ASUS held the Advanced Overclocking Championship in Hong Kong earlier this year, but has now moved it to Berlin for a European blow-out. We were of course there to both follow the competition and defend our nation’s colors.
2008 is without a doubt the year of overclocking competitions. One component manufacturer after another have organized their very own championships. After many years of organizing the national overclocking competition in Sweden, we’re of course glad to see that the sport is spreading. Gigabyte is currently holding a Nordic competition to find the best overclocker in the Nordics, while the MSI overclocking contest final will happen this weekend. Although, the most active of the bunch is ASUS. The first Advanced Overclocking Championship was held in Hong Kong earlier this year.
With 20 teams from around the world we proudly watched how our very own team consisting of Robert "crotale" Kihlberg and Jon "Elmor" Sandberg scored a silver medal. ASUS then decided to bring the Advanced Overclocking Championship to Europe for a product launch meeting. We can’t reveal the specific product at this time, but more information will follow soon. Our reporter, Anton Karmehed, head of our Swedish sister site, was there to listen to the product presentations and of course cover the overclocking.
This time ASUS had gathered nine teams from around Europe. This time our team consisted of resident writer Robert "crotale" Kihlberg and NordicHardware fellow Marcus "Kinc" Hultin. The three times Swedish national champions were hoping do at least as well as Robert and Jon did back in Hong Kong. Even though we hold Jon as one of the best overclockers of today, being substituted by Marcus is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, Jon will get a chance to prove himself in the MSI finals later this weekend.
On the following pages we’ve summarized the European AOC event in Berlin.
The competition started slightly after noon after several hours of preparations. Intel, ASUS and Mushkin donated the following hardware to each team;
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (C1 stepping)
- Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Extreme (Intel X48)
- Graphics cards: 2 x ASUS EAH4870X2 (Radeon HD 4870X2)
- Memory: Mushkin DDR3 1800MHz (Micron)
- Power supply: Tagan BZ 1300W
Below are a couple of pictures from the preparations.
The national teams were as follows:
:: Sweden ::
Robert “crotale” Kihlberg
Marcus “Kinc” Hultin
:: Germany ::
Marc-Oliver “Joe_Cool” Lange
Michael “No_name” Schnetzer
:: Czech Republic ::
Peter “Gudas” Vavro
Lukas Fiala
:: Spain ::
Sergio “Predator” San Joaquin
Xavier Paradera “Xevipio” Ferrando
:: Hungary ::
Jó “Jugeen” Gábor
Lörince “Achill3uS” Balàzs
:: Belgium ::
Piotr “Piotre” Fierens
Thomas “Pt1t” Kerrinckx
:: Poland ::
Marcin “Ryba” Rywak
Jakub “PmP” Natorski
:: Holland ::
Bart “LOC.O” Peters
Roger “Oldscarface” Kortenhoeven
:: Great Britain ::
Paul “Sacha” Watkinson
David “4QMAN” Robinson
On the next page is the live reporting translated from our Swedish sister site, word for word, to bring you the suspension our Swedish readers experienced.
14.26 – crotale and kinc are starting to get some stream going and after some good scores over 30,000 points in 3DMark06 they’ve now registered the best result so far with 31,500 3DMarks with the processor running at slightly more than 5.4GHz, with liquid nitrogen of course, which is literally flowing throughout the room.
14.36 – Team sweden just raised the bar another couple of hundred points by posting a score of about 31,700 3DMark. There are still no results from the other teams, but we’re watching them closely.
14.54 – More and more teams are starting to get a grip of their systems, but right now it’s still blue an yellow at the top with kinc and crotale. Second best score comes from Team Poland with 31,063 points and a QX9770 clocked at 5.4GHz. The German team with Joe_cool and no_name are closing in on 30,000 points and more and more results have appeared from the other teams. They have access to two different Core 2 Extreme QX9770 processors and it seems like many have chosen to move on to the second processor in hope of higher frequencies.
This is the system kinc and crotale are controlling the lead with at about 31,700 points.
