J7SC_Orion

...got Forza5 H and 'Ride 4' yesterday...still setting things up w/ a new controller, and spending a lot of time in the pits and ambulances ...still, having a blast ! ...Ride 4 is an absolute speedrush and blast...YT vid (slightly different one from earlier post) is by someone who has a few laps under his/her belt...

...much like the rest of the world, weather here is 'unusual'; flying into and out of a storm front backlit by dusk... ...and some more Volocopter in Vancouver Harbour- while I've landed on buildings and even freighters, that Helipad on the cruise ship is 'fake' - I dropped right through to the inside of the ship until I hit the water

...fyi, link to my updated scores post > here ...I just did single score updates for 3 AMDs as multis were close enough (for now ) After finishing a big work project, I hope to get to some retro 3770Ks builds on my list, and also a Abit IC7 Socket 478 over the next month or two.

The TG-PP10 does have a shelf life, but that seems to relate to application rather than endurance; the oils added to the putty to make it easier to apply eventually 'vacate', but it apparently does not affect longer-term thermal performance once applied. Since I had read the same thing, my 6900XT has one area where a bit of thermal putty is accessible externally to check. I also added a line of MX5 onto each thermal putty and thermal pad application. The thermal putty jar itself does have an inner airtight lid but of the four jars I bought (for four systems as each Raven is actually two systems), I have two and a bit left over...whatever was left over from an opened jar was placed into a freezer bag w/ the air bled out, then back into its jar with both lids on. It joined the rest of the thermal gang (spoiler) for future reference and also maintenance. My Gigabyte OC also had the 3mm soft pad on the back of the GPU die - which I had never seen before. As I used a custom backplate after mounting the w-block, I filled that void with thermal putty and MX5 on top, mating it to the backplate and the additional heatsink on the back. I also added putty w/MX5 on the back of the VRAM areas and where the 3x8 pin connectors are on the back (and of course the corresponding front). Thermal performance is more than I could have hoped for, though I felt a bit queasy pushing putty (gently) onto the back of the die with all its tiny fragile components...it was necessary though to establish a full thermal bridge to the backplate, the extra heatsink, related fans etc. Final point: Like yours, the front of the 6900XT die also seemed to have voids in the factory thermal paste application, with the 'added feature' of a thumbprint on the die (not mine)

...I saw a few YT clips whereby they took off that glued-on Aorus cover of a similar 2080 Ti carefully with a heat-gun , then wet-sanded it w/ finer and finer sandpaper (up to 2000) for a super shiny look. SHINY... Re. your 6900XT and potential repasting subject to warranty decisions, I ended up using thermal putty for the VRAM, the back of the die and backplate, and some select VRM components...the front of the die got Gelid GC Extreme (stays nice and thick and is more resistant to pump-out !) and whatever else was left got some Thermalright 12.8 w/mk thermal pads. My 6900XT (similar / same PCB as yours, but regular XTX) has benched as high as 2833 MHz 'effective' while staying nice and cool. If you decide to go ahead with disassembly of the GPU, I highly recommend the thermal putty...I was impressed enough that after I finished and tested the 6900XT, and applied the same to the other Raven_A GPU. Thermal putty has the advantage that it 'conforms' to all the nooks and crannies for a superb 'fit', even in-between the VRAM chips.

...my 5950X actually has both CCDs rated as gold, but at the end of the day, real-world impacts on fps etc is probably minute, not least as all my systems are on 4K, including gaming. Speaking of 'X', AMD is just now releasing 6nm Zen3+ but only in the mobile / laptop space. On the other hand, they never updated the Threadripper line from the 39x to 59x ccores, perhaps because Intel has nothin on the shelf (for now) that gets close in the HEDT space....should change soon, though. From what I've read, Zen4 looks to be really impressive and by the time it releases, DDR5 offerings should be more mature....the latest GSkill DDR5 CL32 6400 5ZR look pretty good already, and it will only get better.

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I also stay away from ZMT tubing after having seen multiple pics of the 'inside' of said tubing after some use, as well as plugged-up micro-fins on blocks. Speaking of micro-fins, I actually had some nickel coating come off the micro-fins in my Heatkiller IV Pro Threadripper block , so I switched that Raven_B setup recently to the Phanteks Threadripper block- same temps but much cheaper and so far at least, better quality. Spoiler pic below has that, and it also shows 2x Aorus 2080 Ti Waterforce Xtreme WB (per your comment above) which I've been running since December '18. As much as I normally prefer to do my own GPU water-blocks (such as those in Raven_A), these factory ones have been great for the last two years plus, no discoloration, nickel coating or temp issues. Since I built that system, the Aorus GPUs have never been out, but I can see inside via the clear acrylic. Performance is identical now to what it was when new. I hope the new 5950X works well now in your system after all that time you had invested before. Did they give you any comments re. RMA ? I might replace the 3950X in the dual-mobo Raven_A with a new 5950X and use the 3950X for other office workstation duty, but I'm really not sure yet. I was actually hoping AMD would release a 5950X V3DCache (a la the new 5800X V3Dcache, and also the latest Epyc CPUs) but so far at least, it doesn't look like it.

