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

[Reciever]

I've been riding on AM4 for what feels like forever lol, my replacement board finally got in, they were nice enough to update the bios to something somewhat recent so the 2200g I bought just to update the bios was a waste of 20 USD lol oh well

 

tried to do the pcie splitter but with it my system didnt want to post, even after testing the GPU's individually but no dice, perhaps i need more research on that end of things, for now, i'll just enjoy my games. I'll need to get another PSU if I go that route long term, got fed up tearing down the system this weekend and just went and used the EVGA 1300w. If I plan to use the 7900 XTX and 3090Ti side by side ill need more VGA hookups anyways.

I'll look forward to when ever the next release cycle comes along, either I get something new or I get something new to me :) Be sure to keep me in mind all when ever you decide to pull triggers!

Also @Mr. Fox congrats on acquiring new employment! I was never in doubt, but its a relief none the less! 

[Mr. Fox]

2 hours ago, Reciever said:

Also @Mr. Fox congrats on acquiring new employment! I was never in doubt, but its a relief none the less! 

Thank you. Yes, it is definitely a relief. 

 

As a side note, I am more excited about this new role than any I can remember before. It is a newly created position in a new department. The job description reads like it was written for me by someone that knows me well. It will allow me to lean into my strengths and skillset. This will be the first time in around 25 years that I will not be responsible for the performance of other employees, hiring, disciplinary actions and terminations. Data analytics has been a big part of what I have been responsible for in terms of people performance evaluation for 2.5 decades and that will be the bulk of my daily grind, but from the perspective of evaluating process and program performance rather than execution (or the failure to execute) by individuals.

 

Apart from the previous 6.25 years working for a small business, the previous 32+ years I have worked for huge fortune 500 corporations with many thousands of employees. I am also looking forward to going back to that again. The small business experience was wonderful until it wasn't.

 

And, another plus is that I can continue working remotely. I haven't worked from a corporate office location since 2000. I have been a remote employee ever since, before the term "remote" was even invented. Most of the jobs I applied for would have required working on-site daily or hybrid with with only 1 or 2 days a week remote. I'm so glad I don't have to waste time behind a windshield going to/from work and battling traffic every day.

[Mr. Fox]

I am using the new 9961 beta BIOS on the Apex and it seems OK so far. So, I may test 2101 on the Strix. AGESA 1.3.0.0 sucked for me on the Apex and the Strix, but 1.3.0.0a may have corrected the bugs that I had with 1.3.0.0 AGESA.

Nah, I was wrong. AGESA 1.3.0.0a is still garbage. I still have random freezes at idle and light load from excessive vdroop using this AGESA that I don't have with older versions. 

 

[jaybee83]

On 2/13/2026 at 5:22 AM, electrosoft said:

 

What is the alternative for competitive play to make sure you can watch every level of the hardware? Each time game companies up their watchdog/guardian programs, hackers and mod makers figure out a way around it. It has been escalating till the final solution is to monitor every nuance of the hardware as the final solution and now mod makers and cheaters have met their match. The only way around this, and it has been attempted, is post level compromised systems that can get in there to subvert the tpm / secure boot mechanism.

 

On the other hand, making two distinct forks could and should be the way to go with one targeting single player mode but even then that has to be worth the effort for the game makers as again the real money is made from multiplayer and long term sustainability and monetization. If there was a financially large enough compelling reason to offer a single player version of the game devoid of big brother being knee deep, they would do it but I suspect that single player only audience is very small.

 

Surfing various gaming forums and reddits, there is low to no outrage to this because it restores the integrity of the game not because they're sheeple lol.

 

As a player, I would definitely set up two individual installs of Windows which I've done in the past for other reasons with one targeting game play only and the other for personal use. I'm with you. I don't want a game company having access to every level of my hardware.

 

 

Good unboxing and nice overview....

 

Couldn't use OLED due to heat, but I don't like the USB display interface but that's just me.

 

Thing runs so cool including the memory, wicked....

 

You can sign into your MSI account RIGHT NOW!!111 and enter the raffle for the right to spend ~$5500 after taxes to get 3-10% more performance over your existing 5090 while sucking down insane power.....

 

 

 

speaking of, any indications that the lightning vbios has leaked yet? 😛 

 

23 hours ago, Rage Set said:

Nova Lake is looking like the return of Intel, but it is going to cost. A Z990 mobo is going to be expensive. Stepping down to  Z970 and you are losing a lot of PCIe lanes - BCLK OC'ing. If the rumors of the top NL chips costing over 1000 are true, we are back in the days of HEDT - but only two memory channels. Lastly, still no ECC memory support unless you go W980. 

 

I am not sure whether it is going to be AMD or Intel that offers the first mainstream platform with quad channel memory support, but it needs to happen. 

 

im guessing they dont have any reason to upgrade to quad channel anytime soon, what with DDR5 (and likely also 6) doubling the amount of internal "channels" with each new gen.

