Tom's OC Competition: LN2 Craziness

By Tuan An Nguyen
published



Check out the temperatures on the motherboard (left) and CPU (right) — pushing clock speeds far beyond factory limits requires insane cooling.



Pots being used on every setup to pour in the liquid nitrogen. Insulation is critical to prevent build up of condensation.



Jake from Ironmods pours in fresh liquid nitrogen, which evaporates quickly, causing the cloud you see.



The OCForums crew seen here behind their setup. Rita Kuo (lady in pink) from Gigabyte shows up to check out the show.

Tuan An Nguyen
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rambo117
    wow.. thats alot of condensation!!!
    Reply
  • DFGum
    I dont mean to offend or anything, but im curious what the point of OCing like this is. Considering its not something the general public can do to improve preformance or anything. Has there ever been something found that brings something new to the computer world?

    OC'ing with home doable setups i understand tho. Even if its rigging it up something extreme, its still doable at home.
    Reply
  • afrobacon
    @DFGum probably the same point drag racing has... or for that matter sports in general.
    its competition, fun to do, fun to watch, fun to say "look what i can do"
    Reply
  • wavebossa
    The point is to see the limit of the hardware... DUH!

    I don't mean to offend or anything, but the answer is obvious. Whats the point of putting a jet engine on a land-based vehicle? To see the limit of land travel. No one every said this scale of OCing is pertinent to all DIYers...

    Wouldn't you like to know the limit of your $1000+ system even if you never intend to reach that limit? Wouldn't you like to know the limit of your $12,000+ car even if you never intend to push it that far?
    Reply
  • wavebossa
    lol, thats funny that afrobacon and I used the same example! I must have been writing my post when u posted urs
    Reply
  • DFGum
    Drag racing does bring things tho. Tire people make new types of tires. Same with rock crawling, that brings new grippier tires.
    For wavebossa, there has to be a point where you say what does this get me? a car is something you can use, you cannot use these computers like this.
    Nasa isnt going to launch a marble into outerspace costing billions just because its cool. There needs to be something..
    I just want to know what OC'ing like this something is.
    Reply
  • jaragon13
    Man,I need my desk to look like that.
    Reply
  • feraltoad
    I agree with DFGUM that the addition of LN removes the excitement of this sort of competition for me too. All the setups look like they belong in the shopping cart of a homeless guy. I do like seeing what PC parts will do with LN, but 10 PCs with LN is less exciting than 1 PC w/LN for me. Especially if the cooling setup on that one PC doesn't look like it was scavenged from the average corporate break room. I guess I don't watch drag racing either! To each his own!
    Reply
  • zodiacfml
    nah, true drag and racing cars are illegal in the street.
    i know people involved had fun, its just that we're not involved. we don't get to watch how it is done and such which make it seem pointless.
    tom's might want to show benchmarks in games/applications of some winning LN systems so we get something to talk about because booting the system only to bios at the highest clock frequency is not interesting. :)
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    @ DFGum : The point is competition. What's the purpose of TrustSSC except for breaking the land speed record? There is none. It's purposebuilt to do something which has no practical value for the general public. Just like any sports is. While nascar might've by accident made goodyear produce better tires it wasn't the purpose of the sport (if driving in circles like a granny can be considered a sport).
    Who knows if using nitrogen as computer cooling would inspire loctite to invent an adhesive that could somehow be used shield from condensation, or could make thermaltake produce a chassis that is based on a refrigurator. If they do it might be good, but it wasn't the purpose of the competition. The purpose is competition. To excell at something, even if it doesn't cure cancer.
    Reply