Event Report: GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship 2009

Schedule / Guidelines

Schedule

Fixing a flaw from last year's competition, all competitors were flown in a full 2 days before the actual start of the event, and were therefore able to recover from jet lag. There was also a full day dedicated solely to preparation, which I know was absolutely appreciated by everyone in attendance.


As you can see, competitors were given a full 4.5 hours of prep time on June 2nd, and you will see they used every second of it! On the actual competition day, GIGABYTE slotted in some extra preparation time between each benchmark which was also tremendously useful and frankly an absolute necessity in order to achieve top-level results with the provided hardware.


Guidelines

Competition I & II: Battle for the Best X58 OC

For the first part of the competition, Gigabyte provided the following hardware configuration:

• Intel Core i7 Extreme 975 Quad-Core Processor (x 5) - Engineering Samples - Batch # 3843A681
• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Motherboard
• Kingston KHX16000D3K3/3GX DDR3 Memory Kit - Samsung HCF0 ICs
• Gigabyte GV-N26OC-896H-B GeForce GTX 260 216SP Graphics Cards (x 2)
• ENERMAX ERV1050EWT Revolution85+ 1050W Power Supply
• Intel X25-M SATA Solid-State Drive SSDSA2MH080G1 80GB Solid State Drive

Aside from the engineering sample processors, the rest of the components were products that you can easily find at your favorite online retailer. Windows XP SP3 and Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) was preloaded on two separate SSDs, along with the GeForce 181.22 graphics driver and all the necessary benchmarking programs and tweaking tools. Here is the full list of preloaded software:


It should be noted that a decision was made among the competitors to run with PhysX disabled , in order to allow CPU performance to play a greater role in the 3DMark Vantage results. Also, the BIOS used was a newer (likely beta) F7D version.


The rules for this first competition were quite simple:

1. Competitors were not permitted to use their own hardware or software.
2. GIGABYTE will provide hardware replacement if the original one dies or fails.
3. Competitors had to bring their own LN2 pots, soldering irons, hardware modification components, insulation material, multi-meters, digital thermometers, hair dryers, etc.
4. Competitors had to save their scores and screenshots on a Gigabyte-provided USB thumb drive, no others were allowed on-site.

• Score Submission

Points were awarded based on the results of each benchmarking round. The Top 5 teams in both of the benching rounds would be awarded points. The competitors had to do a printscreen, save the results on their USB thumb drive, and raise their hand to submit a score. Gigabyte judges would then verify and add the score to the live database. Naturally, the team with the highest point total at the end of the two rounds would be declared the winner. In case of a tie, the team with the highest Super PI 32M would be declared the winner.

• Prizes

In a competition of this magnitude, the winners' bragging rights would almost be enough, but Gigabyte sweetened the deal with some sizable cash prizes:

• 1st Place: US$ 5,000 cash and sponsor products (Total US$ 6,000 prize value).
• 2nd ~ 6th Place: Sponsor products (Total US$ 1,000 prize value).

Simple enough? Well then let us move on to the Preparation Day...