The Chronicles of T [Upgrade Time!]

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.

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.

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

Yeah, it doesn't keep it from sagging.

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

Great job and pics, lovely rig you have there!

Terronium 12 said:

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.

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.

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.