HoTWiReZ's DoMaiN

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Extreme overclocking using LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen) to get the best scores possible has<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: transparent;">&nbsp;had a recent infusion of interest from PC component vendors.&nbsp; In the past there were some minor sponsored events, or there would be a tie-in with a major product release.&nbsp; However that changed fairly significantly last year with over 50 of the top overclockers descending on Taipei for Computex 2013 for a variety of vendor sponsored events.&nbsp; 2014 just kicked it up a notch, and G.Skill was at the forefront.</span></p>
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For the past two years, G.Skill has run their World Record Stage, inviting the employed or sponsored motherboard manufacturer overclockers to break records using G.Skill&rsquo;s memory live at Computex.&nbsp; For 2014, G.Skill added in another element: the First Annual Overclocking World Cup.</p>
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Through a pre-qualifier on overclocking record website HWBot, six of the top memory overclockers were invited to compete in Taipei for a $10,000 prize.&nbsp; For those in the extreme overclocking community, the names above will be fairly familiar, particularly 8 Pack as the current world #1, and Splave as an ASRock sponsored memory specialist.&nbsp; All six overclockers that qualified are also guaranteed G.Skill DDR4 sponsorship when it comes to market.</p>
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Each of the six finalists were given stage time from Tuesday to Thursday in order to qualify for the 1 vs 1 final.&nbsp; Competitors had to bring their own core hardware (CPU, motherboard, GPU, specialist G.Skill DRAM) while G.Skill provided the essentials and the liquid nitrogen.&nbsp; It might be odd that the competitors had to bring their own core hardware, but these are individuals who will test 50+ CPUs to find the best one and get the best score possible.</p>
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Benchmarks chosen for the on-stage live qualifier were SuperPi 32M at 5 GHz, Aquamark3, Maximum Memory Frequency and Catzilla 720P with a GTX750 Ti.&nbsp; These are all well-known benchmarks in the extreme overclocking community, and from these results Splave and 8 Pack both made it through to the final.</p>
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These two were then put on stage on the Friday, which is the day I happened to be visiting the G.Skill booth.&nbsp; As I visited in the morning, they were both still in the setting up stage:</p>
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Benchmarks for the final were SuperPi 32M 5G and Maximum Memory Frequency again, but the other two benchmarks were replaced with 3DMark Fire Strike.&nbsp; The benchmarks were weighted in favor of the more memory oriented section of the contest.</p>
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Normally when users think extreme overclocking, it might involve liquid nitrogen on the CPU, or the CPU and GPU.&nbsp; Due to the push of G.Skill and others in recent years, we now develop special pots for cooling memory as well:</p>
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The colder the memory is, the more voltage can be pushed through and hopefully, the higher the frequency can be sustained.&nbsp;</p>
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While the pre-event qualification and live qualification was a fast and furious blow-by-blow intense competition, the 1-on-1 final was a little subdued.&nbsp; In the first benchmark, 3DMark Firestrike, 8 Pack pushed out a strong score almost 50% more than what Splave was capable of.&nbsp; 8 Pack often gets his world records on GPU based benchmarks, so perhaps that was no surprise.&nbsp; However, the tables turned and 8 Pack&rsquo;s system started to behave abnormally.&nbsp; This left him without a score in SuperPi 32M at 5 GHz, making the contest all hinge on the Memory Clock result.&nbsp; In the live qualifier, 8 Pack had the better memory clock score, but was unable to match it in the final.&nbsp; Splave was able to surpass 8 Pack&rsquo;s original score and claim the title as well as the prize money.</p>
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Congratulations to both competitors, as well as Xtreme Addict from Poland who came in third.</p>
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On the OC World Record Stage, the Friday happened to be the day that GIGABYTE&rsquo;s team of overclockers were trying to take other records.&nbsp; On stage were ViVi, Hiwa and Pro from G.Skill as well as Sofos, Dinos22 and HiCookie from GIGABYTE.&nbsp; The GIGABYTE team already had some success mid-week at the Intel overclocking event, but at the G.Skill booth there was no specific benchmark to run and a more relaxed atmosphere.</p>
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By far one of my most favorite images to come out of Computex is this one:</p>
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Here Dino is warming up the pot with two torches, while I have no idea what HiCookie and Sofos find funny.&nbsp; Being loosely associated with the extreme overclocking community myself, I know most of these people and have had social events with them in years past.</p>
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Unfortunately I could not stay for the whole day at the booth (many thanks to G.Skill for some of these post-competition images), but the last I had heard another world record had fallen by the end of the day.&nbsp; Here are some of my favorite images taken by G.Skill during the week:</p>
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<div>Gallery: G.Skill Overclocking World Cup at Computex 2014: $10,000 for #1<div></div></div></p>
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Source: AnandTech
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