3rd of June 2014, Computex is well on the way. Outside the normal Nangang venue, Intel hosted in cooperation with HWBot the ultimate OC event. Even while being considered as a paper launch, the Devils Canyon processors are now officially launched, thus Intel love to put them in the spotlight. How better than via a high end level OC to show off what these new improved processors are capable off? A big thanks to Adeline and Timothé from OverClocking.TV for the photos.
The Event
The eagerly awaited Haswell Devils Canyon processor allows overclockers to unleash higher clocks due to an improved thermal interface material and impoved packaging design. Today it was ready to be thoroughly tested by the OverClocking community at the Hotel Bellavita. This beautiful venue was the location of this 2014 Intel OC challenge event. The competition was split up in two main parts: one part was hosted solely for the professional overclockers from the four big hardware manufacturers, being ASUS, eVGA, Gigabyte and MSI; the other overclocking part was held for the eight participants of the HWBot competition. The latter was labelled as the amateur overclockers series.
The pro teams had to bench on one liquid nitrogen cooled setup and on another air/water cooled setup.
The Professional Teams consisted of:
Team ASUS: Elmor, Slamms, Smoke & Xtreme Addict
Team ASRock: John Lam, Nick Shih & Splave
Team Gigabyte: Dinos22, Hicookie, Sin0822 & Sofos
Team MSI: Pt1t, Pepinorang & Toppc
Before the event officially started, the elite teams could select five out of the numerous present Intel ES i7-4790K CPUs; all of the other hardware besides the monitor was provided by the organization. The amateurs only had the option to select their favorite brand of mainboard manufacturer and assemble their air cooled setup.
The Pro teams had to bench the brand new i7 Devils Canyon during several 2D tests:
CPU-Z highest processor frequency at 1core and full cores enabled
CPU-Z Highest memory clock frequency
Cinebench R15
HWBot Prime
Wprime 1024
XTU 4.4
The amateurs only had to complete a CPU frequency and maximize one run in the Intel eXtreme Tuning Utility 4.4.
Judges for the event were Massman, Der8auer and Leeghoofd. The rules were setup by the organizing Intel Team; as you will notice in the pictures of the ongoing action there was some room for interpretation of the air/liquid cooled setups.
Besides the event, Intel had several demo setups on spot. The unlocked G3528 Pentium Anniversary was installed in a few systems and humming along at 4500MHz.
Ongoing Action
The teams quickly started the assembly of the hardware, then were required to install the needed drivers and benchmarks. Luckily we found a workaround too get the Intel eXtreme Tuning Utility without any access to the Internet.
As this was a huge event with hefty money prices, some overclokers got very creative: imagine a mini keyboard build in a foot switch. This allowed John Lam from HKEPC team (who else) to validate a tad faster then via using the normal F7 key on the keyboard.
The MC of the nite was mister Isaie Trouffman, who was backed up by the rest of the Overclocking TV team Xyala and his girlfriend Adeline. Video footage was streamed by another professional camera crew.
The motherboards were based on the high end Z97 motherboards:
ASUS Z97 Maximus Formula/Gene VII
ASRock Z97 Formula
Gigabyte Z97 SOC & LN2
MSI Z97 MPower
Memory: Pro: own choice
Memory Amateurs: Kingston 2800C12 single sided MFR
Cooling: Pro: LN2/Water/TEC & air cooling
Cooling Amateur: Cooler Master Air cooler
The Pro air/liquid rules were interpreted in several different ways. Some installed the entire setup in a styrofoam box, this to allow maximum cold air to flow between the radiator fins. Others opted to provide chilled air to the radiator by pouring liquid nitrogen in a cardboard box or LN2 container. The ASUS team even put the beers inside to chill these while doing the overclocking.
More Action Photos
After getting the XTU software running on the multitude of setups, the scores started to roll in. Typical for a Live Event, initially the pace is fast, to afterwards steadily slow down. In the end the urge to set a specific score becomes higher than to submit just a score.
Since the pro teams brought their own gear only the by Intel provided processors had to be maxed. These manufacturer sponsored teams have been testing since weeks to enhance the efficiency of their hardware. Gigabyte even designed a brand new Z97X-SOC Force LN2 motherboard, just for the memory clocking stage. No matter how but these manufacturers will try anything to beat their competitors. Earlier that week Team Gigabyte already set a new memory frequency record at a blistering 4500MHz, to be upped a notch higher to 4560MHz
MC Trouffman from OverClocking.TV was on duty to entertain and inform the crowd during the event. An easy task for our super Frenchie as this is what he does at nearly each OCing event. The integration of Twitch allows for fast replies to the posed questions.
Team Gigabyte setup was completely frozen near the end, even the fans stopped working on the Cooler Master Nepton AIO unit
Devils Canyon anyone ? As you can see some competitors delidded their sample to test if they could go higher in frequency. This allowed Team MSI to grab the top spot for CPU frequency btw... soldered IHS, nope no way lads...
Final Results
Typical during live events, the pressure while benching is at another level, this partly due to the present audience and media. Plus pumping loud dance music makes it even harder to concentrate properly. Intel did well as a real horde of media was covering the event. The judging, initially experienced a slow start, though quickly got up to the required pace to verify all the scores and aid the competitors.
Final rankings for the PRO teams for this Computex Intel OC event:
A great event for all vendors as each team got their own moment of glory. ASUS took 6 stages, Gigabyte 3, ASRock and MSI both 2 and finally eVGA pushed hard to maintain the lead in the Wprime 1024 stage. Looking at the price money Intel really wanted the world to show the frequency potential of their new Devils Canyon processor. Benchers know this is just a matter of keeping it all stable just to validate with the CPU-Z program. This however hardly reflects daily stability; nevertheless these "air" clocks are impressive.
The amateurs event was also a neck to neck race. Most impressive was the CPU-Z score from the only female contestant CherV, clocking her i7-4790K at an impressive 5396MHz.
After a very busy day this Intel OC event turned out as a great event. Amazing location, great scores set by the overclockers and a fierce battle for each stage. Honestly really looking forward to the retail versions of the Devils Canyon processors. Let the CPU binning begin (again)!!!
Overclocking.TV has the ongoing action nicely captured in this video:
A big thanks to Intel and HWBot for hosting it; secondly to Pieter Jan Plaisier and Roman Hartung for the flawless refereeing and thanks John LAM for the SSD image support.
