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Hi guys, So I've been a computer nerd for 13 years now and I've always been mostly limited by money when it comes to builds. This year, way less than I used to be. I already have a pretty decent build; 8700k OC @4.7 (higher seemed just dumb consumption/performance ratio) cooled by a Noctua NH-U12S working quite remarkably. And a nice 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio alongside. As a geek and always trying to do better, more and different just for the sake of building it more than using it, i wanted to try a watercooled system. SO a month ago I started to watch / rewatch Jayztwocents vids, LTT's ones as well and first things first, hard tubing seems to be a pain. Unless told that's it's REALLY good, it will be a no no. That being said, I'm unsure that it would be THAT expensive today; Here's the actual project : I like Bequiet! so I've set my mind to get a Silentbase 801 to fit a 9900k and an MSI seahawk EK X on an MSI gaming edge AC My first question is; will the top of this case be enough to dissipate the heat from any radiator (if I don't go full custom WC loop i'll go for an AIO anyway) with these air vents? Second one will be.. what to buy? Here's why: I read the guides, the Q&A and I'm still a bit confused. EK has been doing kits that might be great but IDK if going full custom wouldn't be better anyway. Not to mention that kits usually includes GPU kits that I won't need with this card, which is also a reason why I'd go full loop. Also, would it be worth it to get like 2 radiators? I believe an OCed 9900k would probably need a whole 280mm for himself, so if I were to include the seahawk with it... Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. Any thoughts on the build, case, GPU are welcomed anyway. Cheers!

hey LTT forum today i come to you with a need for help. just yesterday i started to assemble my new pc: H100X water cooler S340 NZXT case 16 GB 3200 Hyper X RAM 240GB NVME SSD 1TB HDD MSI Aero 1080 8GB i9-9900k cpu z370XP sli gigabyte motherboard when my pc turns on all my water cooling and lighting works however my pc isn't posting and in 15 seconds it turns itself off. could this be down to my z370 motherboard not recognising my cpu? if so what can i do to update my bios either at home or at a pc store.

Hello! I am working on a project for my YouTube channel where I am using 4K video from a Fuji X-T3 camera. I use H264 codec and I am able to have a fairly stable workflow. I was thinking of upgrading my PC to a more modern CPU, and the 9900K comes up as a preferred choice these days. But I am not sure the "upgrade" would be worthed. The current water-cooled 4930K is a 6 core 12 lane cpu and uses quad channel memory, which I have 32 GB's of it. I also use a water-cooled 1080 Ti. The processor overclocks to 4.5 GHz. If I go for the 9900K it will have 8 cores, dual channel memory. But it will also give me nvMe compatibility, optane compatibility, accelerated h265 processing on Premiere etc. Anyone using a 9900k for video editing 4K h265 files? How is that experience? Is is smooth as silk or does scrubbing snags a little (which is what I am currently experiencing with h264, I can't even touch H265 because the processor doesn't have a built-in video co-processor on the dye. I bought this system in 2014 and I am still amazed that it is holding up so well. But those 4k video files are really tough. Any help would be appreciated.

