the same as the 9950X, but it scores higher.

 

 

[jaybee83]

20 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

Nah, Liquid Metal all the way. Keeps those contact points nice and sparky! 🤣

 

But seriously....

 

Definitely nail polish or equivalent over kapton. I usually use conformal coating.

 

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

 

Best Buy is completely sold out of 5090s. Only models they have are third party market place models.

Microcenter has ~3 models in stock cheapest is $2800 Zotac AIO

Newegg cheapest model is the $2800 Zotac AIO and 5 models total in stock.

 

 PNY is back at $3460 / $3499+ shipped and sold by Amazon/Newegg....yay

 

Stock in the EU/UK still plentiful for 5090's @Papusan @jaybee83?

 

Cheapest 5080 available now is $1129.00 Shadow here in the US.

 

 

 

still plenty of stock, albeit prices are continuously increasing and the low point waaay out of reach by now. out of 40 models listed, 6 are available shortly, with 29 directly available in stock. cheapest is, funnily enough, the FE at 2650€ 😄 at 19% VAT that would equate to 2227€ without tax or equivalently 2621 USD, again, thats currently the cheapest available, so seems like norway @Papusanhas some better luck now with 5090 pricing 😛 

 

 

3 hours ago, Talon said:

https://videocardz.com/newz/cinebench-2026-released-with-support-for-amd-rdna4-and-nvidia-blackwell-gpus

 

 

Cinebench 2026 has been released. New software to punish our chips with. 

 

https://www.maxon.net/en/downloads/cinebench-downloads

 

oh snap, say wat! didnt expect the next version to be out so soon already.

 

@electrosoft btw bud, just got notified today that my TG wireview pro II was shipped out, hows it looking on your end? 🙂 guess now its time to also order me some additional pots of TG putty pro to completely fill out the backside underneath the backplate. every bit counts when flashing the matrix / XOC 😄 

[Mr. Fox]

59 minutes ago, jaybee83 said:

just got notified today that my TG wireview pro II was shipped out, hows it looking on your end? 🙂 guess now its time to also order me some additional pots of TG putty pro to completely fill out the backside underneath the backplate. every bit counts when flashing the matrix / XOC 😄 

Mine still shows "in process" and I ordered/paid on 10/30. 

[electrosoft]

6 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

still plenty of stock, albeit prices are continuously increasing and the low point waaay out of reach by now. out of 40 models listed, 6 are available shortly, with 29 directly available in stock. cheapest is, funnily enough, the FE at 2650€ 😄 at 19% VAT that would equate to 2227€ without tax or equivalently 2621 USD, again, thats currently the cheapest available, so seems like norway @Papusanhas some better luck now with 5090 pricing 😛 

 

 

 

oh snap, say wat! didnt expect the next version to be out so soon already.

 

@electrosoft btw bud, just got notified today that my TG wireview pro II was shipped out, hows it looking on your end? 🙂 guess now its time to also order me some additional pots of TG putty pro to completely fill out the backside underneath the backplate. every bit counts when flashing the matrix / XOC 😄 

 

So plenty of stock but prices have gone back up....Not sure if that's a win but at least you have stock. We just have the higher prices for the stock we actually have. 🙂

 

------

 

<Insert Sad Face HERE>

 

I'll be waiting for a bit it seems.....*sigh*

 

 

[Rage Set]

12 hours ago, electrosoft said:

 

So plenty of stock but prices have gone back up....Not sure if that's a win but at least you have stock. We just have the higher prices for the stock we actually have. 🙂

 

------

 

<Insert Sad Face HERE>

 

I'll be waiting for a bit it seems.....*sigh*

 

 

 

That sucks, but I trust that TG is producing a good product. I know if I ever go down the path of securing a 5090, I would definitely be picking up a WireView. 

 

In other news, the 9070XT Red Devil arrived last week and the PRIME 5070 TI will come today. It doesn't escape my mind that I essentially spent nearly $1500 for two GPUs, when I could have put down another 500 for a 5090 at "MSRP". We all know they don't cost that, so I am fine for now. 

 

If anyone needs a 4070 TI (Gigabyte Windforce), let me know. I might just build a PC out of spare parts and sell it.

[electrosoft]

3 hours ago, Rage Set said:

 

That sucks, but I trust that TG is producing a good product. I know if I ever go down the path of securing a 5090, I would definitely be picking up a WireView. 

 

In other news, the 9070XT Red Devil arrived last week and the PRIME 5070 TI will come today. It doesn't escape my mind that I essentially spent nearly $1500 for two GPUs, when I could have put down another 500 for a 5090 at "MSRP". We all know they don't cost that, so I am fine for now. 

 

If anyone needs a 4070 TI (Gigabyte Windforce), let me know. I might just build a PC out of spare parts and sell it.

 

Yep sad a bit but that gives a little window for @jaybee83 to give his full assessment of it and if it gets his stamp of approval. @Mr. Fox were you batch 1 or batch 2? Any updates on your ship date?

