HoneyBadger84

The question was whether or not BIOS can be entered without a CPU installed to update the BIOS to a 5000-series ready BIOS or not. The Gigabyte board has the capability to do that. From what I've been looking at, it seems the MSI board may not be able to do this. That's pretty unfortunate if that's the case. I'd rather like to avoid having to spend extra on a motherboard AND having to spend even more getting a cheap AM4 CPU just to flash the BIOS to a 5000-series-ready BIOS. That would really tilt the scale in favor of the Gigabyte board despite the MSI having that M.2 expansion card.

Title pretty much says it all, but the long version: Currently looking at a 5900x/5950x upgrade, the motherboards I'm looking at are the Gigabyte X570 AORUS Master, and the MSI X570 Prestige Creation - the main selling point of the Creation is more & more higher tier USB ports, and the M.2 card (which I can't really find a comparable one that's not an Asus card designed for Threadripper systems). My question is, does anyone own the MSI X570 Creation board, and have a 5000-series CPU, and if so, did you have to update BIOS for it to work, and does the board allow BIOS updates with no CPU installed (because the Gigabyte board DOES allow BIOS updating without a CPU installed, which is a big selling point for me since I really don't want to buy a cheap AM4 CPU just to update my BIOS to allow the 5900x/5950x to work, once I can actually get one). Thanks in advance!

Figured I'd post back with an update: EK refunded me for the return shipping on the first return, they haven't on the second yet but they have said they will. Received a new, undamaged (thank goodness) AIO this time and everything seems to have been corrected thus far. Overall their customer service was very good, unfortunate they shipped out a damaged unit, but I suppose it happens... I don't understand HOW but at least they made it right lol

EK got back to me this morning, they immediately said they'd send a new one out again and that they have no idea how it would even be shipped in that condition & they're looking in to it. They also offered a partial refund in the amount of the shipping costs associated with the returns. So that's cool. They asked me to open it & see if the AIO itself was damaged, as if it were not I could just keep it & take the refund on the shipping return of the first return, but unfortunately: I'm amazed it somehow did not leak. That is a DEEP hit, the frame of the AIO radiator itself is bent quite a bit on that side.

It's either EK's US warehouse branch is terrible, or I'm having bad luck indeed. We'll see how they handle this time around.

Yeah the Customer Service people via email/communication have been great so far. Like I said, they even sent out a new unit before the old one arrived to them... but whoever packaged that just... why? lol There's no way you wouldn't notice something like that, and it definitely didn't happen during shipping. It looks like the box got rammed by a forklift or something, to be honest, the hole is pretty sharp & only damaged the "plastic" the box is wrapped in slightly around the area of impact, that to me says it was something that hit it hard & sudden. Hopefully they continue to be nice & give me the prepaid return label this time. I really don't want to be out of $80 worth of "free" fans because of them shipping me a damaged item the second time after giving me a defective one the first time. lol

I really don't even know. The original EK AIO 360 I got in did not perform correctly, ran hotter than the previous 280mm I had from Thermaltake. The EK AIO is supposed to be "the best there is" thermally for an AIO on CPUs... so I decided after remounting it several times & still having the issue (being sure on the last one that I had a good mount, which it was after I removed it, paste was nice & thin & evenly spread), that I would return it, and because I got it as a packaged deal from Amazon with 3 extra "free" fans (via EK being the direct seller, listed on Amazon) to do a return for an exchange, then I planned to resell just the AIO to a friend, and keep the extra 3 fans for later use on my build... So I sent the defective one back, EK was nice enough to mail out a new one before even receiving the returned one (which coincidentally, also arrived to them today), and it arrived today... [See pictures attached] Yeah. The outer UPS box is completely undamaged. So someone packaged it like that... That is a DEEP hole by the way, see the second picture, so there's no way something isn't damaged, and I'm not going to open it just to find out until they get back to me on it. At this point, I'm not even sure I want to continue this process rather than just get a refund. I sent a message in to EK again, I'm asking them to give me a return label that's paid this time (yes, I had to pay for the first return, which in of itself is kind of BS), if they don't do that, they will be giving me a complete refund for sure. If they provide a prepaid return label, I might go through one more exchange. Their customer service itself has been good & friendly, but someone seriously packaged it up in that condition and sent it? That's insane to me. Thought I'd post about this and see if anyone else has had a similarly bad experience?