Hey guys, I need your help! I have completed a PC build 3 months ago i9 9900k + Asus z390-i + Asus RTX 2070 + Corsair 32GB ram 3200 + Nuctua U9. My bios was set using XMP II with most of the other setting Asus defaults. Everything was running normal with great thermal until recent Windows update. The screen went black and took at least 30 min with no activity, I don't have reset button on my case so I decided to pull the plug from the wall (long power button didn't work as well) As I'm rocking the plug to pull it out it sparks a little and makes a electric short sound. When I connected the power again the PC posted however booted to BSOD "WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR". I thought this might be a bad Windows update so I secure erased the SSD and tried to clean install Windows using USB and every time the system will post normally then I got different BSOD at the Windows setup logo as following "CRYPTO_LIBRARY_INTERNAL_ERROR" or "CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED" , "DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER", "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL", "SESSION1_INITILIZATION_FAILED" and more! I'm really confused, since the PC is posting with no issue! Do you think the power surge might killed either the CPU or the Motherboard?.. I don't have another CPU or motherboard to test so here is some of the troubleshooting I tried to diagnose the issue.. - I removed all other HW just have the CPU, RAM attached and used onboard graphics - no visual damage on the motherboard VRM's or capacitors. - no error led at motherboard post. - setting bios optimized default = same issue BSOD... - pushing CPU overclocking to the limits 1.4 volts = the setup will start but immediately be killed with BSOD. ** - disabling CPU turbo mode = I was able to boot and setup windows finally but with strange screen flickering (random dots and lines). ** - running Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool (turbo disabled) = FAIL at Prime Number step or BSOD *** - setting bios to use 6 CPU cores only + turbo disabled = PC will run normally with no error + Intel IPDT will PASS + CPU stress test will PASS!! *** - setting bios to use 6 CPU cores only + turbo enabled = PC will run normally with no error + Intel IPDT will PASS + CPU stress test will PASS!! *** - setting bios to use 7 CPU cores only regardless turbo = again immediately BSOD!! So based on the BSOD messages and my tests I guess 2 of the CPU cores are dead! or maybe some VRM's on the motherboard are defective? what do you think?

If one must build a gaming rig AND workstation and one of them is needed right now for optimal performance of its own function and temporal settlement for the other, while the other will be built upon one of the next gen CPUs (Zen 3 / intel unknown) of year 2020, which system should be built now and which one in the future? CPU choices Gaming: i9-9900K Workstation: i9-7980XE

Hi, I've been having a hard time choosing the right motherboard for a i9-9900K / 2080 Ti build. I was almost going to settle with the Asus Maximus XI Hero (Wifi) until I saw this video: And then there's this guy explaining how using two or more M.2 SSD's on any intel Z390 motherboard causes a bottleneck situation: https://youtu.be/ammQwaU2qnA?t=386 I did a search however and couldn't find more information on the problem... For this build I already bought some parts among which the Corsair Crystal 570X RGB White case, which is an ATX model So I went through the list of alternatives should I add the i9-9900K to my build and not many choices were left over, so I went on another search journey and found out that one can eventually fit an EATX motherboard inside the 570X case (though it would be partially covering the cable holes) ...so now it looks like I'm left with the following choices: Gigabyte Aorus Master Asus ROG Maximus XI Extreme MSI MEG Z390 Godlike Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme These are the last choices I've been researching and I'm not certain about any of them. I also couldn't find more tests to compare them. I got to the point where I started to wonder whether it's worth to invest in any of these including the i9-9900K considering all motherboards that go with it have problems. I partially wanted to go with Asus because of the RGB Aura system, but I don't want it at the cost of so much OC performance. Honestly, RGB is the least important issue right now and I'm sure there are many tweaks and/or alternative solutions for this. I just want a good motherboard for OC the i9-9900K and also to work well with the two M.2 SSD's I bought. List of items I possess: Corsair Crystal 570X RGB White Samsung SSD 970 Pro M.2 512GB Samsung SSD 970 Evo M.2 1TB MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio So please let me know your thoughts on these motherboards, as well as alternatives that may be even better than the ones I've listed. Also feel free to let me know if it's really worth investing in a i9-9900K setup at this time or that there are better options in the near future (3rd generation Ryzen?). I won't lie... I desperately need a new computer so I'm hoping to find a solution now instead of waiting it out, but I'm open for that option Thanks

Hi ! i have bought a MEG Z390 Ace. Can i use the I9 9900k with 1 CPU Header ? Because i have a Bequiet 750w Straight power and it has only one MB cable. ( I dont need to overclock the i9.) Thx

Morning/evening all. Quick question, putting my 9900k under water. I got an Alphacool 120mm AIO for it. I have heard the 9900k runs a bit hot, Before I unbox everything should I stay with the 120 or get a 240mm instead, will the 120 be enough cooling? Thanks for the input.

