I planned on giving a keyboard update but I got to thinking about my computer and how long it's lasted. I mean, let's look back. In late 2014 I did my first big computer upgrade. The computer I was replacing, an AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition with EVGA GeForce 465 1GB had lasted me three years. That's not saying a lot though as I didn't have the money to upgrade it. What did I get in 2014? An Intel Core i5 4690K with an EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB. It was nice and served me well.
In 2016 I got a Microsoft Surface Pro 4. It was a tablet/laptop with an Intel i5 processor and the built in graphics. Nice for a portable computer, but nothing compared to my desktop.
In 2017 I had a major problem with my computer. Crash city. I tried to fix it, but ended up taking the easier route and replaced it. I mean, it had been three years after all. Intel Core i5 7600K with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB. Even at the time it didn't feel necessary, but it was a big upgrade.
A year later in 2018 I got another computer. This time, since my last two computers flaked out and I didn't have the time to really play with them and fix them, I decided to buy the computer from a boutique manufacturer. In this instance, Origin PC. It cost a pretty penny but it was an overclocked Intel i5 9600k and an overclocked Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founder's Edition 8GB. I'll admit, while I overspent on the computer and felt a little bad about abandoning 'building' and maintaining my own computer, it was really REALLY sweet.
In 2020, with the pandemic going on and all, I bought a Mac Book Pro with a 10th gen Intel i5 processor. For awhile there, I was living the Apple life. I had an iPhone, an Apple Watch, an iPad Pro, and now a Macbook Pro. Overall... meh. Not a fan. It served its purpose of teaching me about Apple products and the walled garden around them but soon after that I went back to Android and Windows.
I wanted to upgrade the video card in my computer but this was during the pandemic and video card crisis and they were just NOT available. That is, they weren't available unless you got into a new computer from a boutique computer manufacturer. So... I did that in 2021. This time it was from a less expensive company, NZXT, and got me an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor with the coveted EVGA FTW3 Ultra Gaming RTX 3080 8GB.
About a year and a half later in 2022 I got another NZXT computer. Between getting the 2021 computer and the 2022 computer I had a major upgrade in the monitor. I went from a widescreen 2K monitor to a 4K OLED TV. The 3080 graphic card could play in 4K... barely. It was back to the 2080 with less than ideal performance. That was due to the fact that I got the '2nd best' video card. The 3080 instead of the 3090. So, in 2022 I upgraded to the 4090 24GB, leaving just about everything else the same. I'd have purchased just the video card but I had the same problem as before... only boutique computer manufacturers were selling the video cards. Everybody else was out of stock or selling them at $1000 premiums. So my new computer was an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X processor with the top of the line 4090 video card.
Unfortunately a couple problems cropped up in that system. First was the fact that it was my first non-EVGA or Nvidia card in a LONG time. With NZXT you don't select which specific card you want, you just select the series and they use whatever they have in stock. Mine was a Gigabyte Eagle 4090 and... well, it certainly played games in 4K just fine but it's benchmarks were well below what a 4090 should get. Then there was the memory problem with AM5 processors. There was a big shift between the Ryzen 5000 series and the Ryzen 7000 series and one of them was moving to DDR5 memory. Well, on each bootup the system would do a full memory check. It would increase the boot time from the normal ten to fifteen seconds all the way up to thirty to forty-five seconds. And on top of all that, the whole system was just flakey. Not bad or broken, just flakey.
So in 2023 when I quit my job and was cashing out my 401k, I decided to buy my 'Final Boss' computer. to not cut any corners. To get EXACTLY what I wanted. Top of the line across the board. I went with another boutique computer company, Falcon Northwest, that was top of the line. At least in my mind. I used their smaller case because they proved that you could put a 4090 in it AND keep it cool. The processor was the Intel 14900k, the video card was the Nvidia Founders Edition 4090 24GB. The SSDs are 5th Gen and fast as all fuck. It has 64 Gigs of fast memory. I literally made this as future proof as I could reasonably do.