 

---

 

Do you plan on keeping both or picking one or the other? Both are good GPUs and basically in the same class of performance depending on game/program you're running.

 

For that brief window in August to early September, 5090s were available in pockets on some models for $1999.99 and others had come down for a brief spell too, but that party is over. Asus never really dropped the prices on their Astrals except the LC at MC for $3399.99 for a bit for members. Suprims did come down to near MSRP (but never quite got there) and Vanguards haven't available for months now in the US and I'm not sure why. Fallout76 Clan member wanted one to match his Godlike Z790 MSI build for the aestheticsbut they're nowhere to be found in the US for months on end. He "settled" for a Suprim.

 

------

 

I have a stack of parts I'm holding onto because pricing is just going to get worse in the market and waiting a month or so will net you more on the reseller end as FB dries up as parts hunter (present company included) continue to hunt and bleed it dry.

 

With Nvidia cutting back on consumer level production and GPU prices expected to rise, that 4070 TI will definitely go up in value.

 

You could put together a decent gaming PC with that 4070 Ti and get some good scratch for it.

[Mr. Fox]

24 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

@Mr. Fox were you batch 1 or batch 2? Any updates on your ship date?

First batch. My last update was December 9 and their projection was January 21, 2026 delivery.

3 hours ago, Rage Set said:

In other news, the 9070XT Red Devil arrived last week and the PRIME 5070 TI will come today. It doesn't escape my mind that I essentially spent nearly $1500 for two GPUs, when I could have put down another 500 for a 5090 at "MSRP". We all know they don't cost that, so I am fine for now. 

 

If anyone needs a 4070 TI (Gigabyte Windforce), let me know. I might just build a PC out of spare parts and sell it.

I think the 5070 Ti is a better value (bang for buck) than a 5080. The 5080 is better but the price gap doesn't scale with performance well enough to make it worth paying more. The 4070 Ti is also a good GPU. I'd buy it if I were not unemployed. It would be perfect in a Phanteks MT X3 build.

[electrosoft]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

First batch. My last update was December 9 and their projection was January 21, 2026 delivery.

I think the 5070 Ti is a better value (bang for buck) than a 5080. The 5080 is better but the price gap doesn't scale well enough to make it worth paying more. The 4070 Ti is also a good GPU. I'd buy it if I were not unemployed. It would be perfect in a Phanteks MT X3 build.

 

Well, that's what I get for waiting a few days before ordering. I ordered my WV2 on 11/3. Looks like we both got pushed back, but myself ~3 weeks after yours. Well, that's a lot of data I'll get to soak in from you and @jaybee83 before mine arrives. 🙂

 

----

 

Agreed on the GPU front. I think @Papusan noted several months ago (while I had my 5080FE before jettisoning it due to locked out vBIOS) the juice wasn't worth the squeeze vs the 5070ti in terms of cost MSRP vs MSRP and then obviously AIB models that completely went off the tracks especially for 5080s ($1800 for an Astral 5080?) and obviously 5090s (~$3800 for an Astral 5090 LC?).

 

Then again, the way the market is going, next gen AMD is now rumored for mid 2027 (or later) and I suspect Nvidia will follow suit. I would not be surprised if we don't see 10k and 6k series cards from AMD and Nvidia till Fall of 2027 at this rate with the RAM market hopefully coming to its senses by fall 2026 enough for Nvidia to offer Super cards by Jan 2027.

 

And we still have price hikes incoming.

Along with scaled back production due to memory reallocation from Nvidia to more lucrative markets

 

In other words, hug your 9070xt's and 5090's and hunker down.....

 

Not the greatest 9070xt, but Microcenter has Asrock Challenger 9070xt in stock for $579.99

They also have several 5070ti models at $749.99 and one at $729.99

 

Bang for buck, that 9070xt can't be beat....

 

Even in RT only testing, the 9070xt trades blows with the 5070ti:

 

 

 

 

5080s are running off the rails with the lowest cost being $1300 at Microcenter....

Cheapest on the part picker is $1129.99....

 

For myself, I'd either scoop up a fantastically priced Challenger 9070xt for $550.99 after MC discount or pony up a bit more  for the Zotac 5070ti for $693.49....

 

 

 

 

 

[Papusan]

5 hours ago, electrosoft said:

Agreed on the GPU front. I think @Papusan noted several months ago (while I had my 5080FE before jettisoning it due to locked out vBIOS) the juice wasn't worth the squeeze vs the 5070ti in terms of cost MSRP vs MSRP and then obviously AIB models that completely went off the tracks especially for 5080s ($1800 for an Astral 5080?) and obviously 5090s (~$3800 for an Astral 5090 LC?).

 

5080 have never been a good value here home. Not sure why... But I think for people that wanted close to flagship GPU performance and can't really afford the xx90 tier cards, they buy it anyway (the overpriced 5080's). They should instead go for the cheapest 5070Ti they could find. xx80@16GB at these prices/even MSRP is awful. 

 

Would be easier to swallow the 5080 with 24GB vram at $1000.