Hello, I do not have much knowledge in this field, and I'm trying to build my own gaming/streaming PC for the first time. My budget is around $2000-$2400, not including a monitor or a keyboard. I have chosen about half of the components needed to build my PC and I'd like to see some feedback / suggestions. CPU: Intel Core i9 9900k Motherboard: Asus rog maximus xi hero GPU: Rtx 2070 Super (maybe upgrade to 2080 super) RAM: Corsair vengeance lpx 32GB(2x16GB) 3200MHz (maybe Corsair vengeance RGB Pro 32GB) CPU Cooling: Noctua Nh-D15 chromax.black (I prefer this huge air cooler to other liquid coolers) Storage: TBD Power supply: TBD I also have a few questions / concerns about this build: 1. is my overall build balanced? any component to upgrade to pair well with my CPU and GPU? 2. Will my huge Noctua nh-d15 cooler fit with my Corsair RAM? The reason i'm trying to buy LPX instead of RGB Pro is to have smaller size RAM to have enough space between the cooler and RAM. 3. Any suggestions for the amount of ssd/hdd (which one to use or to mix it) and a power supply (amount of W)? Thanks in advance!

CPU cooler: Noctua Nh-D15 Mb: Auros Master I first ran 5g at 1.3 then 1.255v with prime95 no avx for 6 hours, nothing happened. So now I'm running at 1.25v and prime95 has been on for over 2 hours, if it doesn't crash I'll let it run for about 12-16 hours. Firstly should I attempt lower than 1.25v or is it good enough? Secondly, are these temps good?

Hi, I have had my computer for a few months now and I was wondering what the best options are for my setup, so I went through the bios but I quickly found myself overwhelmed by the number of options and the level required for some (I'm a little afraid to touch some of them LMAO). I'm on the latest driver & BIOS (at the time of this message) Specs: Chassis: ROG Strix Helios Power supply: ROG Thor 850P Motherboard: ROG Maximus XI Formula RGB controller: ROG Aura Terminal Watercooling: AIO ccooler master 240mm Memory: Ballistix Tactical RGB 64Gb (4x16Gb) DDR4 2666MHz Storage: SATA: 500GB + m.2: 500GB (link: https://bit.ly/33nhewb) Thx in advance ^^^ PS: Pardon my syntax i'm french :p

8700k@4.9gHz shows me 440 GFLOPS on same setup. What's the problem with 9900k? Mobo: MSI MEG ACE CPU: 9900K@4.8gHz RAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 16@3600mHz

Recently decided to upgrade my pc and really couldnt stop myself. The only thing I still have left thats original to the pc is the mobo, which is a Gigabyte z370 HD3. While the z370 does work fine, its triggering me to not update it as well. Ive added a 2080ti, 9900k, 32gb ddr4 3200, nvme boot drive, 1200 watt psu etc. So ive decided to go ahead and change out the motherboard as I want to do some overlcocking without cooking my pc. I have researched a good bit, read through the existing posts and lists and what not, but most of the info seems a little dated. So im reaching out, right now I have in mind a tiachi and aorus master. Looking to stay around $300 to fit my budget. Thanks!

I built my computer 2 months ago, and i have been noticing (using coretemp) that my VCORE is consistently jumping around like its on speed, even on idle as shown in photos. EXAMPLE look at VID: my specs are - msi trio gtx 2080 ti, i9 9900k, corsair h100 RGB, ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming MB, 32gb ram, evga 750 W g2 gold

