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

[electrosoft]

Funny but sad story....

 

I haven't done any CPU swaps all week so last night with the open box Asus Z890 AYW and new open box 265k, I first tore down the Apex and put it away (I am OCD and completely tear down and clean up and box up a current MB before using another) and after moving over the SSD, RAM and CPU cooler mounting I looked around for my big jar of thermal pastes. We're talking giant sized KPx, Gelid Extreme, new tube of Cryofuse still sealed, Duronaut,  Conductonaut and more.

 

Can't find it anywhere.

 

Tear the place apart from front to back looking EVERYWHERE and all I keep thinking is, "I know I left it around the work table."

 

I even went outside and dug around in the trash that went out thinking maybe I or the wife threw it out accidentally.

 

Resigned myself to using a brand new syringe of Frozen 2 from EVGA from 5-6 years ago I found on the shelf except it is hard as a rock and unusable so out it goes.

 

Ended up having to use the ID-Cooling syringe from the included air cooler.

 

Asked my wife about it a bit ago. She had no idea. Finally, I reach up in the cabinet and pull down an identical jar (it was a walnut jar) and text it to her saying this is what it looked like and after about 30 min she texted to let me know I had left it on the front bench/nook where I sometimes work and she thought it was trash and tossed it out last week....🤣

 

Doing research, it seems the new MX-7 is a real contender so I ordered a couple of syringes of that to start rebuilding my collection. I never even got a chance to test the cryofuze as it was still brand new and sealed for future use in the jar.

 

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

 

 

3 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Yes, the Radeon hotspots are utterly insane. That is ultimately why I could not find any real love for the 6900 XT or the 9070 XT. Both were otherwise good GPUs, but the unfixable hotspot temps made it hard for me to like them. Even on chilled water the 6900 XT had totally asinine hotspot temps. Nothing I tried improved the hotspot temps on either of them in a meaningful way.  AMD needs to find a way to address that engineering defect. Their product adoption rate would likely improve.

 

True. I remember us hoping blocking your Elite would tame the HS temps, but if you look at numerous reviews, the HS temps and variance within so many models is all over the place but always trends high.

 

Still wish Nvidia did not remove HS monitoring with the 5000 series....

 

1 hour ago, Papusan said:

 

Yup. You may only need iGPU for gaming (sarcasm). You even get MFG from Intel iGPU. And yep, you get an (NPU) cpu in the package.

 

Intel "Nova Lake" Xe3P iGPUs Could be 25% More Powerful Than Xe3 Models

 

The market for hand helds and iGPU only laptops for size, weight and battery life is becoming the dominant factor in mobile computing.

 

Which is fine....

 

But on desktop? I don't give a crap about any of that.

 

 

 

 

[Papusan]

3 hours ago, electrosoft said:

The market for hand helds and iGPU only laptops for size, weight and battery life is becoming the dominant factor in mobile computing.

 

Which is fine....

 

But on desktop? I don't give a crap about any of that.

 

No problem. If the rumors is to follow then Nvidia will take the responsibility and help the gamers... So no need for next gen Intel iGPU If you can swallow the 8GB vram limit. 

 

 

NVIDIA reportedly shifts RTX 50 supply toward RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti 8GB in 2026

[Talon]

21 hours ago, electrosoft said:

this Apex Z890 is a first gen release model and it is very unstable at 8667 let alone 8800 even with a fan running on the memory whereas the Strix is rock solid at 8667. I do plan on retesting the Strix with a fan on the memory and I suspect the Strix is going to be equal or greater than this particular Apex even at 8800. Could be an early release dud with poor traces for higher memory stability. I will most likely be returning it next week unless something changes.

 

Irony would be if the $95 Asus Z890 AYW was better than both..... 🤣

 

I haven't seen a A02 version of the board yet. I've only ever seen A01. But I assume that board was returned because of that fact. I had a board from Amazon that was terrible. The Nitro Path Asus is using has made 4x boards viable now. I wish they would have done some magic like that for the 2x boards. 

