r00tb33r

That's the correct total. So VendorC appears to be the manufacturer and the lost capacity is an emulated USB optical disc, with CDFS filesystem. As I had suspected the flash controller on this drive controls how the space on the drive is presented. I don't know if the emulated optical disc can be reconfigured for another purpose, or say, update the files.

Not printed, but I had assumed chip capacity would be in power of two.

Not given. Not given. "Microcode update"

Scores improved after rolling back to the previous version. So... Any info on this?

24.81GB shown in Disk Management as well as partitioning software. No unallocated space or hidden partitions. Is a part of the flash hidden by the flash controller or something? What the hay?

Scores measurably dropped after microcode update on my MSI board. Settings are the same. Was there a known most performant version?

The motherboard was defective, was DOA, I replaced it with an identical one. Presumably the memory slot problem this generation is prone to have. I wonder what the cause for that is though, the socket bending or BGA fail underneath the chipset... I guess I won't find out.

MSI Z790 Tomahawk DDR4 Wi-Fi i7-13700F, contact frame Thermalright FC140 DDR4 2400, 8GB modules x4 (Kingston, Silicon Power, Micron OEM) PNY RTX 3060 HP PCIe 3.0 x4 512GB NVMe 600W Cooler Master PSU I get a yellow light in the EZ Debug area, at the DRAM position. If I push reset the EZ Debug LEDs will switch between yellow (DRAM) and red (CPU), for a few seconds, then stops on yellow (DRAM). No beeps, no video output. If I remove memory I get a long beep. I tested with 1 module at a time, trying different modules from among the 4 that I have in the DIMMA2 position, per silkscreen and instructions in the manual (to be populated first). No change with different module. Pressing CMOS reset button shuts off the system, I keep it pressed for 15 seconds. No change. I flashed the latest BIOS from a USB flash drive using the BIOS flash button on the back per instructions in the manual. The LED indicator lit, blinked, then turned off after a few seconds. No change. Memory is known good from my previous system, GPU is known good from my previous system, NVMe is known good from my previous system, PSU is known good from my previous system, CPU cooler is from my previous system. Ideas?

This crossed my mind. I wonder if that provides more TDP budget to overclock the 8 P-cores even higher. Curious if this has been benchmarked. Though honestly I have yet to have a stable overclocked system that I used daily. But playing with numbers will certainly be fun for a day.

I Googled around and the sentiment is that E cores are indeed problematic for virtual machines. So it sounds like 12700K would actually be more desirable...?

Here's the thing, I never really understood if VMs use physical cores or logical processors. For example VirtualBox allocation matches the thread count rather than cores. All 3 processors have 20 threads, so is there a clear winner for VMs in terms of processor allocation?

They are within 10% of each other performance-wise, and somehow the 8 P-cores lose out to 6 P-cores and more E-cores, in most benchmarks anyway. But what about everyday use? Lots of browser windows, some VMs, maybe a CAD program like SolidWorks idling in the background? The 3 CPUs seem pretty close in price too. I can't make up my mind on whether to drink the E-core Kool-Aid.

I didn't have another 12/13/14 gen CPU to compare to, but now I see exactly why it's a fake. The PCB color is wrong, it should be a bluish hue and not dark green, and the last digits of the serial are lasered into the PCB rather than etched like here. It's a total fake. I kinda wonder why they didn't do a better job.

If anyone is curious, this is allegedly "remarked" according to Intel. They were able to determine that just by looking at the photos. Or so they say.

Interesting outcome. The verbatim message from Intel, day 6: I can still return it, so no loss on my part, but this is definitely something to note. Some things to ponder whether the retail supply is in fact tainted with counterfeit product, or if Intel is just flat out denying RMAs.