This weekend commences the start of Tom’s Hardware’s Overdrive competition, in which teams of enthusiasts compete for the position of reigning world champion.

Bestofmedia Group several months ago announced the first Overdrive Overclocking Championship by Tom’s Hardware, a worldwide overclocking competition to be held in the United States, Germany, Taiwan, France and Italy.

The contestants will compete to deliver ground breaking CPU and graphics performance by applying custom modifications and optimizations to processors and graphic components. Generally, these customizations push components beyond factory specifications. Liquid nitrogen will be used to chill critical components down to deathly temperatures and in some cases, even be used on the entire motherboard itself.

Some competitors will be using liquid nitrogen CPU pots, others will even bring their own air conditioning units to chill not just the CPU and graphics card, but everything. Still, others will coat their motherboards with silicone sealant, to avoid the possibility of condensation ruining a record breaking attempt. Lest there be any doubt, users will be pushing their hardware to intense levels.

Five teams of up to three people each per country compete in preliminary trials starting tomorrow. Each team will get a chance to setup their stations today. 
The winning team from each country will be flown to the finals to be held in Paris, France.

The contest features many perks and prizes for both participants and winners. The grand prize includes a $5,000 gift certificate to the online shopping site of the winning team’s choice.

“For the preliminary trials, contestants will be using the Intel Core 2 Duo Desktop Processor E8600 and for the finals, the next-generation Core i7 micro architecture from Intel,” said Patrick Schmid, Worldwide Editor-in-Chief of Tom’s Hardware.

“This will be one of the first worldwide overclocking contests where the Intel Core i7 processor, Extreme Edition, will be used," said Schmid.

We’re really excited to watch what the teams can do with their hardware, and even more excited to see where they can take Intel’s Core i7. We already know that Core i7 has enormous potential, as we reported here in our Core i7 Overclocking report. Everyone’s eager to get started, and all teams are vying for that championship spot.

Check back regularly for updates and live reports!

The official sponsors of the Overdrive Overclocking Championship by Tom’s Hardware are Micro-Star International Corporation (MSI) (TSEC: MSI, 2377), Kingston Technology Company, Samsung Electronics (KS: 005930), FSP Group and Logitech International (SIX: LOGN, NASDAQ: LOGI).

Source : Tom's Hardware