 

$300 for a Z80 AYW and 265K, absolutely insane. 

[electrosoft]

Initial test with Asus Z890 AYW and "new" open box 265k:

 

Installed newest BIOS (one on board was from May 2025)

Booted to G4 9200 no problem

Has no problems doing 8667 G4

Testing the new open box 265k and unlike the old one, it booted right up at stock settings at 8667 G2 unlike the first open box 265k that wouldn't boot past 8200 auto and even pushing voltages up to ~1.45v couldn't do more than 8400. For 8400 to pass, the old 265k required 1.41/1.40. It flat out wouldn't post at 8600 no matter what you threw at it.

 

New Open Box 265k passed G2 8667 on auto settings no problem:

 

 

So far just testing on the Z890 AYW, new 265k will boot up to 8800 G2 on auto but no post at 8933 so I will give it some juice later but I'm moving the new 265k over to the Strix next as the Z890 AYW for $95 has more than met my expectations so far.

For 99% of users, that first 265k will be absolutely fine and run their 6000-8200 memory just fine. But for my criteria it is a dud.

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

40 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

For 99% of users, that first 265k will be absolutely fine and run their 6000-8200 memory just fine. But for my criteria it is a dud.

It is sad to see that the wild variance in silicon quality isn't any better than it has been. The range allowed for sloppy crap from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA is really inexcusable. You no longer get what you pay for. You either get lucky or you get screwed.

---

Nice response from Tony (Northwest Repair) to Jay's video.

 

Jay's Video:

 

Tony's Response:

 

[Reciever]

16 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

It's about 18" front to back, 14" left to right and about 19" tall not counting fittings. I'd say add another 3.5" just for good measure to account for the fittings if you use 90° fittings (obviously twice that much without the right angle fittings). It is not particularly loud. It is essentially a mini refrigerator or HVAC. It has an evaporator, compressor, condenser and fan. It's not quiet, but not obnoxious. No louder than your Nova fans. Probably similar loudness, but lower pitch sort of like a box fan on low fan speed. You know what your fridge or freezer sound like. Expect that in terms of how it sounds.

 

It puts out lots of heat on the exhaust, so put the back blowing out a window or out of your office door. It goes without saying you do not want the hot exhaust blowing into the radiator, as that would defeat the purpose of using chilled water.

 

I use a 5 gallon water tank wrapped in black foil insulation to normalize the water temperatures. It takes longer for 5 gallons to get cold but once it does the PC load while doing extended benching sessions doesn't really affect the water temperature that much. For benching do not use the radiator. It will heat the cold water and try to warm it to ambient. Just bypass it when benching.

 

For gaming you can use the radiator and the chiller together since you do not need to try to keep the temps as close to freezing point as possible. It will be a LOT cooler with chilled water even with the radiator, but the radiator will hold you back in a notable way when benching.

Yes, the Radeon hotspots are utterly insane. That is ultimately why I could not find any real love for the 6900 XT or the 9070 XT. Both were otherwise good GPUs, but the unfixable hotspot temps made it hard for me to like them. Even on chilled water the 6900 XT had totally asinine hotspot temps. Nothing I tried improved the hotspot temps on either of them in a meaningful way.  AMD needs to find a way to address that engineering defect. Their product adoption rate would likely improve.

Definitely interested but at this stage it would prove difficult to set up logistically to avoid dumping the heat back in my room. One of the family members may be moving out and getting their own place next year, if we keep this place I can put basically all the heat generation and removal in that room and run some longer hoses and pumps. If we get a different place then I'll just look to getting a bigger bedroom. 

 

It would also give me some time to go through what I have for GPU's and start a passive search for more waterblocks to replace the stock heatsinks I have as I already know Im going to stay on water. 

 

The 7900 Xtx is purring at 3.1Ghz for now, I think I'll need to use the evc2se for 3.2Ghz. It's crashing at 3150 but I'm hoping that's just due to sudden spiking outside the power limit. 

 

Hopefully I can push 3500 for synthetic benching.