To be honest, it has stood the test of time better than I thought it would. Yes, there have been improvements in both Intel processors and Nvidia video cards, but neither generational upgrade was impressive. Intel's Core Ultra line is their first swing at a Ryzen like chiplet design and it's NOT as good as the 14900k in a lot of ways. For Nvidia, the 5090 IS better than the 4090, but not a lot better. Normally when there's a new generation of cards, the 2nd tier beats out the previous top tier. The 3080 was better than the 2000 series Titan. The 4080 was better than the 3090. But this time around, the 5080 isn't better than the 4090. In other words, I STILL have the 2nd best video card on the market.
No changes in memory, no changes in hard drives... there are currently NO reasons to upgrade. I still play all new games at 4K with full graphics quality. The only difference between now and like 6 years ago is that I need to use DLSS to get that resolution... but so does the 5090. That's just the way games work now.
And looking into the future, Intel just put out a 'refresh' of their Core Ultra line so we're at least a half a year away from the next generation processors coming out. More likely nearly a year away. And Nvidia is talking about delaying the 6000 line of video cards. There should have been a refresh of the 5000 series (The Super line) but that never came.
I'm only two and a half years into this computer and I've had several last three years, but I think I'll easily tie that mark and more than likely exceed it.
So, on to the keyboard. I last left off with getting the Cherry XTRFY MX 8.2 PRO TMR TKL and some new keycaps. I loved the metal accent keycaps I got but was rather 'meh' on the grayscale keycaps for everything else.
The first problem came up with the number pad. The difference in height turned out to be a problem as my hand muscle memory didn't work. And I hate to admit it, but the fact that it was a different color bothered me. So, knowing I wouldn't be satisfied, I looked at stand alone keypads and found that Keychron still makes the best ones. I go the newer, not-low-profile number pad that works just the same as the one I had but now has keycaps that I can match. I even got a new set of keycaps that I could mix in with my grayscale. They weren't shine through, but I only used them for the edge keys and the number pad. I mean like the tab, shift, shift-lock, control, alt, spacebar, enter, slash, and backspace keys. Even the six control keys on the side (page up and down, print screen, home...).
It was nowhere near perfect. MANY of the keys didn't match. But I thought it would serve me for awhile.
I started looking for a new keycap set that would work for me. It became clear soon enough that there just weren't all that many shine through keycaps. Most of the ones that were out there were either cheap as fuck or very gamery (all black with a silly font).
And I still kept coming back to those metal keycaps. Not only did they look amazing, they sounded really REALLY cool. Eventually, I just caved. Yeah, they're as expensive as all get out, but they might end the upgrade cycle on the keyboard front. And I went the extra mile to do it right. You see, the number pad has 4 macro keys above the normal number pad keys and five macro keys along one side. That's nine keys that need keycaps that won't come in any set.
My first choice, before I considered the macro key problem, was which metal caps to go with. I initially thought I'd go with their 'Viking Antique' set in copper. it looks cool, looks VERY metal and I just adore the copper look.
But upon reading some reviews and watching some YouTube videos on this set, I found out that the 'Antique' look is just printed on the keycaps. After a few months of use, you start wearing it off. The letters stay on just fine as they're actually cut into the metal a bit, but it starts looking more 'bad' than 'antique'.
You can really see it in the A, S, and D keys.
So with those out, I looked at the normal copper.
Something became really evident though. The color of the keys and the color of the printing weren't all that different. And under certain lighting conditions, it would be difficult to see which keys are which. This is on top of me getting used to not having the light shine through them. So... fuck. The same was true of silver and gold.
Next up was 'Ice' and 'Moon Landing'. A quick search showed that the Ice keycaps were similar to the Viking ones in that they graphics were printed on. But the Moon Landing keycaps had an actual texture to them. AND while they didn't come in copper, they came in this really sweet blue called Luna Maria
Here's a closeup of the texture and some of the 'Novelty' keys that can replace escape, shift, caps lock and such.
I really liked the way these looked. All the reviews talked about how you could really feel the texture of the keys. And if I'm going to 'theme' my keyboard, then space and science certainly works for me.
