Introduction
CeBIT saw members of the online technology press engage each other in a sponsored overclocking competition. Intel, MSI, Corsair and ATI combined to setup watercooled systems the teams were to overclock, competing for the highest overclock or score in each of the three categories.
Categories to compete in were best VGA overclock, best memory overclock and best CPU overclock, so Team HEXUS (James and I doing the hard work, the other lot offering very vocal support) fought to defend our honour against the other teams.
James started things off, exploring the limits of the Intel Pentium 955XE processor on an MSI 975X Platinum Mainboard (Intel i975 core logic). Despite being frustrated by the board (16x multiplier didn't work and FSB wouldn't do much over 290 or so), JARS found the board/CPU limit pretty quickly (just over 4.1GHz, made with 15 x 277) and went to work on the memory overclock.
Corsair supplied memory modules and cooling system, with a Nautilus 500 doing away with the CPU's heat, and TWIN2X2048-6400PRO (2GiB dual-channel kit, 5-5-5-12 @ 400MHz) keeping track of our bits and bytes.
Working on or around the 4.1GHz limit, James uses the board's memory multipliers to get memory speed up as high as possible, although we had real trouble getting 3:5 (1.66x) stable at all. Had 3:5 worked, rather than 3:4, we'd have been up around 480MHz on the memory, but we ultimately had to settle for a fair bit less.
VGA overclock was next, and since we were using 3DMark06 to judge it, James and I settled on a 4GHz overclock for the CPU with high-ish bus speed, but lower memory speed using 3:4, since the 955XE would do well in the CPU tests. So James engineered a stable 14 x 285 overclock for me to work with while doing the graphics stuff.
The graphics boards were Radeon X1900 XTs in Crossfire (supported by i975 of course) mode, and they were overclocked in unison. Remembering what our reference samples did during my own testing, we skipped the early incremental work and I went straight to the 680/800 level and started from there, since time was fast running out. We could probably have going even higher than what I settled on, but with the 700W PSU screaming for mercy, ~692/831 was where it all stopped.
Those resulting overclocks were good for James and I to take home the CPU and VGA titles respectively, for Team HEXUS, with Hardwareluxx kicking our asses with a DDR2-960+ memory overclock to wrest that from our grasp.
Good fun was had by all, and despite some hardware problems (the MSI mainboard frustrated more than just us, with all teams having problems with the samples we each used, sadly) we all gave it our best shot.
So James took home the CPU bacon with 15 x 285 (~3998MHz measured by CPU-Z, the final arbiter) overclock on Intel's flagship desktop chip, and I used that base to score just over 8100 in 3DMark06 (2000+ points from the CPU, cheers Jimbo!) with the Crossfire'd X1900 XTs.
Jim and I took home a USB memory key and memory modules (the very ones we used to overclock) from Corsair (yay, Vivian!), and a CPU from Intel (mmm, my Media Center PC takes more shape, thanks Dan!), and a plaque each to commemorate the wins.
Congratulations to all that took part, it was nice to meet you all, and cheers to the sponsors of course. We hear that next year it might get a bit more serious, so I think I'll hire Marcus Hultin for the day! Since we're talking overclocking, well done Kinc for your latest air-cooled 3DMark03 world record! Good fun, glad we had a go!
Find piccies and funny bits on the next page. I bleeped out the swearing, so the following page is rated PG.
