Proving being cool is the key
The folsk at EVGA were bored one afternoon, and so Jacob Freeman (no acknowledged relation to Dr. Gordon Freeman) said, “Hey, I know what we can do with that liquid Nitrogen left over from the beer party—let freeze some 1080Tis.
Freeman’s excited voice woke Joe Darwin from his caffeine deprived coma and he said, “Sure, call Vince and see his burns have healed up enough that he can come over a burn them again.
Later that day Vince Lucido rode up on his totally chromed Harley, revved the engine a few dozen times so everyone in a five-block radius would know he was there, dismounted and swaggered through the door. You don’t get to be the fastest GPU wrangler in the universe without a little style.
Darwin was fully awake now and hoping the ringing in his ears would stop before he had to talk to anyone.
“Did you build the boards the way I told ya?” Lucido asked. Freeman showing all the money his perents invested in his mouth handed Lucido the tricked out GTX 1080 Ti with EVGA’s EPower module mounted on it.
“Nice,” was all Lucido said.
Darwin offered Kingpin as Lucido liked to be called a beer, but KP declined, “Never drink when messin with LN2 he said, the two just don’t mix,” and he held up his left hand showing Darwin the scars.
In less than an hour Freeman had scrounged four customized 1080 Ti, two 1600 T2 PSUs, and a X299 DARK mobo. Then the three of them started pulling things out of boxes and unscrewing caps, and hooking up hoses and miles of red wires. Darwin stuffed 12.6 GHz memory slabs into X299, and then unclipped the silly tower fan off the CPU, and replaced it with a serious vacuum chamber. KP nodded approvingly while he cinched down the final hose clamps.
They turned on the monitor that Freeman had (ahem) barrowed from someone’s desk, and opened up 3Dmark TimeSpy. Freeman and Darwin looked at KP, he was smiling, that was always a good sign. “Power,” KP called out and Freeman fliped the rocker switches on the T2s, they hummed to life and the lights came on the all the boards, all but one. “SHUT IT DOWN!” yelled KP, “Damn!.” Darwin started checking connections and KP pushed him aside, he’d do the checking, it was his name, his ass, and maybe his fingers on the line here. “There you are,” he said with satisfaction, “get the hell in there and stay in there,” and he jammed the 8-pin Molex in. “OK, shall we try that again,” he said. Freeman looked at KP waiting for the signal. KP looked everything over, yanked on a hose, looked over his shoulder and nodded at Freeman—flip, flip, click, and sizzle as the super cooled liquid Nitrogen found its way into the warm air of the room leaving a vapor cloud as it did.
The Time Spy began his wandering through the museum with his super-size magnifying glass that showed the past. Things exploded behind him, he ducked, he ran and when he was finished, a score appeared on the screen where he had been—20,753.
“Bullshit,” said KP, “100MHz up, now.” Darwin moved the slider and raised the GPU’s clock, already above spec ceiling. KP made a slight turn on the feeder valve, not too much, just the right amount—they don’t teach this in shop, this you learn the way you never forget, the hard way.
The Time Spy was sent on his way again and then his score came up 31,115.
Darwin was smiling from ear to ear, Freeman was bobbing his head, KP scowled—”I can do better. Five hundred more,” he said to no one in particular. Darwin hesitated, “Really Vince? Do you think the Dilithium crystals can take it?” KP didn’t smile and just looked menacing out of the corner of his eyes at Darwin, the clock went up 500 MHz.
KP made another safe-cracker’s turn of the valve. Time Spy was launched, he was moving much faster this time, and then gone. A full second passed and they thought the benchmark had crashed. As Darwin was reaching for the mouse a number popped up on the screen 37,596. Now KP smiled, nodding his head. He stood back took a deep breath and quietly slipped out. No one knew he was gone until they heard his hog bark, and echo in the canyons of Brea as he rolled away.
Reality began to sink in on Freeman. “Joe, help get this torn down. We’ve got $10k worth of gear in here. If Andrew sees this it’ll be our ass. Where’s the boxes? Darwin never heard him, he just kept repeating, “thirty-seven point six, thirty freeking seven point six!”