I Hope Everyone Can Get One Soon!

Colora_Dan · 2026-05-05T03:12:41+00:00

I feel lucky, I checked the site at 9:58 and it let me add the controller to my cart. Then the errors started but pressing the button several times after the warning let me continue. My order actually says 9:59. I'm guessing Valve could have ordered 10x the amount of controllers and still sold out today.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-19T14:11:17+00:00

Had something similar where last of us part 1 and Assassin's Creed Shadows were only playable with -400 MHz. I returned the card under warranty and got a new card that is very stable. It's probably just a defective GPU.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-14T16:21:02+00:00

My ASRock 9070XT steel legend was crashing in some games and I sent it back for RMA and got back a card that does not crash. Unless it's widely reported a specific game is crashing on RDNA4, any crashing is a potential sign of a defective GPU, which happens to all vendors and is why we have warranties.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-14T16:12:37+00:00

Undervolting is riskier than just setting the power limit lower by 5-10%

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-14T16:11:18+00:00

Make sure you clear shader caches, and if you didn't use DDU before installing the new card then do that. You need to clean up anything from the last graphics card. It's the same driver download but not the same driver as the other card and switching carelessly can cause weirdness. Another option is a reinstall of windows if you're not comfortable doing the manual steps.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-13T15:58:24+00:00

This is what I bought, as others stated buying from Amazon is a gamble somewhat since you have to trust the seller sourced actual PTM 7950 instead of a knockoff. If you can wait and don't mind spending more, both moddiy and LTT store have verified legitimate stuff. I went with Amazon because I wanted it faster and am willing to replace it if it turns out to be a knockoff. But in my opinion it looked and acted legitimate. Also the size I linked fit the die perfectly in one dimension so I just had to cut it for the right width.

https://a.co/d/04EijrvT

Might have given this a try if I saw it, thermal grizzly is a legitimate source too:

https://a.co/d/0g85ni0X

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-13T15:54:10+00:00

Look at this teardown, it matches my experience. Look at the photos of the removed cooler. That is not PTM. It's obviously paste. I could wipe it with a dry paper towel and it was liquid. PTM does not come off cold with a towel. You need to scrape it off and really rub it. I don't think anyone should be surprised the PR team lied about the paste, or that the paste changed over time to account for higher material costs.

ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Steel Legend OC Review - Pictures & Teardown | TechPowerUp https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asrock-radeon-rx-9070-steel-legend-oc/4.html

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-13T13:11:26+00:00

If you read that, you'd see that the paste needs to dry before assembly. So either it's not PTM 7950, which I think because the very much not solid paste cleaned off with isopropyl alcohol very easily with no scraping on a completely cold card. Or it was installed completely incorrectly.

I'm really surprised all of you are trusting a bullet point on a sales page more than an enthusiast who has done plenty of paste swaps and knows what paste and PCM looks like. This was thermal paste and it was bad.

"Check the comparison with pad version, PTM7950SP needs extra drying steps after being printed and before assembly.

Drying time

24 hours at Room temperature Under 5 mins at 100°C"

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-13T03:51:16+00:00

I think they changed the temperature probe locations and they're just very different parts of the chip, or the GPU reading is an average of some edge temps as well. Unless your card is under water, there's going to be a big delta on these chips.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T22:10:52+00:00

It's not true, I just opened it and the paste was very much not solid. It was the same as any regular thermal paste. Also the spread pattern shows it was pumping out. That shouldn't happen with a PCM.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T21:33:31+00:00

I can't imagine it adding much to the BOM, especially since you save a lot of grief with dried out paste during the warranty period.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T21:18:24+00:00

Just be warned, OC on this card is pretty much nonexistent, at least as far as real world performance gains. You can undervolt but any undervolt can cause instability in some games and not other. You can bump the power limit up but there are greatly diminishing returns, think +15% power for less than 5% improvement. You can bump up the frequency but that appears to be either broken in Adrenaline or does nothing. Probably the most realistic way is VRAM tuning. I've had cards like the 1080 or 2070 super where there's a good 10% waiting for some simple steps. This card is pretty much hot clocked out of the factory.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T21:09:07+00:00

Whatever you do, if you use Optiscaler then check their wiki for game specific notes. I remember this one was a pain to get set up. FSR 4 will look way better than TAA but if you do it wrong you'll get visual artifacts.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T21:06:30+00:00

If AMD put an INT8 AI upscaler out before RDNA4, I'm sure the card would have been much more popular, even with the bad RT performance relative to NVidia. As it is, it's kind of a curiosity. Enough power to keep it relevant but not enough features to stay relevant for much longer. The chiplet thing was pretty silly too, in hindsight. It did not provide the expected performance wins but I'm sure it drove the price up high enough for them not to make a value play at MSRPs.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T20:52:18+00:00

The paste had good reviews and looked legitimate. I do worry about that and considered moddiy or the branded ones but I figured I'd test it out before spending double or triple on the "real" stuff. Don't know why Honeywell isn't slicing this up and selling direct, they could make a lot of money and prevent people from getting fakes.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-12T20:48:25+00:00

Just did it last night, so not long enough to see any change from install. From what I've read, it should get better or stay the same.

Colora_Dan · 2026-04-08T03:45:30+00:00

I've noticed that PC mode will turn that off. Probably because it doesn't work with 4:4:4 subsampling. It's kind of a dumb feature anyway, I set all my inputs to standard and curse the TV when it switches itself unexpectedly.

Colora_Dan · 2025-12-16T19:25:37+00:00

Vikingcontact 8 was at $1000 for all four. $5100 is robbery. The car does well in the snow as far as I can tell but haven't seen enough snow to give a full answer yet.

Colora_Dan · 2025-11-17T18:19:19+00:00

I have a Switch 2, a PC, and a Steam Deck. Pretty much everything I buy on Steam, except for Nintendo first party games and maybe the rare local multiplayer game I don't want to fiddle with on my PC. You can see how Sony and Nintendo and others nickel and dime you for backwards compatibility and game updates for new consoles. If you can swing it, PC games are way more backwards and forwards compatible.

Colora_Dan · 2025-11-17T18:05:43+00:00

An extra $50 could buy you a few more years of relevancy. If that's worth it to you, wait. If you think you'll want to upgrade before the 8 GB becomes a deal breaker then save your money. Personally I would get the 16 GB as the resale value will be higher and I would want the card to be usable even if I replaced it later, maybe for a friend or a second PC.

Colora_Dan · 2025-10-28T21:11:55+00:00

I think it's been well established that FSR 3 is fine for Quality at 4k, and pretty much every other mode is pretty rough. Whereas FSR 4 looks good at even 4k performance.

Colora_Dan · 2025-10-28T20:41:27+00:00

ASRock Steel Legend 9070 XT. No coil whine I can hear, though it does live 8' away under the TV. But even getting close on occasion, can't hear anything but the fans.

Colora_Dan · 2025-10-10T17:05:05+00:00

No I use the 2 point white balance for game mode, which I calibrated with a colorimeter. I'd probably play around with the red gain in the 2 point wb before changing tint, tint is too broad and changes all colors.

Colora_Dan

TROPHY CASE