This is a surprisingly huge event, and considering that, I feel like the prizes are a little lacking. Not that they're bad, but they warrant a response of "oh that's cool" rather than "I wish I could get in on that!". Also, unless any of the videos explain this (I don't have sound where I'm located right now), how long do the computers have to be running to be deemed stable? Also, unless I'm interpreting this wrong, but did Galax limit them to just the 4790K? Seems weird that they would all be required to use that 1 CPU if world records are what this is all about. I imagine a Xeon would do better, possibly an AMD build. On a side note - funny how one of the contestants is known as "Duck".

This is a surprisingly huge event, and considering that, I feel like the prizes are a little lacking. Not that they're bad, but they warrant a response of "oh that's cool" rather than "I wish I could get in on that!". Also, unless any of the videos explain this (I don't have sound where I'm located right now), how long do the computers have to be running to be deemed stable? Also, unless I'm interpreting this wrong, but did Galax limit them to just the 4790K? Seems weird that they would all be required to use that 1 CPU if world records are what this is all about. I imagine a Xeon would do better, possibly an AMD build. On a side note - funny how one of the contestants is known as "Duck".

As long as it finishes the benchmark and you get your screenshot its doesn't matter if it bluescreens straight after, that's basically it. Think of extreme benching like drag racing, its just about getting over the finish line fastest 😉

As long as it finishes the benchmark and you get your screenshot its doesn't matter if it bluescreens straight after, that's basically it. Think of extreme benching like drag racing, its just about getting over the finish line fastest 😉

That makes sense. I guess you couldn't really maintain stability that long anyway, considering using liquid nitrogen/helium has a very finite usage time. Makes me wonder too if perhaps micro ATX motherboards would be more effective overclockers. Most use the same power connectors as full size motherboards, so by powering less ICs, I'm sure the power distribution may be slightly more stable. Obviously negligible when doing overclocking on air, but could be the difference between 1st and 2nd place at roughly -200 degrees C.

Only 50? I think that decimal point is supposed to be a comma.

Little of topic but this also shows how big PC community really is. Puzzling is why so few pc games, when consoles are sooooo technologically behind.

At a glance, yes, obviously consoles are technologically inferior. But every console has always been a piece of crap, yet able to play games that no PC of similar stats could ever dream of. The problem is modern devs are incredibly lazy. They aren't even trying to optimize the games, they just make sure it runs at release date. It should be very possible to get PC detail level at 1080p 60FPS on modern consoles, but the work isn't being done. Take Gamecube for example - a 485MHz single-core CPU, 162MHz GPU, with 43MB total RAM, yet this console could play games like this: http://swankworld.net/Games/gamecube/re4/images/Enemy05.jpg Resident Evil 4 is a pretty decent looking game and ran on a system that, if were x86 compatible, would struggle to boot Windows XP. Developers are crap these days, and the amount of glitches at release date alone is solid proof of that. @David Lake: In some countries, dots are used instead of commas. It's pretty common.

That makes sense. I guess you couldn't really maintain stability that long anyway, considering using liquid nitrogen/helium has a very finite usage time. Makes me wonder too if perhaps micro ATX motherboards would be more effective overclockers. Most use the same power connectors as full size motherboards, so by powering less ICs, I'm sure the power distribution may be slightly more stable. Obviously negligible when doing overclocking on air, but could be the difference between 1st and 2nd place at roughly -200 degrees C.

Not only that but unless you have LN2 on tap your just plain going to run out so things like Dry Ice or LN2 is not a 24/7 thing anyway Not sure mATX is more effective but you can certainly use them, unless of course you want to run 3 or more GPUs then obviously full ATX is required. Dont even really need an expensive board, using a Z77 UD3H for DICE going to be putting a 3770K under soon 😉

The top prize was only $4000?! What a bunch of cheapskates. That probably didn't even cover the cost of building the rig, never mind the cost of attending that conference. Amazing that any competitors bothered to show up.

I agree, though their rigs don't really need to be made of much. The CPU and motherboard are the most expensive parts they'd have to provide. They could probably work fine with 4GB of RAM (or 1GB per memory channel anyway) and a 32GB SSD. They don't use a full size tower, since they need easy access to the hardware. They don't need anything else if this is strictly for overclocking. I get the impression Galax supplied them GPUs for the contest. But yeah like I said before, $4000 isn't much of a prize. Add another 0 and then you've got something compelling.