Hey fellas, I'm currently planning on build a new monster machine, the only thing I'm reusing is my MSI DUKE GeForce RTX 2080 Ti OC. This will also be my first ever water-cooled build, so I'd appreciate if you could take a second look at my cooling choices. What I'm planning on purchasing at the moment, excluding the cooling loop, here is the loop. So, do you have any tips for improvements on this build? I have four demanding use-cases order top-down with the highest priority on the top. 1080p esports-gaming at 360+ frames with the new Asus 360hz monitor that's coming soon (Mostly CSGO, and second hand OW, not expecting 360+ in OW though). Modern VR gaming at 120-144hz Modern AAA gaming on 120hz (might run an HDMI to my TV and go 60hz 4K HDR later). Large project game development, including most demanding pipelines such as offline renders, lightbaking, large codebase compilation, and asset creation. Thanks in advance, I appreciate any help I can get!

Hello guys! I need to upgrade my "old" PC to an After Effects workstation. I have the i7 6800K with the NZXT Kraken X41. Since AE uses only one core, I am planning to go with the i9 9900K (only one core boosted to 5GHz) I know the i7 6800K has a 140W TDP and the i9 9900K has a 95W TDP, but I have read that the 9900K is literally an inferno chip. Can I cool the i9 9900K (only one core boosted to 5GHz) with the Kraken X41 I already have, or I need to invest in another cooler like the NOCTUA NH-D15? Thank you in advance!

Hey all.I've managed to get my 9900K stable @ 5200MHz. I've thrown everything at it like Cinebench R15 and R20, XTU, AIDA64, CPU-Z Bench, 3DMark, and hours of gameplay on various games without a single blue screen. My voltages and LLC are as follows...Adaptive ModeAdditional turbo vcore @ 1.150vOffset @ 0.210= 1.360 vcoreLLC6I'm using an ASUS Maximus XI Hero Z390 board.When I run lets say Cinebench with Core Temp running besides it to monitor vcore my vcore will overshoot to 1.50v!! Is this safe? Should I be concerned with this? Or are these readings inaccurate? Cheers guys!

Hi guys, my friend is currently having a confusing between which is the best processor for music production because his choices are 3900x or 9900k, can you guys help me out with that which one is better for music production only because that's all he gonna be doing and why it's best I mean does recording programs prioritise single core performance or multicore?, thanks.

Current mobo is the "ASUS ROG Maximus IX Code Z270" Recently purchased new gpu and figured id upgrade the cpu as well. I went ahead and ordered the 9900k, but it seems like it may not compatible with my current mobo. Looking for some advice on whether my current mobo is compatible; if it is, great. If not, what would be some reccomendations in the 300 to 600 price range. Im not really looking to water cool, I may SLI and I primarily use my computer for music and gaming. Thanks a ton for any reccomendations.

Hello, I'm fairly new to overclocking but I managed to get my i9-9900k with a Corsair H115i to run at 5 GHz on all cores with a voltage of 1.32. No crashes whatsoever after running AIDA64 for an hour and OCCT for an hour and it finishes Cinebench without problems. Temperatures don't go over 75C. However whenever I run those stress tests my core clock hovers between 4.4 and 5 GHz according to HWMonitor, whenever I stop running the stress test they immediately go up to 5 GHz again. Is this normal or is there something wrong with my settings or something? Any help would be appreciated Specs: MSI Z370A Pro Intel i9-9900k Corsair H115i

