MSI's Overclocking Final: Amsterdam

The Final In Amsterdam

The Turks pushed this GeForce 9600GT to the limit. With liquid nitrogen cooling, they attained a clock rate of 1002 MHz for the GPU (factory speed: 650 MHz).

The Final In Amsterdam

Filling the Thermoses from the liquid nitrogen tank. The nitrogen is forced out under pressure and condenses in the containers.

The Final In Amsterdam

Sending 2 V to a processor designed for 1.2 V requires a few modifications to the motherboard involving a little soldering.

The Final In Amsterdam

Amsterdam by night, with its romantic canals, red-light district and tourists.

The Final In Amsterdam

The hair dryer is one of the overclocker’s tools of choice. Since processors have a tendency not to start up if the temperature is too low, the canister sometimes has to be heated for the rig to boot.

The Final In Amsterdam

Thanks to the liquid nitrogen on hand, cold drinks were no problem during the event. Kids, don’t try this at home. The stuff is dangerous.

The Final In Amsterdam

A system in action. The motherboard is covered with modeling clay and the processor and GPU are cooled with liquid nitrogen. Will the record fall?

The Final In Amsterdam

Another system in action. Only the processor is cooled with liquid nitrogen. Notice the vapor produced by the evaporation of the nitrogen and the many fans. The goal of the tests was to score the shortest possible time with SuperPi and the best score with CINEBENCH. MSI also threw in a surprise benchmark that wasn’t announced until the start of the competition.

The Final In Amsterdam

The competition venue, the Westergasfabriek. The former gasworks, converted into an exhibition hall, was home to the twenty teams and staff for two days.

The Final In Amsterdam

With a clock frequency of 5534 MHz (3 GHz factory) and a bus set at 615 MHz, the French placed third in the competition. They scored 8.3 s with SuperPi, 11,306 points with CINEBENCH and 26,177 points on MSI’s surprise test, 3DMark 2005.

  • neiroatopelcc
    Wouldn't hurt if you'd included a simple list at the end listing all teams scores in the individual benchmarks, and perhaps the top frequencies achieved. msi is bound to have such lists they could lend you!
    Reply
  • craig hallworth
    Where's the photo of the winner's celebration at the 'cafe'?
    Reply
  • Car6on14
    It would be great if you guys would post a list of events like this with dates and location. If there are that many? I think it would be really interesting to check one out...
    Reply
  • I've bin at the pre-rounds and miserabely failed lol. Something with XP SP3 and a rivatuner which refused to apply my OC. The dutch guy is Snot_aap, a respected overclocked together with his GF, who also applied Dry-ice to the previous contest.

    Great to have something dutch even on Tomshardware =)
    Reply
  • sirrell
    Very nice clock speeds, I agree with Neirotopelcc, need more details..
    Bet you guys were having too much fun to record the details..

    Just hope the world final includes some aussies..
    I'd love to play with liquid nitrogen :)
    AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI...
    Reply
  • Pei-chen
    At least the Greeks beat the Turks. Let’s see how the European does on the world final.
    Reply
  • caamsa
    "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks"
    Reply
  • kitsilencer
    Like the French finals that you covered, this is nothing more than a glorified photo album. Details please. Apart from knowing how people are taking their machines to the edge, it'd bwe nice to know where the 'edge' is.
    Reply
  • caskachan
    I said it last time whe yous tarted about this thign of overclocking contests....

    wheres the god damn NUMBERS, im sure most of us come here clicing to see what is the NEW world record overclock and what cpu made it and what numbers theya chieved with it.... the way youve presented the information in this and the last times, makes it feel like im not reading a technology site at all

    ill wade trough see if i can find numbers...
    Reply
  • caskachan
    Ok.. so i suppose third place Megahurts and BUS speed can be made public,but not 2nd and 1st place, in order to keep the competition going on?..or what?
    btw stopmakign this in a slide show fashion, the ads are killing this site (load times)
    Reply