Even the knob on my number pad is blue. BUT.. that leaves the macro keys. 9 keys that I need keycaps for. They can't be 'normal' key caps in that they're letters or numbers or whatever. They can be blank or 'novelties' but they need to be separate from everything else.
I initially thought about just getting some blank copper keycaps as they sell them in groups of 4, but then it hit me... I already had some novelty keys. The Periodic Table key caps. Instead of buying a bunch of blank key caps, I went ahead and got the rest of the Periodic Table key caps. It was a pack of 12, so I used the nine on the number pad and then highlighted a few of the function keys.
Now, when they keys were being delivered (it takes about ten days to get here from China) I knew I'd have to do something about the lighting. I couldn't keep my room as dark as normal and see the keycaps. The only way I could think about getting the keycaps visible was a new light. Preferably one that hung from the ceiling above me so that the actual lightbulb wouldn't be in my eyes. A quick trip to Amazon later and I got a tiffany style lamp and lamp shade that could just plug into the wall and a smart bulb to go into it.
With the smart light I was able to program the three smart lights in my room to various 'scenes'. One is my most basic; the desk lamp and ceiling lamp both at a cool white at roughly 60% brightness. That's enough to illuminate the area around me with the desk lamp and illuminate my keyboard with the ceiling lamp. I then combine that with the 'aura' light behind my monitor that just shines at the wall and produces a glow around the monitor. That one goes into a specific subtle color shift pattern. Next is 'watching tv' where the ceiling lamp and desk lamp turn off, and the aura light gets brighter but goes into the full color spectrum color cycle. And finally the 'get work done' mode which is all lamps on at full brightness in a warm white light. So far, it works fine for illuminating the keyboard without seeming to bathe me in a lot of extra light.
Here's what the setup looks like right now, before I go into the problems:
I like them. I like them a lot. But, it wouldn't be me if there weren't problems, right? The first problme is easy enough; they spacebar is so heavy that it's lower than the other keys. The springs just aren't heavy duty enough. Awekeys, the company that sells the metal keycaps, sell heavier duty springs, so I might need to get some of those as the space bar IS easier to mis-hit. Right now I'm just dealing with it to see how bad it is. The second problem is more problematic. The little tactile markers on the f and j keys, the ones you use to line up your index fingers for touch typing, are very small. Add in the texture of the key caps AND the fact that the letters are cut out and have their own texture, they're impossible to feel as the tactile markers should be.
I tried some alternative keys, like plastic ones that let the light through and even some smooth metal black ones from Awekeys... but they didn't help enough with blindly lining my hands up and looked bad. that's why the Luna Maria f and j keys are in the photos. I finally broke down and wrote an email to Awekeys this morning. I'm not sure if I'll get a response or anything, but it was worth a try. My biggest fear is that it will bother me more and more and more and eventually I'll start over and go with another set of key caps.
And one last tidbit on keyboards.
At work we type a lot. The shorthand is that nursing work is 40% of our job while documenting that work is 60%. And that tracks as there is a LOT of typing for my job. Well, they keyboards they have are all Amazon basic membrane low profile keyboards. I'd say they were like laptop keyboards, but that would be insulting the shitty laptop keyboards. These are just terrible. Worse, some of them are broke. Like the right shift key doesn't work or the period key doesn't work. I found that my typing speed was reduced by almost 80% as most of my typing motion was hitting the backspace key to fix errors.
Well, with permission from the IT department, I brought in my own cordless keyboard that I can plug in at the beginning of my shift, use during my shift, and unplug after my shift.
I obviously wanted something small, light, and easy to pack/transport. It should be low profile and of course mechanical. Preferably in the TKL format as that's how I'm used to the key positions.
I got just about everything I want in the LoFree Flow 2:
It's not exactly TKL and over the two days I've used it at work I've found my hands often going for the number pad that isn't there... but otherwise it's working fine. My typing speed is almost all the way back up to full. And boy, does it sound good. Not as good as my thocky metal keys at home, but WAY better than those cheap ass Amazon keyboards.
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