Introduction and presentation

When we talk about high end toys, we mean the following:

ASUS Rampage Extreme

2x ASUS EAX4870X2

ASUS VW222U LCD Monitor

2x Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (two Different steppings)

Mushkin DDR3-2000 RAM

1300W Tagan PSU


The hardware:



The processors, what you see here costs about 1200 euro, per chip that is:



Asus giving the start sign for the contest:



The first LN2 thermos is being filled:



The contestors (If your name is written wrong, drop me a mail, and I'll correct it):

Sweden
Robert "crotale" Kihlberg
Marcus "Kinc" Hultin

Germany
Marc-Oliver "Joe_Cool" Lange
Michael "No_name" Schnetzer

Czech Republic
Peter "Gudas" Vavro
Lukas Fiala

Spain
Sergio "Predator" San Joaquin
Xavier Paradera "Xevipio" Ferrando

Hungary
Jó "Jugeen" Gábor
Lörince "Achill3uS" Balàzs

Belgium
Piotr "Piotke" Fierens
Thomas "Pt1t" Kalerrinckx

Poland
Marcin "Ryba" Rywak
Jakub "PmP" Natorski

Netherlands
Bart "LOC.O" Peters
Roger "Oldscarface" Kortenhoeven

United Kingdom
Paul "Sacha" Watkinson
David "4QMAN" Robinson

Switserland
Marc "rewarder" Büchel
Roger "splmann" Tanner

Let's take a look at the first teams.

Sweden

Sweden started already by hard-modding the cards, and connecting the fans directly to the 12 V of their PSU.



Last investigation of the system.



System cooled down and BIOS configuration.



Germany

German team waiting for the hardware.



First run of the system.



And some more advanced cooling.



Czech Republic

Modding the cards.



Installing parts.



And freezing it.

Spain

Spain arrived later, but immediately started the action.



They also performed some VGA bios mods.



And they were one of the first with scores.



Hungary

Altough they were the coolest guys around, I only found two pictures of team Hungary.



Still a bit pale after last night ;-).



Belgium

Starting with the build of the system.



Off we went ...



Removed the insulation so we could warm up the system to change processor.

Poland

Poland assembling the system.



Cooling down...



And freezing:



Netherlands

A few more words here. Inseat of insulating with foam, vasiline or liquid tape, the Netherlands team had a great idea. using some soft gum, they could full up every little part of the board. Giving a proper and clean look. And easy to remove.



Then the extra insulation.



And waiting for the first results....



United Kingdom

The Britisch team was using the liquid tape....



Assembly...



And waiting for first results....

Switserland

Very motivated people from Switserland.



Building the system.



And also here waiting for the first results.



Final toughts

It were a very interesting two days, I suffered enormously from a jetlag so it took a week to make this article. ;-)

Pt1t and me, the Belgian team, experienced quit some problems. The first CPU we had suffered from a cold boot at around -70° C and a cold bug at around -110°C. Not that good when you can go a lot colder then that. After swapping the CPU we had one that didn't like high voltages (1.7 volt and it rebooted or just refused to boot). So after a few hours of frustrated benchmarking we eventually didn't have any result....

Quit some other teams encountered the same problems. In the end no world records were broken, but after the end hour was postponed for a few time, the following results were achieved in 3d mark 2006:

1st place - Sweden with 31,976 3DMarks
2nd place - Poland with 31,962 3DMarks
3rd place - Spain with 31,217 3DMarks

We would like to thank Milan from Asus Benelux and Fabian from Asus France for inviting us to go to Berlin. And also the partners who provided the hardware for the event:



Also take a look at the Asus P6T-Deluxe X58 Nehalem Motherboard that was presented in Berlin.