Wasky and Marco74 were fighting to improve their times, preferring to test 2D. Hiwa, Zilla and Qballe tangled themselves in AquaMark and 3DMark, while Memory Extreme passed through all the benchmarks, trying to improve their positions.

Unfortunately, less than an hour from the end, team Hiwa-Zilla-Qballe acknowledged some problems in the system. The first diagnosis regarded the video card, which does not seem to work correctly. After several scores in AquaMark, which were improved several times, the system refused to remain stable with any degree of overclocking.

As if that weren’t enough, a deeper analysis revealed that the motherboard was suffering, reducing performance. The team was thus forced to significantly cut frequencies practically to default levels. But even in this condition, the instability of the system made it impossible to complete the tests. Therefore, some precious points were lost, and with time running out, they couldn’t even think about preparing a new motherboard.

Meanwhile, GiorgioPrimo and Leghorn were absorbed in their world—a parallel reality. The room was full of people coming and going, talking among themselves, laughing and joking. But nothing distracted the two members of Memory Extreme, who had shown a tremendous ability to concentrate. Leghorn sat in front of the screen and keyboard while GiorgioPrimo, with liquid nitrogen dewar in hand, was careful to observe the results, fill the CPU and GPU pots and consult with his companion. Test after test, score after score, the times got better and the scores got fatter.

When time ran out, everyone already knew the verdict: Memory Extreme was the Italian winner of the Tom’s Hardware overclocking contest!