Last weekend I was privaledged enough to be invited to attend the Gigabyte Overclocking Competition in Beijing China.
This competition was intended to be the finals for the Asia Pacific region, with prior competitions supposed to have been held in each country and then the winners bring their hardware to China to face off for #1.
The reality was that only China actually held a preliminary competition, and the other countries just sent their best representative as decided by Gigabyte.
Official website:
http://mb.zol.com.cn/topic/610506.html
(dont ask me why an international competition was all in Chinese....)
The competition rules as described by Gigabyte were:
-Max CPU MHz wins, down to 4 decimal places. Overclock stability must be verified by SuperPI 1M run.
-Contestants must use GIGABYTE P35-DQ6 and Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 CPU (Engineering Samples are not allowed). Gskill memory is recommended (but not compulsory).
-Contestants must use Windows XP SP2 as the operation system.
-CPU-Z is required to mark CPU frequency; screen shots and CPU-Z authorization is required too.
-All contestants must pass SuperPI 1M under the overclocking frequency.
-Software like clockgen and GIGABYTE EasyTune5 can only be used before running SuperPI; using the software overclocking programs to raise frequency after running SuperPI is strictly prohibited. Contestants found to be using software overclocking programs to increase the CPU frequency after passing SuperPI will be disqualified.
-The contestant who achieves the highest frequency (up to 4 digits after the decimal) will win.
-If 2 or more contestants have the same frequency then the one with the fastest SuperPI will win.
-Voltage modding is permitted.
-CPU lapping (sanding) is permitted.
Hardware to be provided by the contestant:
1、 GIGABYTE GA-P35-DQ6 motherboard
2、 Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (ES ver is prohibited)
3、 Cooling system
4、 Hard Disk with OS
Compulsory hardware provide by the organizers:
1、 LCD Monitor ViewSonic 20’
2、 Keyboard and Mouse Razer (USB)
3、 Power Tt 750W
Optional hardware provided by the organizers:
1、 RAM – Gskill will provide 8500GBHK DDR2 1066 (D9)
2、 VGA card – GIGABYTE 8600GT will be provided (contestants must use any kind of GIGABYTE VGA card, any other brand is prohibited.)
3、 Dry Ice
4、 Liquid Nitrogen
Now, as you can see the rules basically meant it was a max FSB competition, with max MHZ being totally dependent on the CPU's FSB capability due to low 7x multiplier.
In the lead up to the competition I bought and tested 2 CPU's, the first was an absolute dud at 475fsb wall on water, the second was much better at 545fsb wall on water. Both with 1.795V PLL.
The motherboard i was going to use received all the volt mods, excluding PLL which is very risky (remove a resistor and then feed a source directly from the PSU via some resistors straight into the vccpll pin on the CPU) and with only a week before the compeition i wasnt going to take the chance of killing a CPU and possibly the board.
http://www.i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=4662
So then i was off to Beijing, my first time in China and the first Gigabyte event i've attended.
Flying in Friday night, i arrived at the hotel after a nice welcoming at the airport by 12am. Went thru all the upfront details and was taken to my room which turned out to be luxurious and well appointed. My friend NightRaven (Singapore) and i flew in together and wanted to get some food afer a long flight, so called up room service at 1am to be told it wasnt available (and the available food was **** anyway). So we took a walk to the nearest shop about 15mins away where we bought some snack and drinks. The temperature was about 18C and NR was complaining that it was the coldest environment he had ever been in
For me it reminded me of good ol' Adelaide in Autumn.
The next morning after about 6 hours sleep we assembled with the rest of the entrant and organisers down at the lobby where we were loaded on the bus and taken off to the event location at the Shangri-La Beijing.
There were a few familiar faces amongst the crowd including my good friends from Indonesia (Benny, Alva, and Benji), and of course recognisable faces such as Kinc (Marcus) and the Gigabyte folks whom i've previously met.
Arriving at the event we strolled in to find a large function room fully decked out in Gigabyte paraphenalia and a large stage. It was immediately obvious that Gigabyte meant serious business.
