SCPC 2005: Kinc and Crotale’s winning systems

We have taken a closer look at the systems Kinc and Crotale used to conquer the title of Swedish Champion in Performance. We have published everything from pictures and movies to their personal commentaries about SPC2005.

As usual we had high hopes for yet an even more grand Swedish Performance Championship this year when SPC2005 started at the beginning of December. We had already then a Swedish world record holder in 3Dmark and several impressive results from last year’s competition to look back upon. With the final results in hand we can hardly say we are disappointed with this year’s results, and then we should remember we have a third and very exciting event left.
Since the first SPC in 2001 we’ve seen that Sweden as a nation has grown in the overclocking community. Even if SPC isn’t the sole reason for this we hope and believe that many has taken their overclocking to a new level because of the increased interest in what we would like to call a sport.

You will have to bear with the Swedish logotype

2005 has been an exceptionally good year for Sweden on the overclocking scene where Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin already before the Swedish Championship had set several new world records in 3Dmark and did as expected take home the title in SPC2005, with almost a new world record. A record he himself holds.

During the competition we have reported about Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg’s progress in the Percentual Overclocking category here his record overclocking at 197% created headlines at online communities all over the world. How his amazing score at 203% will be greeted remains to see, but that a participant reaches the magical 200% is a milestone we are happy to present here at NordicHardware.

Except for the two champions there are several participants which has impressed us greatly, not just by getting into the final three, but by doing so by their own circumstances. Alas, we can’t go through them all by name, but it is just these presentations that shows that overclocking is getting more and more like a sport, but a sport practiced by true enthusiasts.

In this short winners article we thought we would focus on the two winning systems from Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin and Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg. Later on we will publish interviews with our two champions but we can already present detailed information about their monster systems while the two gets a chance to share their opinion of this year’s competition.

Before we present information about Marcus’ result in SPC2005 we will take a look at a short biography of one of the best known Swedish overclockers, also known as Kinc.

Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin – Bio
Birth name:	Kim Marcus Hultin
Nickname:	Kinc
History behind the nickname:	It all started with a big cactus in Varberg which became more or less a living person to us. We named it Mr Kaktus. We greeted him every time we passed by. When I later would decide for a company name for my web design project I chose Kaktus Inc. Which later was shortened to Kinc.
Age:	21
Star sign:	Libra
Birth town:	Varberg
First overclocking experience:	It started with a P3 Coppermine 450MHz at 517MHz 24/7, but no serious overclocking attempts. it wasn’t until last year’s championship that the overclocking really got to me.
Earlier SPC merits:	SMPC2004 – 2nd place
Earlier 3Dmark merits:	3Dmark2001: 1 earlier world record and first over 50 000. 3Dmark03: 1 earlier world record and first over 40 000. 3Dmark05: 1 earlier world record and the current world record. Together with OPPainter the only person who has had the record in all three categories at the same time.

Now that you know a little more about Marcus as a person it’s time to take a look at the system Marcus used to bring home his first title in SPC with a considerable margin. The system he used was as expected pretty much identical with the system Marcus used during DreamHack Winter 2005 when he reclaimed his world record with 3Dmark05 from Shamino. Unfortunately Marcus testing during SPC didn’t give as good results as during DreamHack, which he explains why a bit later, but scoring 18 427 points in a championship and publishing it during the first day isn’t bad at all. The specifications for Marcus’ system can be found below;

Kinc’s winning system- 18 427 3Dmarks
Processor:	Athlon 64 FX-57 (0512UPMW) @ 3883MHz
Processor cooling:	Liquid nitrogen (LN2)
Video card(s):	Gainward 7800GTX 512MB SLI @ 760/2058MHz
Video card cooling :	Overklokk Dual Evap Cascade
Motherboard:	DFI NF4 SLI-DR
Memory:	Corsair XMS 3200LL Rev1.1 2x512MB BH-5

There isn’t much left to say as the results speaks for themselves. We will soon publish interviews with both Marcus and Robert but until then we wanted to hear what they had to say about their participation in SPC2005. Here is what Marcus has to say afterwards.

”I’m not really satisfied with my result, since it was actually 200 points lower than my personal best. The reason that I didn’t do better was that the cascade for the video cards had leaked ethylene and couldn’t keep the temperature which made the system very stressful to work with. I also had to compromise and run one safe run with the CPU since I didn’t have any room for a crash. Considering the circumstances I’m pretty satisfied though. Since I got this score in a very early stage the plan was to do another run with a fixed cascade or liquid nitrogen with both cards. Now I had to postpone this project until after New year’s eve, something you will see more of here at NH.”

