Shut up, I post whenever I want to. So this update post is one of those updates that I post. I have not posted a whole lot because I've just not been in the flowy-mood to do so. It's not a bad thing, Sash is just maintaining a Holding Pattern in life and forging on without posting things here. Until now, of course. So here is that update.
I sold my RTX 2080 Ti for £600, which is a bit more than what I bought it for, second hand, before the mining craze. I am aware I could have gotten more for it, but I didn't want to charge more than I feel the card is worth, especially since I despise mining and greed. The card is water-cooled with a 240mm Radiator and is a fair chunk faster than a 3070 and has more memory, so it was worth £600; considering 3070 MSRP is 450.. but, do I even need to laugh at that in text form? Greed is everywhere.
So, Sash, what are you 'gaming' on now, you know that thing you do all the time? Firstly, I do not 'game' all the time, and if I was a betting femboycatgirl I would bet that you said that to rustle my metaphorical jimmies, whoever 'you' actually are, perhaps an incarnation of the Inner Sash Mind. Troubling concept no doubt.
I have a GTX 1650 SUPER in my main computer, and of course, I still have the RX Vega 56 in my laptop, which I am using a lot more these days, because the 5950X is just such an efficient Beast running World Community Grid.
Which brings me onto the next part of this update. This is the part where I say that the Gigabyte B550M DS3H's VRMs are, while 'adequate' for operation, are so highly inefficient with the 5950X's 142W PPT that I needed a new motherboard. Inefficient as in, needing over 200W input to convert 12V to 1.09V at 140W output; and hitting the temperature you'd expect from more than 50W radiated out of a bunch of MOSFETs. Not acceptable, it completely mitigated the 5950X's efficiency advantage over my 3900XT.
As such, I made the choice to sell my RTX 2080 Ti to buy a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro, which I am pleased to report, is working great. At the same settings the inefficiency (heat generated from conversion) is at least 5 times lower (<10W waste heat). It was also £200; much higher than the price I normally spend, but for VRM Efficiency it was worth it, something I have neglected to consider before now. I would even (anecdotally) suggest the B450M DS3H is more efficient in the Vcore department than the B550 version: likely due to the simpler analogue regulation circuitry (B550 version uses a low-end digital Voltage regulator). At least that would be my first guess.
Thirdly, I bought the Arctic Freezer V2 (2019) 360mm AIO for my 5950X which is working great, too. Initial testing at stock (no PBO) compared to my previous Noctua D15S with a single 120mm fan (it uses 120mm mounting size) yield a 10-15C reduction in temperature along with a much lower time to plateau, as you'd expect from moving coolant. With tuning, this new cooler and motherboard is likely able to allow me to push for the 4.6 GHz all-core target at ~1.18V that I have wanted to achieve with the B550 DS3H and Air cooler, but couldn't.
I also have a new case. Suffice it to say, this is the best case I've ever owned because I'm a zealous AMD Ryzen fanboycatgirl.
