From the back of the room comes a desperate scream, followed by two words: "it’s gone!" And with that, GiorgioPrimo declares the premature death of a motherboard. Some attempts are made at resuscitation to avoid suffering the 5% penalty for burnt components, but nothing more can be done. Another "tombola" for Leghorn, who draws the number to assign them a second motherboard, and Memory Extreme gets to work installing the system for a second time. That’s going to leave a mark.

Meanwhile, Extreme Hardware started putting up some scores, checking in a thousandth of a second behind Memory Extreme in SuperPI 1M. A thousandth of a second could just be called bad luck, however this is a clear sign of how aggressive the challenges are in extreme overclocking. The teams compete against each other at a high level—so high that even one thousandth of a second can make all of the difference in the world.

Next Hardware also starts to put some liquid nitrogen into its CPU pot and slowly tries to increase the maximum level of performance in order to put some scores up on the board.

We start to celebrate—thinking, "only one motherboard burnt, what luck!"—when, from the other side of the room, comes another cry. This time, it’s C1rcu1tburn3r and his colleagues F.O.G.N.A. and Principino84. Unfortunately, we have another motherboard gone. Like Memory Extreme, Extreme Hardware also seeks to recover the board to avoid the penalty, but the team is forced to draw another number.

More scores and many liters of liquid nitrogen later, the bell rings. That’s all for today. Everyone back to the hotel and we’ll re-convene tomorrow.