The Chronicles of T [Upgrade Time!]

[Terronium 12]

First off, for those of you who know me or at the very least vaguely remember me, I haz returned. Although this time I'm not going to say that and then disappear for a few months.

Anyway, I'm finally upgrading my board and CPU since I haven't even seen the proper ceiling on my 6950; I was going to upgrade to the 3570K but after reading through the Ivy thread and the higher temps I'm not so sure I want to do so anymore. Originally, I was considering the Z77 Sabretooth and the aforementioned 3570 but now I'm thinking 2500K all over again. If Gigabyte has anything good (Z77 or otherwise) I'm open to that, but I figure if there's nothing out there that piques my interest as much then I'll go ahead and give ASUS one last chance (have had horrible luck with them with the A8N32 and the Maximus Formula SE).

Opinions. Let's hear 'em. Oh! I'll also update this into a build log once everything has come to.

 

[smarteyeball]

If you're going the 2500K route, make sure you pick a gen3 Z68 board. If the ivy temps either get fixed, or turn out to be a non-issue, you can always drop in an ivy chip later on.

I've had good results with my board and others have had good luck (eventually) with boards in the same Z68 range. The Pro is a sweet spot.

 

[GeneO]

The Ivy bridge temps seem to be better than sandy bridge below about 4.5 GHz. The reason below 4.5 GHz is good is the Vcore needed is quite low. Once you get to voltages to get above 4.5 GHz, the temps appear to take off. Since the Ivy Bridge has more intructions per clock cycle, a 4.5 GHz ivy is prob equivalent to a 4.6 GHz Sandy. So it depends on how high you want to OC to. I would wait a little longer to see how it shakes out.

 

[Terronium 12]

As it turned out, I'm going with Ivy anyway because while the temps may be worse off once voltage is stacked I'll have no basis for comparison, and I'm cooling it with liquid so it's all moot really. Anyway, the Sabertooth will be in tomorrow (I think, it's actually in Maspeth right now but isn't moving) and I'll order the 3570 on Wednesday and the build will commence as soon as I have that in my grubby little hands.

In the meantime, the Agility 3 90GB and the Snipers arrived last week.

 

[essenbe]

You should be fine with the Ivy Bridge, especially under water. At stock it runs, on my rig, about 5C higher than Sandy Bridge. But, if core Temp is right, TJMax on Sandy Bridge is 98C and 105C on Ivy bridge. My experience has been that the higher temps only matter when stress testing. During normal use, I have seen no difference in temps. Also, the 3770K, in Pass Mark received a slightly higher score at 4.4 than the 2600K at 4.6.

 

[GeneO]

As it turned out, I'm going with Ivy anyway because while the temps may be worse off once voltage is stacked I'll have no basis for comparison, and I'm cooling it with liquid so it's all moot really. Anyway, the Sabertooth will be in tomorrow (I think, it's actually in Maspeth right now but isn't moving) and I'll order the 3570 on Wednesday and the build will commence as soon as I have that in my grubby little hands.

In the meantime, the Agility 3 90GB and the Snipers arrived last week.

The Ivy bridge at higher clocks does not fare well with liquid cooling either. Good luck on your OC!

Cheers

 

[Terronium 12]

Sink Your Teeth In
(Okay so I couldn't devise a better title. Problem?)

A 5 year warranty I hope I won't have to make use of (I haven't had the best of luck with ASUS boards) and Ivy Bridge support right out of the box. Suck it.

Also, if I'm understanding the tech properly, Lucid's VirtuMVP allows me (should I enable it) to divvy up tasks between the iGPU and the 6950, so it'd be like Crossfire, Resource Management Edition. Or, you know, Crossfire that actually works.

Board features. I'm particularly drawn to the UEFI BIOS, something I've wanted to use since Gigabyte were the first to use the tech, and then there's the BIOS Flashback - no CPU or RAM required, just board power, a flash drive, and the Flashback button. Sign me up today!

Not the best picture of the set, the first one, but at least you can see stuff so stop your complaining; my battery is dead and I don't know where the charg—oh, nevermind I see it. You're still not getting a new picture so quit your smiling.

Stuff!

More stuff!

Certificate of Awesome, er, I mean Reliability.
​

 

[Terronium 12]

So, your first look at the board. Sexy, innit? Notice that cutout just above the first PCIE slot? That's one of the two locations for the two included 40mm(?) fans to exhaust further heat away from the board. See the button above the 24-pin socket? That's the RAM OK! button. It checks (and configures) your RAM if it is indeed compatible with the board.

Rawr.

This confused me at first because it says to insert the CPU before removing the cap, and I was all "Well how the hell am I supposed to do that?", and then I looked at the retention lever and I was all "Oh, duh."

See? No fuss. Look at all 1,155 of those pins, 380 more than I currently have.

USB 3 header, SATA 2 and 3 ports.

USB 2 ports, BIOS Flashback button, USB 3 ports, eSATA ports, TOSLINK port, DisplayPort and HDMI for the iGPU, network stuff I won't use with two more USB 3 headers under there, and Onboard sound... which I will be using for a bit as I'll no longer have a PCI slot to accommodate my old Audigy 2.​

 

[GeneO]

That's a nice board (drool). Post some more when you get it all together!

 

[Terronium 12]

Would have had the build log all done by now but after switching over to the new rig I'd forgotten my password, and had it reset just this morning. So without further ado, let us pretend this is still a WIP:

The [Ivy] Bridge to Terabithia
(Oh yeah I just did that.)

