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Update: Gigabyte US Overclocking Competition

06.30.08 - 08:38am

I apologize for the lapse in posting for the last week, I had been preparing and then benching at the regional qualifier for Gigabyte in Los Angeles. I flew out of Atlanta on Friday morning and I just landed 2 hours ago, safe and sound in Atlanta. Here’s a quick breakdown of the competition, I sadly haven’t got any pictures so I ganked some from other benchers/media.

Quick and Dirty

This competition was a qualifier for Gigabyte’s global benchmark competition occurring in September. Ten benchers from the US were invited with big names such as Fugger, Gautum, Guess2098, and G H Z showing up. We benched Super Pi 1M, AquaMark3, 3DMark 2001, and 3DMark 2006. We were given 20 minutes to bench 1M and 40 minutes for AM3, 3D01, and 3D06 each. The hardware used were Gigabyte X48T-DQ6’s, Corsair PC3-16000 modules, Gigabyte 9600GT’s, and Intel QX9650’s. Cooling was up to the bencher but the K|ngP|n F1 was a popular pot along with a slew of other pots.

My Impressions and Results

I had a blast at the competition but we had a few issues that crippled my runs. Right before we started the first event, Super Pi 1M, the power blew and damaged my motherboard. The board functioned for about 45 seconds and then subsequently died and refused to boot. So with 10 minutes given to me by the other benchers I warmed up my F1EE, swapped boards, re-insulated, re-mounted, and began benching 1M. In the end I started benching 1M after 18.5 minutes had elapsed, I got into Windows at 5.57GHz with 19:15 elapsed, setFSB’d up to ~5.7GHz, and ran two Super Pi 1M runs and secured second place. If I had more than 45 seconds to bench I would have done much better, but I felt confident going into the 3D benchmarks after having that hectic run.

Once we started benching 3D I realized how bad my GPU was. My 9600GT was having troubles completing AM3 at 815MHz core, 950MHz memory, 2000MHz shader. I finally got those speeds stable and basically used those clocks for the duration of the event which crippled my 3D performance. My lack of frantic benching experience really showed though as other members were dropping 3D scores that smashed mine to pieces. I believe I placed 3rd in 3D01 and didn’t place in AM3 or 3D06. All in all I’d call this a huge success though, this was my 2nd liquid nitrogen bench session and I’m just coming up on 6 months of competitive benching. In another 3 months I figure I’ll be able to run with the top tier benchers, just need more experience.

Number	Name	SuperPI 1M	Aquamark	3DMark01	3DMark06
1	Habib	-	217,520	58,178	12,394
2	Fugger	8.593	277,012	83,105	16,188
3	Danny	8.516	255,170	-	-
4	Todd	8.5	259,752	-	-
5	Ton	8.625	272,486	82,480	14,252
6	Mark	8.172	-	-	16,705
7	Chris	8.281	247,222	84,338	-
8	Gautam	8.531	270,268	86,644	15,177
9	Jeremy	8.485	277,929	82,770	-
10	Ross	8.484	288,524	87,670	15,767

Conclusion

Just like the last Gigabyte event I attended, this event was a dream come true. I got to spend nearly 12 hours benching under liquid nitrogen, I learned a ton of information from my fellow benchers, and I met a few more new faces. Congrats to the top three winners, Ross, Mark, and Charles! I hope Ross represents the US most thoroughly in Taipei. I look forward to the next Gigabyte Overclocking event, rumor has it we might be hitting up Vegas. Angela, Eric, Rita, Collin, and the rest of the Gigabyte crew did a great job this time around and I cannot wait for the next!

Sources: Images ganked from XtremeSystems, Table ganked from FPSLabs.com

Category: Articles, Overclocking, Personal