...don't make my own anymore; just buy sets similar to these as I don't use wifi and also have some fixed IPs

Some more Cat8 and USB cables for the home office, plus a Sandisk 128 GB micro-SD card w/ SD adapter (160 MB/s read. 90 MB/s write)

...had an epiphany while out in the Fraser Valley on business...

I'm quite lucky in that there's a Memory_Express and Canada Computers kitty-corner to each other, less than 5 minutes from my home. The Canada Computers location there used to be occupied by NCIX...btw, I'm still horrified at NCIX's shenanigans re. open credit card DBs etc.

Some new pics of Raven_A and its nest @Bastiaan_NL ...per earlier chats, some pics of the new work corner after the internal move...getting it all in one shot (ie. dual system, adjacent 40 inch & 48 inch monitors) w/o fish eye was a bit of a challenge

...Club3D USB-C cable because no more USB 2.0 thumb drives , and two more batteries for the GoPro H 10...5.3K video likes lots of batteries

...DDR5 6400 CL32 ...that might go to 6800 w/o excessive voltage and/or exotic cooling; this is the kind of DDR5 which I defined as 'the starting gun' for my future DDR5 efforts. ...I really like the Asus Hero Z690 (apart from that faux-pas on a few select boards they now fixed) as a fast allrounder - I actually had that in my hand already for purchase back in early January, but the store didn't have any DDR5, and the only thing you could order was the lousy DDR5 stuff. Ultimately, I would need 4 Dimm slots for eventual work-related roles, and the Asus Hero Z690 along with the (regular) MSI Unify top my list. If I would just build exclusively for HWBot etc, the 2 Dimm mobos such as Asus Apex, MSI Unify-X and Gigabyte Tachyon would also be on the list, but harder to set up and less useful for other tasks in the long run.

yeah, each generation seems to be a bit arrogant about its own pinnacle of knowledge (viewed through a fish eye lens focused on its current time, so to speak). Proton gradients everywhere 'in nature', powering things...

I take two... and also two more of > these

fyi, multiple threads on this ? anyhoo, I recently upgraded all my work and play machines w/ WD and Samsung NVME and WD SSDs and have 10 TB in various M.2 and SSD drives left over as back-up / fortunately. 'I'm not sure' (<sarcasm) why the widespread press releases were necessary, other than expected price impacts , but WD Blue SSD prices of items in stock locally have already increased significantly.

...take that IBM, Unix & Co...

I have to go through my old Win 7 bench SSDs to find the paid-for / registered Catzilla version (if it is even still valid). I Take it it runs fine in WIN 10 pro ?

...very nice . FYI, given a select few of these boards having issues > w/ reversed memory capacitor and Asus doing a recall, do check that out visually and via serial number. What DDR5 are you getting ? Early days seemed to favour different sticks, but the latest GSkill 6400 CL32 (stock) look good, and GSkill 6800 CL32 on the horizon...I'm trying to make it to at least Raptor Lake, or one gen beyond w/ HEDT version, and/or whatever AMD comes up with to counter.

...updated some 5950X (lower right of Raven_A) CPU bench performance numbers; this thing is an absolute joy to play with, now that the 'daily tune' is locked in...but there's always tomorrow for some more tuning

There goes the neighborhood... ban

The phase changer is indeed neat, and utterly painless, as long as you insulated the mobo correctly....it drops to - 50C and you can even game for hours on end (if you don't mind the 'freezer' sound next to you). It can actually get rid off 800 W+, but once you're beyond the typical 4C/8T power budget, its transient response is a bit too slow (you crashed before it caught up), and folks get into huge (2x or 3x) cascading phase coolers for heavier PL stuff. I plan to use a different approach by having the single phase I have cool down a 60 L water reservoir that also has a big copper rad in it connected to one of my Raven setups (sig pic) via QDs which are already in the system. The extra liquids 'inside and outside' the loop should help 'dampen' sudden temp changes via load changes....that's at least my theory.

...'cool', so to speak . Tricking the AC sensor into thinking that it is still in Acapulco instead of Svalbard is worth extra ingenuity points ! ...as mentioned, that old phase cooler of mine might be pressed into service soon for a liquid-to-liquid 'heat / cold' exchanger...I last used it on a 4790K a couple of years back: Wow, tx - nice trip down memory lane for me ...I haven't run Catzilla in many years, but I remember that w/ 4 cards on chilled water, KPE XOC vbios and EVBots it was a huge power hog, even at 1440p (below)...AFAIR, this was with 4 PSUs daisy-chained - and it was the only combo / bench which tripped the master breaker in our place (at night, of course) ..I think it happened more than once, and usually right at the end of the Catzilla run when it was about to switch to displaying the score. With one of the quad GPU sets, I had to run two separate EVBots to change the two weaker cards mid-stream as there wasn't enough time to cycle through 4 cards on one EVB...