 

"4090 performance at $549!" is the most stupid I have heard from Nvidia. Even $1800 - 5080 scam from Asus ain't close with the measly 16GB vram buffer. Both nvidia and Asus failed hard with their prices for xx70Ti tier level cards that was meant to be the new and shiny xx80. And the xx80 tier card should also not have only half the cores vs xx90 cards. That's just dumb. Nvidia failed on the amount cores and vram for 5080. Period.

 

5 hours ago, electrosoft said:

Then again, the way the market is going, next gen AMD is now rumored for mid 2027 (or later) and I suspect Nvidia will follow suit. I would not be surprised if we don't see 10k and 6k series cards from AMD and Nvidia till Fall of 2027 at this rate with the RAM market hopefully coming to its senses by fall 2026 enough for Nvidia to offer Super cards by Jan 2027.

 

And we still have price hikes incoming.

 

I'm good with that. And if Nvidia release 6080@24GB, the 5090 will keep an very good value even early/mid 2027. We may not see same great value as for 4090 but if the AI madness continue you get a nice offset for the 5090 if you want the 6090. 

 

[tps3443]

Hey everyone. Man, throttle stop is amazing. Am I just learning how to use this tool, and what it’s actually for? What the heck is wrong with me lol. 😆 i have been over here dealing with some low GPU usage, and very weak CPU clocks, and poor 1% lows. 
 

Now I’m gaming and my 14900HX will nearly hold 5.2P/4.1E in most games FOREVER. After long duration, it’s still holding 4.9-5.1P, and eventually goes back to 5.2/4.1. 
 

 

I had reinstalled windows on my machine which was running very poorly. And speed step was kinda hindering its performance. 
 

I’m super impressed here with this 14900HX, never really liked it all that much until now I suppose.

[Talon]

4 minutes ago, tps3443 said:

Hey everyone. Man, throttle stop is amazing. Am I just learning how to use this tool, and what it’s actually for? What the heck is wrong with me lol. 😆 i have been over here dealing with some low GPU usage, and very weak CPU clocks, and poor 1% lows. 
 

Now I’m gaming and my 14900HX will nearly hold 5.2P/4.1E in most games FOREVER. After long duration, it’s still holding 4.9-5.1P, and eventually goes back to 5.2/4.1. 
 

 

I had reinstalled windows on my machine which was running very poorly. And speed step was kinda hindering its performance. 
 

I’m super impressed here with this 14900HX, never really liked it all that much until now I suppose. 

 

ThrottleStop with laptops is unfortunately or fortunately the way to go still. Luckily the DEV still provides updates and I also used it with my 13900HX to really unlock that beast. It sort of lets you bypass the cancer that is X-Load limits on gaming laptops. It also lets you have really fine control over power limits when you want them, which is ideal for tuning for each game/load scenario. Luckily some laptop OEMs provide some pretty great tuning, while others are pure trash. Lenovo actually provides a pretty great gaming laptop product, with really good tuning. Unfortunately they don't have fully unlocked BIOS, and the latest version apparently patched out the backdoor to get into the unlocked BIOS. So if I do consider a new laptop again in the future, it will have to be MSI again. They still provide their unlocked/hidden BIOS, the tuning is all recoverable within reason and their BIOS is more desktop like with it's menu options actually working and not bricking the machine. 

[tps3443]

31 minutes ago, Talon said:

 

ThrottleStop with laptops is unfortunately or fortunately the way to go still. Luckily the DEV still provides updates and I also used it with my 13900HX to really unlock that beast. It sort of lets you bypass the cancer that is X-Load limits on gaming laptops. It also lets you have really fine control over power limits when you want them, which is ideal for tuning for each game/load scenario. Luckily some laptop OEMs provide some pretty great tuning, while others are pure trash. Lenovo actually provides a pretty great gaming laptop product, with really good tuning. Unfortunately they don't have fully unlocked BIOS, and the latest version apparently patched out the backdoor to get into the unlocked BIOS. So if I do consider a new laptop again in the future, it will have to be MSI again. They still provide their unlocked/hidden BIOS, the tuning is all recoverable within reason and their BIOS is more desktop like with it's menu options actually working and not bricking the machine. 

Yeah this thing is completely locked down. The only thing it has working in its favor right now is, I repasted it with TG putty and Supercool LM, did the whole shebang all up. So temps are great (compared to stock temps) And it feels like the 14900HK might be a good sample, but I’m speculating here. But, you can’t undervolt it. So it’s always just blasting away with auto voltage while it shoots upwards of 5,850 boost browsing around windows lol. 😂 (And apparently these chips degrade? ) it’s some how completely reliable though, and mine has not degraded.  But if it’s gonna happen it’ll be in this exact scenario. #1 Hot CPU? CHECK! #2 Auto voltage going wild? CHECK! 
 

You do get what you pay for with MSI, and I keep hearing about Lenovo being really good as well. 
 

If I could pick a single option, it would be to have the ability to set tREFI manually to 262k, would probably opt for that instead of CPU voltage control. That alone would drastically boost gaming performance. These laptop manufacturers need better engineers/design teams.