Partnership
  • MSI is the official motherboard sponsor for Overdrive, providing Nehalem and P45 platforms for the Championship.
  • HyperX DDR3 modules are specifically engineered and designed to meet the rigorous requirements of PC enthusiasts.HyperX modules rated at DDR3-2000+are used in the Overdrive Championship
  • Samsung Hard Drives and Optical Drives - The Center of Innovation
  • 1,000 W modular 80plus high-efficiency EVEREST 1010 power supplies used for the Overdrive Championship.
  • Logitech's G11 gaming keyboard offers illuminated keys and 18 configurable multi-purpose keys plus a USB hub. The G5 Laser Mouse allows adjustable weight and up to 2000 dpi sensitivity for maximum precision.
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Idle Power Consumption Higher Than AMD 4x4

We measured the power consumption of the CPUs directly at the socket.

At 88 Watts, the combined power consumption of the Skulltrail system's two Core 2 Extreme QX975 processors in idle is shockingly high. We are fairly certain that this must be due to an error in the board or the CPU. At any rate, Intel's Speed Step power saving feature did not work.

Even before we began the testing, Intel warned us in an email that enabling the power saving features on the motherboard would cause the system to crash. And it did. As soon as we enabled Vista's power saving settings, it crashed with a blue screen. We do not know whether the Speed Step functionality will be present and enabled in the final versions of the Skulltrail systems. The review board used a beta BIOS, and the processors we tested it with were still engineering samples.

At present, the dual-socket system draws more power when idle than AMD's 4x4 counterpart.


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