16.10 – Intel has supplied each of the nine team with two Core 2 Extreme QX9770 processors with C1 and C0 steppings. After a couple of hours it seems like the processor is the big bottleneck, which was expected since they’re benching 3DMark06 and the graphics power is anything but meager with dual Radeon HD 4870X2 cards.
Team Sweden and Poland are hitting the highest frequencies right now, between 5.45-5.49GHz. There is a lot of cursing going around the room, instability being the main culprit, not the least from our Swedish team which has been trying to negotiate with the processor for some time now. Some teams have been even more unlucky and not even reached 5GHz with their C1-stepped processors. The key to victory will be to get the processor over 5.5GHz, which is yet to be seen.
16.32 – Many of the teams are having problems with their systems, but one of the more active is Team Poland, which has improved its already good score. It is now breathing down Team Sweden’s neck with a real nice score of 31,683 3DMarks. Kinc and crotale have a result north of 31,700, but are unwilling to reveal how much higher, not even to yours truly. A proof for that this is anything but a game, but a high octane competition.
16.46 – We have a new leader in Team Poland that keeps impressing us and are now close to 32,000 3DMarks. They didn’t quite make it, but managed to take the lead with a new top score of 31,962 3DMarks and as expected it all came down to getting the stingy processor over 5.5GHz. They eventually managed to get it up to 5.55GHz, which was enough to get past the Swedish team with kinc and crotale. An impressive achievement by the Polish team, but one can’t help being a bit patriotic and hope that kinc and crotale will come back before the end of the competition. Pictures from the record round soon.
The Polish team realizes that this may be “the” 3DMark score they’ve been waiting for…
… a feeling that turned out to be very much true as they claimed the lead.
17.10 – The victory will go to either Poland or Sweden, where kinc and crotale have decided to make a desperate processor change in an attempt to catch up to the Polish team. Whether there is enough time remains to be seen, but there is no holding back in the hunt for the number one spot.
Among the other teams, we see that neither of the teams from Great Britain and Holland have managed to complete a single 3DMark round with Radeon HD 4870X2 CrossFireX. For some reason 3DMark06 has crashed at the exact same spot every round, even at stock frequencies. The Dutch team has managed to post a score, but only with one card installed. A small victory for stubbornness.
At the same time no_name of the German team has given up on the supplied hardware and fetched a Core 2 Duo E8600 and his own ASUS Rampage Extreme, which is now working above 600MHz FSB, something the boards that were handed out couldn’t do.
The competition ends 17.30-18.00 so there are still some exciting minutes to go…
18.01 – What an end to AOCC Berlin! Kinc and crotale takes back the lead with the final attempt, in the very last minute and with only 14 points margin!!!
Final scores:
Team Sweden – 29,976 3DMarks
Team Poland – 29,962 3Dmarks
Update coming…
On the next page we summarize the competition.
As we were closing in on the end of the Advanced Overclocking Championship a tensed aura was hovering the room. Would Kinc and crotale managed to reclaim the lead from the Polish team? After several failed "if this one goes through we’ll take them…" rounds it was the very last round of the competition which turned out to be the winner. ASUS representatives was ready to register Team Sweden’s score as it popped up on the screen: 31,976 points, a result which meant that Kinc and crotale missed out on breaking 32,000 points in bitter disappointment, but when they realized that they had beaten the Polish team by 14 points (!!) the feelings quickly changed.
After four truly sweaty hours inside one of Berlin’s most popular night clubs (which was the place for the event) our three-fold champions claimed another title. We’re proud to see our fellow crew to show off the experience and skill we have here, and not the least defending our blue and yellow colors!
The top three of AOCC Berlin was as follows;
1st place – Sweden with 31,976 3DMarks
2nd place – Poland with 31,962 3DMarks
3rd place – Spain with 31,217 3DMarks
The winning score in the very last minute
The winning score
crotale and kinc accepts prizes (2x Rampage Extreme, 4x EAH4870X2) and applauds
We want to send out a big congratulation to all the winners and especially our well known profiles Marcus "Kinc" Hultin and Robert "crotale" Kihlberg! More information on the competition will follow in the next few days.