Anyone telling you a 4790K won't bottleneck a 2080 Ti has zero credibility imo. That's hogwash, if a 3930K like I used to have bottlenecks a 1080 Ti there's no way that processor wouldn't bottleneck a 2080 Ti or 3080. Even if it's 10%, 10% can be a big difference in games that run at the edge of GSync/VSync settings given whatever your monitor runs at, if you run that sort of thing. The question is HOW MUCH, not if, and I would wager the performance you'd see from going to a 9900K or 10900K would be "noticeable" but not astounding. I can tell you when I went from a 3930K to 9900K with my 1080 Ti, I saw quite large improvements in CPU-bound games (we're talking almost double the FPS in some instances), and still quite noticeable improvements in GPU intensive games, because of the system throughput improvements. Since you already have a 3080 on the way, enjoy it once it arrives, then plan on a smart-upgrade once the AMD 5000-series CPUs hit, since that will give you options on both sides of the table that are great upgrades.

If your RAM is running in Dual Channel, at spec, it's not the issue. First check if you're running VSync/GSync/FreeSync or not as that will limit your GPU's load because it won't let your frame rate go above your set refresh rate. If that's not forced on, try uninstalling your GPU drivers, running DDU uninstaller to clear up any cobwebs the drivers might leave behind, the reinstalling the latest drivers that are supported by your OS/GPU from NVidia or AMD's website. In the future when looking for tech support of this type, it's very helpful to have your system specifications either in your signature, or in the post asking for help, so we know what you're working with.

What country are you in? If you're in an area where eVGA offers RMAs, I highly recommend going with an eVGA card if you go the NVidia route, their warranty/support is top notch. I would recommend saving up for the next tier up in GPU though, a 1660 or 5600XT is going to give you better performance for not that much more money.

Oddly enough, I'm seeing a similar randomly weird performance bug in one particular game I tested as well. I would recommend a DDU & driver reinstall as well like others have suggested, I'm probably going to do that myself & see what happens. What's odd is in my case it's an older game (Mafia 2), and it happened on both the 2070 Super I had & now the 3080 as well, so I'm thinking it's probably a driver issue. Oh, and good luck on the Step Up queue, I'm in it as well with my 2070 Super... if they actually allow me to get another 3080, I'm gonna see if I can step up my current 3080 to a 3090 & then resell the step up 3080... wow that hurts my brain just typing it.

Need more information. What is his setup? How old is your PSU? What resolution are we talking about? Is your CPU overclocked, is his? What motherboard? What are your temperatures like compared to his? What case (a picture of your setup would be helpful as you may have some simple airflow issue you can fix)? You definitely shouldn't be seeing worse performance than a 1080 Ti, and I'm saying that as someone who went from a 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid to a 3080 FTW3 Ultra as of yesterday.

The 3600 CL15 will be faster, but will it be a noticeable difference? Very much depends on the application/game being ran. For the size on the Radiator, you can just measure out 50+27mm from the front or where ever you're going to mount the radiator, in your case, and that's how much it would "stick out" from what it's being mounted to (first fan is 25mm, radiator is 27mm on 99% of AIOs, second fan is another 25mm). Just keep in mind you have to GET IT in where you want it to go, so you do need a bit more clearance than just the 77mm. Push Pull doesn't make a gigantic difference, but it makes a difference, and as bomb said, it can depend on the radiator & other factors. Most AIO radiators do see about the same improvement from Push/Pull as what Jayz video saw, because that was literally done with an AIO GPU loop radiator. Generally speaking, if you're going to a 280mm AIO, just push or just pull should be sufficient enough to bring your temps much lower than the load temps you're seeing now on air. I'm currently running a 280mm AIO on my 9900K & at 5GHz 1.3V the highest loads I see under AVX workloads are in the low 80s Celsius on the hot cores, high 70s Celsius on the cooler cores (but again I have Push/Pull, great ambient temps, and great airflow so we're not directly comparable - just giving you a point of comparison... and I run my radiator fans at 70% for noise reduction purposes, cranking them to 100% does drop temps further though, I do that when I'm stress testing new settings). I'm off to fiddle with this fancy new 3080 I got in today

Iiiiiiiit's heeeeeeere! Note the CPU cooler is all janky tubing wise because it's going to be replaced sometime in the next month with a 360mm unit.