Oh yeah! Pint-sized box though... wasn't expecting that all.

Everything looking good here.

HD 4000, huh? I wonder if it can outdo my old 4870?

Ivy, meet Kentsfield. Huge box is huge (and battered).

Up close and personal, keep your hands to your-effin'-self!

Touch it and die.

Ivy's fan versus Kentsfield's fan.

And then there's this... AC MX-2. Gotta have something to go on my hot dogs, amirite? I'm not?... Well screw you then.​

 

[Terronium 12]

Something, Something, Something, Ivy Bridge
(Get it? Because it's like Family Guy's parody on Return of the Jedi, but better.)

Sniper Trio reporting for duty!

Not only will I be shutting off the DIMM slot altogether, I'll also have this dust guard on active duty in "Operation Dust Bunny Buster".

More troops in the war on dust.

PCI-E Gen 3. Yay! Oh, wait, the 6950 is 2.1... DAMMIT! Hah. No, that wasn't the point of this, the point being this is a spot for a cooling fan!

Second spot for a fan to get fresh air into the system. Also, the 3570K has landed.

And now it's been locked down. I gotta tell you, the pressure from the retention lever kind of worried me a bit because it felt like a little bit more pressure than what's applied with 775.

w00t! Almost done. Almost. And, yes, those are stacked cups. They're there to keep the end of the HSF from succumbing to gravitational forces because heavy.

Not sure if you can tell, but the TUF Armor is all up on that hose. Like, buy it a drink first, you ass.

Speed!

Storage! 1TB! Monsters!

Oh yeah. Had this since... whenever it came out.

Alternate angle. Isn't it neat in there? I take pride in my wire management, thank you very much.

We've been here before, haven't we? Front of the HAF-X with the reservoir/pump, optical drive, and the fan controller. All the things you've seen before but I was compelled to take another picture of anyway.
​

 

[Terronium 12]

Guess I'm gonna have to pump life back into my own thread, huh?

It's Sorcery I Tell You
(A new age in BIOS that functions similarly to an OS environment? What? I can use my mouse? What?)

And so it begins. You can save the screens to a thumb drive? Fairies, man, they're responsible for this.


(Click for BIG; the image, not the enlarge bar atop the image.)

Going for a 32% overclock right off the bat. It is 32%, right? I'm not good with the maths. Well I am, or rather, I could be but I'm just lazy. There, happy now?


(Click for BIG.)

Standard info. Learn it, memorize it. There's going to be a quiz next week Thursday so don't say you didn't know.


(Click for BIG.)

A bunch of fans, numbers, and stuff. No quiz on this so you can move right on past this if you want to.

All of the Snipers' info in one place. Well we never said they specialized in covert ops, did we? If you were told that... I don't know what to tell you.


(Click for BIG.)

All for this. 4.5GHz. Stable.​

 

[jeepmann4x4]

Looks like a nice rig, good work!
Is there a reason your using cups and not the HAF X gpu supporter?

 

[Terronium 12]

Yeah, it doesn't keep it from sagging.

Believe me that's the first thing I tried before using cups.

 

[paulpicks21]

Great job and pics, lovely rig you have there!

 

[jeepmann4x4]

Yeah, it doesn't keep it from sagging.

Believe me that's the first thing I tried before using cups.

ah, I see... I was just asking. I do not use mine ether, I have 570's sli'ed but they don't sag so I never tried the bracket.

 

[Terronium 12]

Pushing for 5GHz now, and so far I've had no luck. It doesn't help much that I'm not as familiar with the methods involved with clocking Sandy/Ivy as I was with previous Intel chips; I thought it'd help if I thought if it like K8... but it doesn't. Not to the extent I want.

 

[Terronium 12]

A bit of life, you say? Yes.

So I finally pulled the trigger on a mechanical keyboard of the Gigabyte variety, more specifically the Aivia GK-Osmium. I fear I'm becoming a bit of a keyboard junkie because I already have my eye on a different one which I'll likely purchase some time in the summer.

Anyway, on with the pictures!

Huge box is huge (and quite heavy).

Cherry MX Red keys. I wanted to opt for the Blues, however, I've had my eye on this keyboard for a long while... so here we are.

The view.

A look at the custom key caps and key cap remover. I probably won't use any of the custom caps unless I start using the macro keys which is somewhat unlikely if I'm to be honest.

Speaking of the macro keys, look at what we have here: the macro keys!

G1-5 and the brightness level rocker/on and off switch as well as the volume rocker/mute button.

Quick-start guide, side 1.

Quick-start guide, side 2.

USB 3.0 extension cable, USB 2.0 power cable, and the headphone and microphone connectors.

Headphone and microphone jacks, and the USB 3.0 port (powered by the extension cable, passed through your board's port).

Thick cables are thick.

Made in China, you bastid.

Backlit keys. Nothing more than a perk, however, they're a hell of a lot brighter than any keyboard I've used that's featured the luxury.​

All in all I feel this was money well spent for a first time experience. Yes, I could have gone for the Quickfire TK and actually have gotten the switches I wanted to in the first place, but it's not as if I can't get the TK (or any other MX Blue-switched keyboard) in addition to the Osmium. Because I will.

Also, membrane keyboards are completely ruined for me now. I realize that was the intention all along, but I didn't expect the differences to be this apparent.