HungryHamster

I've been a little disappointed with the looks of all the various 40 series RTX graphics cards and so it got me thinking about some of the best looking graphics cards. What do you guys think is the best looking graphics card of all time? I might be a little biased as a current owner, but in my opinion I think the EVGA GTX 1080/1070 FTW is right up there and maybe at the top: I also like the look of the ASUS ROG Strix 3090/3080/3070:

Thanks for pointing this out. I actually have a support ticket open with ASUS right now that is being escalated so I can get a definitive answer about both the cable and the adapter possibly voiding the warranty of my ASUS ROG Strix 4090. I still have a feeling that if for some reason the Cablemod cable melted and that damaged the graphics card, they would not replace it. Their warranty does state this as an exclusion to the warranty: "there is damage from use of parts not manufactured or sold by ASUSTeK."

What thermal paste would you recommend using for the i9-13900k? Is there a consensus on the best thermal paste or is there really not much difference between brands?

There isn't a lot of space between my graphics card and the PSU shroud. My case is the Corsair 5000t which has 7 expansion slots, the graphics card is the ASUS ROG Strix 4090 which takes up 3.5 of those slots, and the motherboard is the ASUS Z790 Maximus Hero. I'm assuming that the graphics card will have to be installed 1 slot below the top PCIe slot so that bring me down to 6 slots available. If my calculation is correct then those 6 slots are a total of 121.96mm of total space. Minus the 70.1mm for the 3.5 slot graphics card and I only have 51.82mm (2.04 inches) of space available for a GPU bracket. I'd really rather avoid one of those ugly giant vertical sticks, but I can't seem to find anything else that would fit that 2.5 slot space. Everything seems to be close to 3 inches. The small little stands I've seen don't quite reach up to 2 inches so I'm kind of stuck between holders that are too big or too small. Maybe my only option is something like this that would share slots with the GPU? https://www.amazon.com/CloverTale-Aerospace-Upgraded-Version-Black/dp/ Better yet, would this one work? It's 1.96 inches but it has 3 holes so I'm not sure. https://rog.asus.com/graphics-cards/accessories/rog-strix-graphics-card-holder-model/spec/ Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Yes, my car is from 2003 and only has radio. Ever since the start of the pandemic I've ordered most of my meals to go and ate them in my car while listening to AM radio (mostly sports/politics even though I disagree with 90% of the radio hosts). Some punk kids randomly bent my antenna years ago so now I only get like 4 local stations. Honestly, one of the things I'm looking forward to the most when I get a new car is having a functioning radio again.

Are extension cables something that people usually buy? I just purchased a full CableMod cable kit and also noticed that they sell extensions, but I'm not sure if they are needed. I would think that the cables that come in the kit should be long enough for most cases and routing options. I really want good cable management and don't want to run into issues with something not being long enough.

Some of my favorite screenshots from Stray. I love Unreal Engine games!

It's my understanding that today pretty much all the tech news outlets came to the conclusion that the sole cause of the melting cables on the 4090s is specifically the Nvidia adapter that is shipped with the graphics cards. If I don't use the Nvidia adapter cable and instead use the Cablemod 16-pin to 4 x 8-pin PCI-e cable + the CableMod 12VHPWR Right Angle Adapter just to be super extra safe, do you think I have anything to worry about? Before today it seemed like everyone was worried about something inherently wrong with any of these new cables or had worries about power cycles or something like that.

The right angle adapter isn't being sold yet, but it will be available for "pre-sale" on October 31st. Also, I was under the impression that while their adapter cable is certainly better than the Nvidia one, this isn't a substitute for the right angle adapter because it is still prone to the same issue with bending.

OK, great. Thanks for the info. I like the idea of being extra safe... especially with this graphics card.

I want to get the "CableMod RT-Series Pro ModFlex Sleeved 12VHPWR Cable Kit for ASUS and Seasonic" for my ASUS ROG Strix 4090 and ASUS Thor P2 1000w PSU. This cable kit comes with an option for the 12VHPWR cable and the people at Cablemod recommended "the 4x 8 Pin to 16 Pin if you have enough available PCIe ports." Will I have enough? I don't know what all gets plugged into those. Here is the back of the PSU: Here is the official specs: https://rog.asus.com/power-supply-units/rog-thor/rog-thor-1000p2-gaming-model/spec/ Here is my parts list to help determine what other things might be using up those ports: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JDRTqm The PSU is supposed to come with a 16-pin PCIe cable, but the one they sent me appears to only take up only 2 of those PCIe ports.

Thanks, that's reassuring to know.

My PSU will be in an enclosure. It's the Corsair 5000t case. It looks like it would have to sit on top of that.

OK, thanks. Hopefully I don't need it then because I don't want to be looking at that.

I was just wondering if the NZXT Internal USB Hub 3 fits in the back of the case where the cables go or if it only is something that fits in the front of the case where it can be seen. Does anyone know?

OK, thanks for the info. I was confused.

The PSU I'm getting is the ASUS ROG Thor P2 1000 and it comes with a 16-pin PCIe cable. Is this cable safe from the bending issues that have been reported on that ugly 4 prong adapter one that comes by default with the 4090s? Should I still wait to get the 90 degree cablemod adapter for this cable?

I just read that using the CableMod 12VHPWR Right Angle Adapter or similar third-party adapters (Seasonic is coming out with their own) will void your warranty with Nvidia and I assume other companies that make Nvidia-based graphics cards. Would you still recommend using this adapter to be safe even though it voids your warranty or would you rather risk the cable catching fire, but having your graphics card still covered under warranty? Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/right-angle-16-pin-connector-may-save-a-lot-of-rtx-4090-gpus

I read the 13900k review from TechSpot (https://www.techspot.com/review/2552-intel-core-i9-13900k/) and they said: "We did try multiple high-end AIOs, even premium 420mm models and the results are the same."... "We also tried the massive Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420mm AIO in the hope that it could tame the 13900K... we think we almost made 20 seconds before hitting TjMAX, so needless to say, that didn't help."

Thanks for this. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I was thinking of and I even vaguely remember watching this video before. Although there are +300hz monitors out now, I guess for most people it's just a trade off - more FPS or gaming without screen tearing.

This is why I'm waiting for that 90 degree adapter from Cablemod to come out. I'd hate for this to happen to me. Do you think these people have any warranty protection or is this kind of thing not covered? Last time I build a PC I had one of those EVGA GTX 1080 FTW cards without the thermal pads on the VRAM installed and it blew up. I'm still scarred from that happening to me.

OK, that's good to know. So I can just enable the XMP setting and it will use the XMP profile specified for this memory so that it will increase the MHz to the 6600MHz advertised? Then if I (hopefully unlikely) run into issues with stability, I can just disable XMP in the bios to fix things?

Thanks for the info. Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that XMP was just like a box I check in the bios and that it takes care of everything else automatically. If I understand you correctly, there's a chance it will lead to my computer not booting? I don't know anything about POST, CMOS or lowering the frequency so maybe I should just stay away from XMP and go with a 5600MHz set of RAM.

Hmm I see. I'm interested in getting CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 6600 CL 32 RAM for an Intel i9-13900k. I heard that the only way I could not get capped at 5600MHz would be to enable XMP boost, but I don't want to do anything that would possibly lead to issues.

Is there any danger in enabling XMP boost? Is this something you would recommend for someone with little experience overclocking anything?