You would need 2 kits of the same RAM to have 32GB running at the timings listed, without issues, by just enabling XMP. If you buy 2 of those kits, it should "just work" if you plug them in & enabled XMP. Mixing RAM usually isn't just plug and play, it requires some finesse, depending on how "smart" the board is about secondary timings. When I say push pull I mean like my radiator is setup now, here's a picture: See at the top how there's fans on both sides of it? The "bottom" fans are pushing air through, top fans are pulling air out. This can help with temperatures a good bit, if your can fit a radiator with push/pull mounted in your case. In testing JayzTwoCents did it had a 2-7C temperature difference compared to just push or just pull, and that was on a GPU AIO, so it would likely have an even larger effect on a CPU radiator.

The short answer on the cooler is yes but: The long answer is if you can fit a bigger cooler, get a 360 or 280 mm - like the one you linked. A 240 is going to perform slightly better than your current air-cooler, but the 9900K will overwhelm it at high load depending on your voltage. 280mm/360mm are better for the 9900K because of it's heat output. I would recommend if you're going to go for 4 sticks of RAM, to just buy another set of the RAM you already have & thereby have 32GB, and you know they match so there won't be any issues with timings. I wouldn't go with a single 2x16GB kit because of the memory layout issues we discussed before - and mixing RAM sticks can lead to issues with the motherboard setting the secondary timings wrong, resulting in instability. The Cooler is definitely a good idea though, at the very least it will fix any RAM clearance issues, and give you better temperatures... if possible, try to plan on doing push/pull on the radiator (fans on both sides, one side pushing air through, the other pulling it out) as this can improve temperatures vs just push or just pull, by 2-7C under heavy loads, which with the 9900K can be the difference between you throttling & not throttling.

3200MHz is actually the "sweet spot" and anything over that has severely diminishing returns, see these videos: Linus also did one but it's about 3 years old, so a little less relevant. As for the 8K question, nothing that's in existence now will be ideal for that, would be my guess, which is why most of the "8K gaming" hoopla about the 3090 is just utter BS, and most of it involves DLSS being on (and thusly reducing the resolution to 1440p or 4K). I think it's safe to say anything we have now won't be up to snuff that far down the road (5 years). With the way games are getting more demanding, and as we've seen in the last 5 years, hardware will evolve enough that a 5 year old system will be considered "slow", but not obsolete, by then. Also, as you go up in resolution, RAM speed, and even CPU speed for that matter, matters less, the GPU is the most important component by far when you're talking about gaming at 4K.

Buying a second kit of what you have & thereby getting up to 32GB would be the ideal thing to do then. It's not that your RAM is "bad", it's just not super-fast. If you're planning on gaming at 4K eventually with a higher end GPU, 32GBs is definitely advised as some games are resource hogs, and it's sure to get more noticeable as next-gen console games come out, since next-gen consoles have more RAM. The cost to performance increase of going to something like 3200MHz CL14 or 3600MHz CL16 is not worth the expenditure in your case, getting a second kit of what you already have to get 32GB is though, as it will make your system more "future proof" than it is now. I'd go that route.

Lowering your voltages is never going to "break" anything. It may result in a non-boot or instability if you go too low, but it won't break anything. Raising your voltage is where you can start going in to dangerous territory depending on what component you're doing it to. From what I'm seeing from a quick search, most people are able to hit 4.2-4.3GHz on your model of CPU with around 1.35V. I would try that as your CPU voltage setting, and see if it tests stable. That would be reducing your voltage from what I've read of how your current stuff is reading out. You definitely should update to the most current BIOS for your motherboard, as that may help with these issues. Often BIOS updates improve default stability settings, as well compatibility with CPUs & RAM. It could well be the BIOS your on now is simply setting the default voltage on your chip wrong because it doesn't know any better, and it was fixed in an update. Most motherboards have built in BIOS updaters in the BIOS now, if yours doesn't have that, you should be able to look up how to do it on YouTube or Google.

