Gigabyte's competition wrapped up today with award presentations and competitors doing "free-style: overclocking during the final few hours. Although no major records were broken, everyone had a good time. During the event, representatives from Enermax, Kingston, Intel, Nvidia and had meetings with the press, talking about both future products and industry trends.
Enermax spent a good amount of time discussing differences between mutli-rail and single-rail power supplies and the different pros and cons between the two styles. Typically, a single rail power supply is more efficient because power isn't isolated from the system from rail division. PC Power & Cooling for example, claims that its single-rail designs are superior. Enermax said that while single-rail power supplies are more efficient, multi-rail power supplies provide more safety and reliability. Enermax also mentions that its power supplies are switching-rail power supplies, which provide the best combination of efficiency and reliability. Since Enermax's implementation limits each rail's maximum output, no major power draw can overload any particular component.
Intel spent a good time on CPU and SSD technology, touching very briefly on Larrabee. Kingston itself recently launched its line of SSD drives that are actually manufactured by Intel. The current landscape for SSDs leave very few significant players. OCZ has done well with its latest SSD drives that give end users an exceptional combination of performance and value. Intel's X25 line of SSDs still reign supreme in performance but come at steeper price points.
In regards to Intel's Larrabee, all we can say is that the industry will be both surprised and pleased.
During the end, awards were given out with Jeremiah L. Allen (miahallen), taking the top prize and packing a nice trip in June to Taiwan for the finals.
Above: Jeremiah's screenshot. Notice the Core i7 running at above 5 GHz.
Above: Jeremiah is presented with a collection of gear and a trip to Taiwan from Tony Liao (center), Gigabyte's VP of Sales and Marketing (North America). The prize collection is topped off with an X25-M SSD from Francois Piednoel (right), Intel's Senior Performance Analyst. At the last minute, Francois decided he would give the two competitors with the lowest scores each an X25-M SSD.
Overall Gigabyte did an excellent job setting up the competition both for overclockers and the press. On to the finals!