While the crew continued to ready the room, we assembled in some waiting areas where we were supplied the t-shirts and jackets they wanted us to wear, and it gave us a good chance to introduce ourselves to each other. Even with such a large variety of nationalities we found a way to communicate well and were already forming good relationships. Then in walked the Gigabyte Girls carrying a box (huh, what box?) that we each drew our table location from. As fate would have it, me and NR drew table #1 and #2, so were stuck facing each other and sharing a table.
We were then allowed to eneter the 'arena' and start setting up.
I took this as a good opportunity to grab a photo with Kinc (i'm the white guy on the right)
Once we were all set up, people progressively started to boot up with empty tubes to ensure the systems were operational, then we snuck in some DICE so we could have a play before the compeition started (no acetone). The crowd started to assemble and after lunch we all re-entered the arena for the event proper. While we all waited, i walked around and took some great photographs of the various teams:
Australia (T_M)
Singapore (NightRaven)
China (Wolstame and Unknown, eventual winners)
China (vivalinux and Unknown)
Thailand (Zolkorn and Unknown)
China (Ivan.Qu and Unknown)
Hong Kong? (Sammy Lee and Uknown)
China (Unknown)
China (Unknown)
China (Artkobe and Unknown)
China (Uni-cdkey)
Taiwan (Hicookie and Kevin)
South Korea (Park Sung Hae and Unknown)
Indonesia (Benny and Alva)
China (Speedtime and Susie)
Japan (ROCX)
My apologies if i missed any teams
So anyway, the competition was ready to start but first we had to appear on stage. Some very short questions were answered by a couple of us and the we left stage again.
The special guests and media were assembled, and the competition commenced.
First up was the distribution of the LN2.
We were all alloted with a large thermos with which to go collect LN2, then it was up to us if we wanted to use that for our pouring container. I opted to use my own 1.5L vacuum and foam insulated jug.
A video of my first pull-down which i stopped at -160C, booting up at stock speeds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU_A9_fcs7w
So, as discussed previously the competition was basically a FSB dominated one, with gem/cherry CPU's obviously going to take the prize.
There were no suprises with the Chienese team having tested in excess of 600 CPU's prior to the the comp, they ended up with a WR FSB on the day of 676MHz, which is just insane regadless of conditions.
Well done Wolstame!
As for me, with my super-non-cherry E6550 i managed a wall of a meager 598MHz FSB with temperature not playing a part, with various temps between -70C and -125C.
So for me i just went along for the ride, there's not much point in pushing yourself in such a compeitition that lacks skill and relies solely on CPU quality.
I just enjoyed the atmosphere and seeing many great overclockers doing what they love. So many awesome tubes too
Whilst we benched away, the man Kinc was busying himself with a QX6850 and 2 x 2900XT's in Crossfire on a Gigabyte X38 DQ6 board.
He didnt have time to get LN2 happening on the cards, so only his gem CPU was blessed with the liquid touch.
You could tell he wasnt pushing the limits by any means, hands in pocket most of the time and various Q&A while testing he was clearly just along for the ride too.
After the comp he gave a 'demo' of 3D'05 where he easily pulled two 34k scores on the big screen. I must say his demo was fairly unprofessionally covered by the organisers, especially since they'd paid so much to have him there for those 5 minutes!
The camera man for the big screen wasnt even using a tripod and he continually wabbled the camera around all over the place. I dont think they really had any clue what they were supposed to be doing nor what a legend they were actually filming.
So, at the conclusion of the event there were 3 x 3rd place winners (WTF), 2 x 2nd place winners (WTF), and a 1st place.
It was all in Chinese so im sorry i cant explain much of anything to you all:
3rd
2nd
1st
For my efforts, i was awarded some
awesome Beijing Olympics toys (aka Propaganda) which i left at the event for whoever wanted them.
You can see how excited about them i am in the photo.
Then we packed up and made our way out of the hotel and onto the bus. We had dinner planned for us at a very nice chinese restaurant on a lake side
) Susie from team Speedtime, and many wines and beers with the participant, we were ready for a big night out on the town 
