J7SC_Orion

After building complex w-cooling loops for work-and-play machines for most of the last decade, I thought some 'tips' for more complex loops could be helpful. Some of what I describe below is just based on personal preference on how to do things, while other steps are tried-and-true I learned either the hard way, or from other water-coolers over the years... The most important steps - after you pick and match your components (such as fans and rads) - is layout planning and prep work...and a bit of caution ! I like to watch complex HEDT builds on YT, but it never ceases to amaze me how even seasoned builders can skip a few important steps. For example: - when taking out PCIe cards (GPU, other) from their boxes, they touch the 'gold fingers' of the cards with their bare hands, then plug them into the motherboard. May be I am paranoid, but I always make sure NOT to touch those gold fingers with my hands unless I wear a glove - Speaking of paranoid, I flat-out refuse to use pastel-fluids for a water-cooling build. They can look fantastic, but unless you pull apart your loop at least once a year and thoroughly clean it, you are more likely than not to get various deposits, especially in complex bends, fine-grain copper fins and such. - another pet peeve of mine is watching folks install factory fresh (or for that mater used) water cooling gear such as rads, CPU and GPU blocks without flushing them first...I have never had new (even brand-name) radiators or GPU / CPU blocks that I did not carefully flush first...most of the time, they leave crud and other debris on the freshly-scrubbed bathtub floor after flushing. Using a white surface to be able to make out little pieces of debris is helpful - also to know when you are done. - flushing can be done with a funnel and tap water, but once everything is thoroughly cleaned, an extra round or two of distilled water should be used for the final flushes... ...when working with used water-cooling bits such as pumps and fittings, a visual inspection and Q-tip cleaning might also be required...

...another week, another big mandatory patch for FlightSim 2020. At least we got updated and more varied cruise ship models...btw, that's real weather, late December afternoon in Vancouver...

...I find rudder control is ok on my setup, sensitive, but not overly so. It also varies with the type of plane you fly of course...for example, the Pitts Special's rudder is hair trigger, unlike the rudder with the bigger jets. In addition, you can adjust sensitivity...more here

Further to one of my posts on Monday (re. TSMC, all eggs in one basket) above, I just saw this at Tom's HW...

...I usually do and it normally works - I think it was a browser update with different security settings. Fixed now (I hope)...

After making everyone reach for the Dramamine for motion sickness in my 747 aerobatic excursion over Vancouver... ...back to my favourite place in the whole world <> Seymour Inlet in the little amphibious Icon A5...

Beethoven's birthday today... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4BweGgWvo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUKYeXml8Q0 fyi - auto-display doesn't seem to be working ?

...first few HWBot appearances for 6900XT look pretty good, especially for being on air (!!). As expected, higher resolutions mean less of an advantage for the 6900X compared to RTX 3090, if not disadvantage...should be interesting to see a 6900XT 3GHz ceiling settings with sub-zero...

...will do. 2950X on LMA (rather than UMA) would probably gain more, but again, at 4K (rather than the 1080p above), the GPU plays a bigger role. I'm at between 55 and 68 fps / with 4k max textures / RTX Ultra / DLSS balanced. Still, that fix is nice to know about, and hacking .exe files with a hex editor brings back memories of my youth ?

...yeah, I run an AMD 2950X, and CPU utilization looks a bit weird. Mind you, it has 16 physical cores (32T) and I play at 4K which reduces the importance of the CPU, and so far, there doesn't seem to be a performance issue. Also, the 2950X has a few tricks up its sleeve (re. UMA/LMA). Still, I'm going to check out those fixes you linked. Tx again

...here you go: https://hothardware.com/news/closer-look-intels-xe-hpg-gpu-gamers

...and here are some 4K / textures high / RTX max / DLSS balanced shots from the 'Corporate rat' segment. So far (just day 2), I like the graphics in that segment the best (though not necessarily the embedded story-line)

...but, but, but - it has already got RGB ? Yeah, Intel is still a way off (including on efficiency given recent reports), but it is really they only one right now with a shot at eventually joining the NVidia / AMD GPU space...even if that space looks to merge with RISC chips already. There's also the lack of 7nm (and smaller) manufacturing process issues Intel has. Topic for another day, but I find it incredibly dangerous to have the main CPU/GPU manufacturing capacity for the global markets located in just one country in a somewhat troubled part for the world. I know there are expansions planned for that kind of wafer manufacturing elsewhere, but that will take many more years. Thus: running an obstacle x-country course with all your eggs in one basket...