Ok, so I have a budget of around 3.5k to try to accomplish this, but if it goes over well, :/ Alright, so I am trying to upgrade my main gaming rig, build a 4k home media gaming/center and upgrade my sons PC all at the same time. Each of these systems has to be able to do a specific use case. 1. My PC, Goal - 100+ fps 1440p gaming Current specs, i7-8700, 16gb 3200mhz ddr4, 1070FE, MSI-Gaming Plus z370 motherboard, 750w psu I play alot of overwatch and elite dangerous in VR, flight sims too, so my current setup doesn't game very well at 1440p. Can't play some games without turning down the settings, etc. I'd really like to be able to play elite with higher ss, etc. 2. Media center, (I call him wabbajack!), Goal - 4k 60fps gaming. Ideally small but still has to hold a full size gpu. Also has to have alot of storage as it will also double as a home NAS, media server, transcoder, etc. This machine needs to have a high core count because it does all kinds of things, things i haven't even thought up yet, but will need to have a computer be able to do. Our last wabbajack was a home NAS, random game server (minecraft,ark,empyrion, etc)kodi server, and twitch streaming combination box (combined my pc's stream with my wife's pc stream and stitched them together before streaming it to twitch). My wife uses this PC to play her games on the TV also, and she's a big fan of the witcher 3, and wants to play cyberpunk 2077, so this machine will likely end up being nearly as strong or stronger than my own pc. This machine is currently not built because my cat knocked the older version over one day and I havent had time to fix it, and it's not worth fixing anyway. So no current specs Also, one more variable. The media center doesn't need to be 4k ready until cyberpunk 2077 is released, and so it's currently going to be getting the 1070FE from my PC until the 3080ti comes out ideally. Currently planning on buying something like a 2080 super for the media center. 3. Sons PC, Goal - VR gaming, overwatch Current specs, fx-6300, 1050ti, 8gb ddr3, some random mobo that fits that, 400w psu My son comes up to me the other day and wants to start using my old vr headset in his bedroom. Well his computer sucks, but he's a great kid on the honor roll, and his birthday and christmas are in the same month and he's willing to throw in $350 that he saved up to upgrade his computer, so I figure it's time to upgrade his computer and we'll get it able to do VR. Alright, so thats the setup. So this gets complicated as soon as the options start to open up. - My current setup would be fine for my son, I could just give him my current computer, and then buy new parts for my own and the media center. - I would also like to create what I call a trickle down (i upgrade my parts, old ones goes to media center, media centers old parts goes to son, etc) but currently we're running different cpu's, sockets, etc. So that wouldnt work currently, but I'd like to ideally plan this out so that it will work out eventually. - I could just upgrade my processor, ram and graphics card, then buy new parts for media center and son. My motherboard is compatible with i9's from intel, so that could work. - I could buy new computer for myself and then my old pc becomes media center with a new gfx card, then new mobo/cpu/ram/gfx card for son. - Oh, and my wife wants all of this purchased on black friday/cyber monday. :/ ARG its all blowing my mind. I don't know whether to go 9900k for my own rig, or to go ryzen for myself and media center and give my old computer to my son, or just my son goes ryzen and my old pc becomes media center. So confusing!!!! Please...help.... Thanks!

What is the best thermal paste for 9900K with Kraken X72 on top of it? (The original paste has been in use for over a year now)

So I’ve been informed that my z97 motherboard is going out of use for win10. ive been having problems of various sorts and while my mobo does have some modern systems on it it also has some old ones, so while it works it doesn’t work right. This means I need to update. I can go ryzen I suppose, it’s definitely more popular. I’d also like to explore Intel options though and the tier list doesn’t have any intel information so I’m looking for opinions. i personally believe multithreading is going to be required but full cores are also important, so I’m looking at hyper threaded overclockable Intel stuff. Probably some sort of 9900. There are a few though even amongst the overclockable stuff. The Intel chips don’t clock like they used to so I’m not sure how much more effective an OC chip would be. Looking for opinions. im also thinking a hackintosh compatible setup might be a good idea. That kind of thing is becoming near impossible to do though so I’m not sure it’s even viable. Any advice appreciated. I am aware that Intel is less money efficient than AMD at the moment.

I want to build my own PC for High Gaming & Video Editing. GPU: RTX 2080Ti Monitor: Dual Monitor. CPU: Intel core i9 9900k or AMD Ryzen 9 3900x? Which one will be better for long time usage? Thank You.

Hi! I justed built my first computer (woohoo), but during Blender renders my cpu hit 85 degrees Celsius. I am using a be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4. I feel like that is a bit high for a not overclocked cpu, thoughts? Thanks in advance!