Tom's and AMD Overclocking Contest Opens!
Listen up, AMD overclocking enthusiasts, Tom’s Hardware’s next big competition is for you!
Starting Today, those of you with AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition processors will have the opportunity to push your CPU to the limit for a shot of being crowned the winner of the AMD CPU Virtual Overclocking Contest.
For this month’s contest, we’ll be sticking with the Phenom 9950 Black Edition, but those of you with the Phenom II 940 will get your chance in March.
As long as you have an AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition and are a U.S. Resident (sorry international folks, but those are the rules we’ve been given), then you’re qualified to compete! Here's the kicker though: you can enter even if you're not going to overclock! Non-competing entries will be placed in a weekly random drawing for prizes, but if you don't compete, you can't get dibs on the grand prizes.
To get started, you will need to prepare and then send us some information. When you enter, you'll automatically be emailed a copy of the requirements and rules.
For starters, we’ll have to know about the rest of your system besides just the requisite CPU. Tell us your motherboard model, memory configuration, graphics card, and any hardware and software modifications. We’ll also need to know your cooling method (e.g. air, water, liquid nitrogen, or, for the brave, liquid helium; where appropriate list any non-stock heatsink and cooling fan manufacturers and models).
We want to see what your bad ass rig looks like too. The winners of the Phenom 9950 Black Edition and Phenom II 940 will be flown out to our offices here in Los Angeles, all expenses paid for, to receive the prizes and have an opportunity to replicate or even exceed the winning overclock! Best of all, you'll get to hang out with us and AMD.
man, wish i could though, im stuck with a Q6600 @ 3GHZ watercooled (28 celcius idle, 40 celcius load)... which isn't THAT bad.. i dont think.. this P5N-D motherboard blows though, so unstable.. like me when im mad..
And yeah, liquid helium would be better. I mean it is 4-5K as opposed to liquid hydrogen's
I have to be honest I don't think this was the best contest idea you guys could have come up with.
LN2: -196C
LH2: −253C
LHe2: -269C
They probably did mean helium, tho its not really any more dangerous then liquid nitrogen. So long as you have ample ventilation anyway, wouldn't want to suffocate if the concentration got too high. Liquid hydrogen however would be quite dangerous because its flammable, so hydrogen would definitely be for the brave.....there would just be no practical reason to use hydrogen tho.
What im wondering is why no one ever uses a sealed box when they do super cooling. Stop wasting time trying to protect the board form condensation.
Throw the mobo in a sealed container and replace the air inside with nitrogen or argon or something so you have no moisture to worry about in the first place. That would be much easier to setup then trying to screw around with vasoline, or whatever they want to spread over the board to protect it.
and the cables would come out from where ?
Anyways the 9950 like all phenoms suffers from the cold bug, so I dont expect there to be much of a competiton.
LN2: -196C
LH2: −253C
LHe2: -269C
A small correction He doesn't form He2 since it's an enert gas
Actually, at very low temperatures (ie, 4 degrees above absolute zero), helium exists as a diatomic molecule.
Sounds like this is an AMD sponsored contest.
Not to mention limited the contest to one certain CPU at a time simply doesn't make sense and will severely limit the amount contestants. I can fully understand and accept since AMD is the sponsor only AMD CPU's would be allowed that is fine. But they really should have taken a list of CPU's that can partake in it all at once. The winner should be chosen by the highest % of overclock when looking at the CPU's stock speeds. To prove that its stable it must survive a benchmark which would also be neat to see the benchmark results from stock to overclocked.
This in my opinion would not only provide a better contest but also let help AMD advertise themselves better than the current plan.(which is what they are really doing anyways) by showing a larger amount of their products.
Most overclocking events are sponsored my friend.
AMD, sponsoring an OC contest and then not allowing Intel CPUs, blasphemy!!! Obvious bias, companies shouldn't be holding social events to be promoting themselves.
As a side note: Somebody should come up with an open-source knock-off of SuperPi, since it's obviously such a simple application, and we should see if it still blatently favors Intel CPUs. My guess is that it would not, AMD has always had robust FPUs.
Wonder if they'll do a Core i7 contest just to balance things out.
Wonder what the prizes will be, considering the winner will obviously already have AMD's latest CPU chipset/motherboard. Perhaps a newer AMD/ATI video card?