I would see if you can find this one at a retailer you can get it from without too much import tax or whatnot: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/VENGEANCE-LPX/p/CMK32GX4M4B3200C16 It's on Amazon for me, but I'm in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-32GB-3200MHz-Memory/dp/B017NW5RW8 - that's well within your price range in USD though, it's 4x8GB, CL16 3200MHz, the timings aren't spectacular, but they're acceptable, especially given the price.

So according to Buildzoid (someone very informed on electrical layout of PCBs/motherboards/video cards, and RAM overclocking/configuration) - Asus & Gigabyte both use T-Topology Memory layouts on Z390 platforms. So it would be "better" for future potential overclocking, and general stability, if you get a 4-DIMM memory set, so 4 sticks. So either 4x4GB or 4x8GB would be better for your board, as having "empty" slots actually increases "noise" and can lead to lower performance... it's not super-important, just "better" for the board & memory controller (on the CPU).

Let me have a look see & figure out what kind of RAM/CPU communications layout your motherboard has that way I know if 4-DIMMs or 2 DIMMs of RAM is better for your case.

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/VENGEANCE-LPX/p/CMK16GX4M2Z3600C14 That one runs around $200 if you can find it, and has pretty great XMP profile settings. Are you wanting to go up to 32GBs or stay at 16GB? If you're fine with staying with 16GB, that lowers your "price bracket" by a good bit, since 32GB kits run a pretty penny in comparison.

Advice: If you're wanting a GPU now, but you want a 30-series card for sure, buy an eVGA card from an authorized retailer, then you can register for Step-Up after you get it, for a 30-series card. This will allow you to have a 20-series card "now" to enjoy, and guarantee that "eventually" you're going to get a 30-series card. That's basically what I did... then I ended up getting a 3080 directly the other day, it will be here Tuesday. But yeah, if you're able to, get an eVGA 2070 Super or simiilar, and then register for Step-Up, you get the best of both worlds, a nice upgrade now, and a gauranteed 30-series card "eventually" whenever your turn in the Step-Up queue comes around.

Check to see if your motherboard has T-topology layout our the other one (forget it's name) for RAM configurations. If it has the same type of layout as my motherboard, it's actually "better" for the motherboard to have all memory channels populated. Also, CL18 is garbage at 3600MHz, I would get a higher tier kit if you can afford it. Definitely make sure the RAM is on your motherboard's QVL list, to be safe & make sure XMP will "just work" 100%. I would look for something in the 3200-3600MHz range, if you go with 3200MHz look for CL14 or better, if it's 3600MHz look for CL16 or better. Preferably voltage in the 1.3-1.4V range (1.35 or less is ideal so you can always fiddle with memory overclocking later). Are you wanting to go up in capacity as well or stick with 16GB? I have this particular kit & it's served me well, it's also Samsung B-Die so if you ever want to push your RAM tighter or faster than XMP, it performs excellent at that: https://smile.amazon.com/G-Skill-TridentZ-3600Mhz-PC4-28800-Channel/dp/B01MS6EL43/ Unfortunately it's not stocked directly from Amazon... and it's a lot more than your current RAM, price wise. If you're fine with sticking with 16GB, you could look at some 4x4GB sticks, if your motherboard has the type of layout that prefers all RAM slots being populated... Note that the old addage of "having all slots populated reduces your overclocking potential" does not apply with that layout... but you'd have to find out which your board has. But yeah, generally speaking, 3200 CL14, 3600 CL16, anything "looser" than that is kind of a waste of money in my opinion, if you're looking for "better" performance. Edit: Note that RAM speed is going to have the least effect on your performance out of pretty much everything in your system unless it is significantly gimped, like CL18 or something crazy at 3200MHz.