We once again thank Marcus for his impressive results and before we move on to our other winner we would like to offer our readers a portion of Marcus verification video which shows how things are done when you are benchmarking at this level, just click the screenshot to download the movie.

Our second champion is as you know Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg and to all of you faithful visitors here at NordicHardware Robert is hardly a new name. Robert’s articles about overclocking and reviews has received a lot of good criticism both in Sweden and abroad. That Robert also was the current champion in Percentual Overclocking didn’t make his achievement the least bit less impressing. Robert and Jimmie ”Stinger” are the only ones that has ever defended a title, but next year Robert will get the chance to create history by defending his title again.

Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg – Bio
Birth name:	Robert Gustav Kihlberg
Nickname:	crotale
History behind the nickname:	Has had this nick for a few years now and it was simply created from pure imagination. Lately I’ve discovered it is the name of a snake in some language, and a French military missile system.
Age:	23
Star sign:	Taurus
Birth town:	Katrineholm
First overclocking experience:	PII 300 till 338MHz. Ran defrag and corrupted the whole harddrive.
Earlier SPC merits:	SMPC2003 – 3rd place SMPC2004 – 1st place SMPC2005 – 1st place
Earlier Percentual Overclocking merits:	Celeron 333 @ 600MHz P4 1.6 @ 3300MHz (SMPC2003) Celeron Mobile 1400 @ 3755 (SMPC2004) Celeron D 325J @ 5253MHz

Last year Robert wasn’t a surprising winner but many were caught off-guard by the overclocking potential of the Mobile Celeron platform. Robert then managed to achieve a great score at 168.2% by overclocking his 1.4GHz Celeron Mobile to 3.755GHz. This year it was once again time to show off the Celeron Mobile platform, but because of new rules Robert couldn’t use his old processor, a new 1.4GHz Celeron Mobile was obtained, but also motherboard and cooling was exchanged at the last minute. The result is well known by know, an amazing overclock at 203% which very few, if any, has achieved before. The performance perhaps isn’t the best but a 1.4GHz processor working at 4.24GHz is just stunning. Below you will find the complete specifications for the system which took Robert to and post 200%.

Crotale’s winning system – 203% overclocking
Processor:	Celeron Mobile 1400 (Northwood) @ 4243MHz
Processor info:	303MHz FSB, ~2.0v
Processor cooling:	Liquid nitrogen (LN2)
Video card :	GeForce Ti4600
Motherboard:	Abit IC7-G (vcore, ovp, vchip, vid)
Memory:	Mushkin 256MB BH-5

Below you can find a series of pictures from Robert’s overclocking attempts.

Robert’s score in SPC2005 is the best result we have ever seen in the history of the championship and the question is if we will ever see anything like this again. An overclock at over 200% is something most people couldn’t even imagine. Robert has shown that was, even though it wasn’t exactly the easiest task he has ever embarked upon. Before we publish our interviews with the winners we’ve let Robert speak out and tell us what he thought about SPC2005.

”In the percentual category anything can happen and you have to keep an eye out for a whole range of categories for suitable processors. I decided to go for a Celeron Mobile just as the previous year, but with better cooling this year. The main tests was done with a Cascade setup (-100C) to check if the motherboard could keep up. It turned out that Abit’s IS7 card couldn’t keep up over 280FSB, so the big brother IC7 which is good for 300 had to jump in. After a series of mods and a 4 day runt with liquid nitrogen we passed 4200MHz, and thus 200% overclocking.
”

We would also like to thank Robert for his historical achievement in this year’s championship, just as Marcus Robert has chosen to share a part of his verification video and it is indeed a nice composition you should take a closer look at. Those of you who wants to see his winning system in action can just click the screenshot to download the movie.

We hope that this short article has given you a better look at both Marcus and Robert both as overclockers and persons, at the same time that you have gotten a closer look at the two impressive systems they have used to gain their titles in the SPC2005. In the following weeks we’ll continue verifying results and also gather more interesting material from the contests. These will include interviews with both of the winners, of course we’ll also be having an interview with the winner of the third category Price/Performance.

Price/Performance should of course not be forgotten and when we close this competition next week it will be very interesting to see what performance you can get for only 7000SEK (~$700). In other words you’ll have to be on the lookout on NordicHardware for updates when we draw closer to the prize ceremony.

We would also like to thank all of the sponsors that have contributed to this years SPC and helped us gather prizes to value of about 80 000SEK (~$8000). One of the things Marcus and Robert will get is a complete Crossfire X1800 XT kit from Sapphire.