After Memory Extreme and Extreme Hardware—who between the two teams have now disposed of three motherboards—it is now Next Hardware’s turn to show what it can do. A now-familiar odor of burning spreads around the room, and sadly it comes from the video card. Wasky and Marco74 are in the testing zone, already showing some good scores and are at the most critical point, when the wave of bad luck hits them too, forcing them to stop.

They, too, look to save their video card, but some tests show video artifacts, an unambiguous sign of a damaged card. Next Hardware is not put off entirely, and forgets the 3D tests, focusing instead on those in 2D.

What has happened so far is more than enough to demonstrate just how delicate the practice of extreme overclocking really is. Just one nanosecond, a parameter just over the limit, and a card worth more than $500 goes up in smoke. This lesson teaches us another thing—extreme overclocking is not for everyone. It takes a lot of experience, money, and above all, the patience of a saint, because a moment of distraction can mark the end of the game.