I never thought I would say this, but after the RTX 3K and XT 6K roll-out / non-availability and also the corporate behavior described above and elsewhere, I am rooting for Intel Xe GPUs...hopefully, they'll bring some halo products (4 tile) to the consumer space (and actually have cards available for purchase...)

...there's also the huge and direct RTX 3K sales to miners in China, as reported elsewhere...I still think NVidia is doing itself no favours re. ARM deal review etc with their behavior

980 Classies ...those four found new pastures (pair each) in recent retro-builds after getting their air-cooler dress back on...

...haven't been to that panel yet; day 1 with 4K / high textures / max RTX / balanced DLSS

...I didn't have to configure it - it worked from the get-go with FS 2020. However, you probably can change some of the joy-stick function keys / map in the options menu if you so desire. I just left everything on default (once I figured out where the breaks where... ? ) FYI - main stick is up-down / left-right (ailerons etc). Then...

Downloading it now - on what appears somewhat overworked Steam servers.... EDIT - Finally got it loaded; trying 4K RTX max / DLSS balanced / quality for a single card ...continuously running around the same bar trying to avoid a loan shark who someone else owes money. Once I get into this a bit more, i'll try older CFR drivers etc but for now, a single and well-tuned 2080 Ti seems to be the bare minimum for 4k/RTX/DLSS...

I have been following this as well and think that Nvidia's behavior is beyond unacceptable and in fact limiting competition. I also find it stupid from a completely different perspective: NVidia's $40 billion agreement-in-principal to purchase Arm...this kind of corporate behavior (re. HW Unboxed) by NVidia will surely be brought up by the lawyers at the regulatory bodies reviewing the ARM purchase as they are very much concerned by this purchase re. competition. Looking around at various other legal actions being brought against big tech now, a very silly move by NVidia, far beyond the outrageous, initial censor-ship on HW Unboxed

Quote from the article: "... This suggests that AMD has produced only a limited number of MBA cards, intended for reviewers and initial store inventory" ?

The 6900XT probably should have been released with better RT drivers than just DirectX DXR, because it is otherwise a very nice card. For comparison, I re-run my 2080 TIs (oc, stock bios, single and NVL) for Port Royal and the comp charts are in the spoiler. I think the RT for 6800/6900 series can be fixed with driver updates, but as mentioned, the 4K VRAM bandwidth gives me pause, even when compared to a 2080 Ti. So far 2x 2080 Ti have given me no reason to even think of upgrading to either RTX 3K or XT 6K (can't think of anything to match it in MS FS 2020, e.g.). I hope that I can get 2x 2080 Ti working also in Cyberpunk 2077 (find out soon), perhaps with some NVInspector profile trickery. I'll revisit this whole upgrade question in earnest in a couple of months when more mature drivers and patches are out, and availability (hopefully) has improved.

overkill = moar = betta ?

..."I would like to see how it is as a daily driver with optimized PBO vs an all core OC." ...so do we !

...rather than repeat everything about what I just posted here (primarily on the RTX 3K supply), I add that so far, I have only seen GN's and a few other 6900XT reviews, and beyond that expect the supply issues to be similar. What's more, AMD's bios and driver team don't seem to have been ready yet @ release of the 6900 XT. It may very well be a good card, but I do think that the 4K constraints via VRAM bus and also ray tracing / DLSS are NOT 'unimportant'. I was / am rooting for the 6900 XT. What really disappoints me though is where I have a lot of background, and that is MS FS 2020 (currently DX11) compared to the 2x 2080 Tis I run at 4K / ultra...neither the RTX 3900 nor the 6900 XT would tempt me in the slightest on that. But leaving all that behind, there's another big issue...over the last several years, PC sales (including many components) were flat to slightly down-sloping, due also to the rise of smart phones, tablets and consoles, if one believes the analysts' reports. Yet now, there's this giant opportunity posed by Covid-19 via a lot of folks spending way more time and home (work and play) and discovering that their ancient PCs really should have been upgraded years ago, both for productivity and entertainment...only they can't get any decent supply of any new higher-end stuff... ..yes, vendors may not be at fault, given the dearth of what's coming down the pipeline from the foundries on the higher-end into vendor sales channels. But really, after all these years, this turns out to be an inflexible industry when facing with a big gift-wrapped global opportunity