 

btw, resolved the bad paste job, turned out that the Thermal Grizzly AM5 High Performance Heatspreader was the culprit, or rather its missing z height vs the stock heatspreader. the Arctic LF3 coolplate doesnt make proper contact with it, even though im using the TG shortened offset mounting kit. ive tried twice now with crappy results. so its back to the regular AM5 retention mechanism incl the stock heatspreader, but at least now i got a nice clean delid with TG conductonaut extreme on it. done with disassembling my hardware for now, back to RAM tuning! 😄 

 

on another note: received and email from TG, seems like a new firmware update is out for the WV Pro II, including first official version of the accompanying software, nice 🙂 

[electrosoft]

10 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

speaking of, any indications that the lightning vbios has leaked yet? 😛 

 

 

im guessing they dont have any reason to upgrade to quad channel anytime soon, what with DDR5 (and likely also 6) doubling the amount of internal "channels" with each new gen.

 

btw, resolved the bad paste job, turned out that the Thermal Grizzly AM5 High Performance Heatspreader was the culprit, or rather its missing z height vs the stock heatspreader. the Arctic LF3 coolplate doesnt make proper contact with it, even though im using the TG shortened offset mounting kit. ive tried twice now with crappy results. so its back to the regular AM5 retention mechanism incl the stock heatspreader, but at least now i got a nice clean delid with TG conductonaut extreme on it. done with disassembling my hardware for now, back to RAM tuning! 😄 

 

on another note: received and email from TG, seems like a new firmware update is out for the WV Pro II, including first official version of the accompanying software, nice 🙂 

 

800w variant has leaked on the OCN forums but go ham with the 2500w variant:

 

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29561175/

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/281792/281792

 

I am using a third party contact frame on my AM5 platform and had no problems but I am using an Arctic LF2 which I still prefer over the LF3. I picked up a LF3 for the wife's 14900KS system and it runs a tad better than her ancient EVGA 280mm did but louder with the 120mm fans vs the 140mm fans on the 280mm. I'm not super impressed with it.

 

I picked up a Lian Li GA II Elite 360 which is supposedly the new king on the block....I'll get around to testing it when able. Still mired down in setups, clean installs and boxing up stuff from the great hardware selloff purge of 2026.

 

 

 

 

[Papusan]

3 hours ago, electrosoft said:

800w variant has leaked on the OCN forums but go ham with the 2500w variant:

 

https://www.overclock.net/posts/29561175/

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/281792/281792

 

I am using a third party contact frame on my AM5 platform and had no problems but I am using an Arctic LF2 which I still prefer over the LF3. I picked up a LF3 for the wife's 14900KS system and it runs a tad better than her ancient EVGA 280mm did but louder with the 120mm fans vs the 140mm fans on the 280mm. I'm not super impressed with it.

 

Not sure if the leaked 2500W vbios is the one to get. I mean I have seen there is a newer 2500W XOC that is more safe to use. The default voltage is all too high. More like 1.2v (there is several variants of the XOC vbios floating).

 

[electrosoft]

13 minutes ago, Papusan said:

 

Not sure if the leaked 2500W vbios is  the one to get.I mean I have seen there is a newer 2500W XOC that is more safe to use. The default voltage is all too high. More like 1.2v (there is several variants of the XOC vbios floating).

 

 

I agree, the 2500w like the 2001w and other LN2 geared enthusiast vBIOSes are not the D2D way to go....

 

I still think when all is said and done the Matrix 800w is going to be the sweet spot for everybody outside of LN2 extremists based on some testing I've done so far, but we'll see.

 

 

[Papusan]

40 minutes ago, electrosoft said:

 

I agree, the 2500w like the 2001w and other LN2 geared enthusiast vBIOSes are not the D2D way to go....

 

I still think when all is said and done the Matrix 800w is going to be the sweet spot for everybody outside of LN2 extremists based on some testing I've done so far, but we'll see.

 

 

 

The main problem with the (wrong) 2500w XOC version is the default voltage of 1.2v. If you forget to use the curve and reduce voltage you are at risk kill the card in longer benchmarks. Not as much with the 2001W XOC that default to 1.150

 

And where to get the MSI XOC tool the chosen ones got for the Lightning? Not sure that one is leaked. 

 

+50mv is huge when already high 1.150 is at the border for custom cooling with +1000W power limits. I remember using the Galax XOC vbios I have for the 4090 HOF. Pump in +50mv with the Galax tool above default max voltage can kill the card without proper cooling (preferably chiller with sub zero temp).

 

 

[electrosoft]

1 hour ago, Papusan said:

 

The main problem with the (wrong) 2500w XOC version is the default voltage of 1.2v. If you forget to use the curve and reduce voltage you are at risk kill the card in longer benchmarks. Not as much with the 2001W XOC that default to 1.150

 

And where to get the MSI XOC tool the chosen ones got for the Lightning? Not sure that one is leaked. 

 

+50mv is huge when already high 1.150 is at the border for custom cooling with +1000W power limits. I remember using the Galax XOC vbios I have for the 4090 HOF. Pump in +50mv with the Galax tool above default max voltage can kill the card without proper cooling (preferably chiller with sub zero temp).

 

 

 

I still wouldn't run the 2001w XOC as a D2D vs the Matrix vBIOS. I guess if you don't really have a choice unless you want to whip out a soldering iron to get it working with the Matrix, you use what you can use but for normal cooling, it is the Matrix 800w for me or potentially the 1000w Lightning.