Event Report: GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship 2008

Preparation Work


At their individual work tables the teams where greeted with the following hardware setup:


The previously mentioned keyboard, LCD monitor, motherboard, mouse (slightly covered on the right of the KB), and power supply were ready for unwrapping. The Corsair DDR3 modules, Western Digital VelociRaptor HDD, and Gigabyte Radeon HD 4870’s were handed out a little later. Of course, the centerpiece of the whole competition was the Gigabyte EP45T-EXTREME motherboard (you can read our tough but fair review here), which all of the competitors were already very familiar with.


Since this was a hardcore overclocking competition and Murphy’s Law always rears its ugly head, Gigabyte came prepared with a lot of replacement components, dutifully guarded by their watchful staff. As we mentioned prior, under the rules each team was permitted to swap each component once. The processors had writing on them because they were all pre-tested by Gigabyte in-house overclocker Hicookie to ensure that no one received a subpar chip, and based on my observations they were all capable of 5.1Ghz and above under liquid nitrogen (LN2) and ideal conditions.


Team USA 2 (FUGGER & Vapor) came well-prepared with the LN2 overclockers most vital and most used asset, high-quality paper towels. At the table of Team USA 1 (Ross & Maxi), we see Ross inspecting his QX9650 E.S quad-core processor, which was labeled Q23 and proved to be a very good overclocker (5.55-5.625Ghz).


Here we see that Team Sweden 1 (Ekberg & Mean Machine) have received all of their hardware and should be ready to begin setting up. Right nearby, Team Australia (Deanzo & dinos22) have removed the EP45T-Extreme’s elaborate copper cooling system and are ready to prep the motherboard for the rigors of LN2 cooling.


Giorgioprimo from Team Italy (giorgioprimo & Dimas) definitely did his homework, and he had a great illustrated handbook with all the possible modifications to the available motherboard and graphics cards. In the mean time, Tat from Team Hong Kong (Tat & Lok) was busy taping up one of his Radeon HD 4870’s.


Team South Africa (Flytek & TraX) had their system up & running pretty quickly, and here Flytek is checking the resistance on one of his HD 4870’s prior to starting the voltage modifications. Vapor is doing likewise, and notice the ingenuity of having the schematics on his iPhone (that in itself is worthy of the Hardware Canucks Damn Innovative Award).


When dealing with LN2 cooling moisture and condensation are always the primary concern, and while insulation foam and paper towels were omnipresent, and it was interesting to see the different materials and methods the teams used. For example, Team Turkey (Tosunermc & hey) used kneaded eraser/putty rubber, which was just recently introduced to the overclocking community, and is not only easy to work with but comes off cleanly. Dinos22 sealed most critical areas with a thick application of nail polish (…while also occasionally applying some coats to himself, haha). On the other side of the hall, FUGGER took a more conventional approach and simply used a whole lot of Vaseline petroleum jelly everywhere. Staying true to their 'Team Ghetto' slogan, the South Africans made due with run-of-the-mill duct tape.


In the mean time, Ekberg & Mean Machine were finishing the foam isolation on their impressive GPU pots, while Tat was putting the finishing touches on one of the graphics cards. Both of these teams definitely had the largest GPU pots in the whole competition.


Here Ross from Team USA 1 is preparing the wiring to do a voltage droop modification on the motherboard. The EP45T-Extreme actually has a relatively stable vCore line, and is great for mainstream overclocking, but a 5-6Ghz quad-core processor needs rock solid power delivery. Where as most teams had disassembled all the stock hardware and were in the process of modifications, Team Vietnam (Recoba & Tsondt) took a more laid-back approach, thoroughly testing their hardware in stock configuration before getting down & dirty. Will this be a Tortoise and the Hare situation? We’ll find out…


Within the first hour, the liquid nitrogen started flowing. They had 12 large tanks and a great crew always busy filling up thermoses.


Roughly 2 hours into the setup and testing stage, Team USA 1 and Team Australia were still in the early assembly process, but there definitely wasn’t any stress coming from these veteran teams…yet. It was interesting to see that while most teams chose extreme cooling for the northbridge, Team USA 2 used a simple Corsair Nautilus 500 self-contained water cooling kit in conjunction with the EP45T-EXTREME's stock hybrid water block. Would it hold them back? We shall see.


With 55 minutes left before the official start of the competition, Team USA 2 was ready to go and so was Team South Africa…or so we thought, then they whipped out their secret weapon, a huge empty Dry Ice box. In brief, by running their system in a sealed box they are able to avoid most of the condensation issues that are caused by sub-zero cooling.


At the T - 10 minute mark, Team Australia had a bootable system (a rare sight as you will find out), but they still had not done any LN2 testing due to a number of motherboard-related issues.


Less than 6 minutes before the start of start of Round 1: Everest Bandwidth, the competition is about to begin. Even the judges are fired up and ready to go.