MSI, an overclocker's dream?



When we first heard about the MSI overclocking challenge, we were a bit suspicious about the reasoning behind the idea of an overclocking challenge. In terms of quality, MSI has always delivered solid products and has always provided the end-user with the necessary equipment to build a stable and performing computer.

In terms of overclocking scalability, MSI isn't really known in the overclocking community. Although most boards suit the needs of the basic overclocker, when you need to compete at the absolute highest level, many people will not even consider an MSI motherboard to overclock with. Why? No idea, but it seems that MSI motherboards are not always capable of getting to the highest overclocked speeds.

Overclocking events all around the world.

The P45 chipset was introduced to the big public as thé best chipset for overclocking, while both Asus and Gigabyte already organized an overclocking event, MSI started theirs at an earlier date, involving more people and countries, actually making a real contest.

Although many of the best overclockers in the world participated in those Asus and Gigabyte contests, many people seemed to see the events as pure marketing. It was all about pushing the systems to be able to push the sales of the motherboards, not really to see who the best overclocker is.

So while MSI’s final OC contest was not the first, they did start out their planning earlier and were really looking for the best overclocker in Europe. When I arrived at Amsterdam, last Friday, I had the chance to see the building in which the event took place before any other overclocker. My first reaction? "Excellent".


Source:Tweakers.net

After a quick chat with MSI representatives, I found out that the MSI overclocking challenge has already been on the agenda since February. Unlike my initial thoughts, the idea of an overclocking competition was not proposed by Intel (as they were claiming the P45 chipset to be thé overclocking chipset), but was a concept that was proposed inside MSI. As the conversation went on, I was getting more and more convinced that the event was not entirely focused on the marketing aspect, but on the overclocking fun and to let the overclockers come into contact with the firm; a thought that you'll find to be the common theme through this article.

Day1: Meeting all contestants

After we all got up and had breakfast, it was time to go to the Westergasfabriek and start our engines. Here are a few pictures of the introduction.


Angelique (event coordinator) giving an introduction




A taiwanese engineer explaining the key features of the MSI P45 motherboard


Stoolman, member of the grand jury, explaining the rules


Countdown to the start of the competition


A little low-quality video of the location

Day1: Testing the hardware

After the introduction, all overclockers were allowed to take place at their table and start testing the hardware. As Sampsa had some problems with air traffic and could not make it to the event, I teamed up with SF3D to keep him company. So ... I was benching against the Belgian team.


Source: Tweakers.net

The first day was quite frustrating, as 600FSB was really difficult to reach even for the Superpi 1M benchmark. Cinebench and 3DMark05 were even harder to get 100% stable, resulting in a very bad 550FSB maximum. Elmor helped us out with the correct settings for 550FSB and those settings helped us to figure out how to bench the second day, more about that on the following page.

In the meantime, the Belgian team was making us feel even more uncomfortable as they told us they were pushing their system past 600Mhz FSB in Cinebench. Unfortunately, their motherboard died at the end of the day in an attempt to complete a 3DMark05 run at 600FSB, as the benchmark crashed in the last of three tests. Motherboard gone and a new one prepped for Sunday, the day of the finals.


970 liters of liquid nitrogen on stand-by


The Spanish team trying to figure out what to begin with


Hey and Tosunermc preparing their system, not knowing that these preparations will lead them to second place


Team Finland even had some supporters to cheer them on!


Nosferatu doing the voltmods on the motherboard


Well ... everyone needed to be identified as a genuine MSI P45 overclocker


The French team preparing their LN² containers


This is ... innovative. Hopefully, we'll be able to review this board.


Team Hungary knows where the main priority lies

Day1: Cooling down after the tests

When the first day was over, the group of overclockers, editors and a big part of the MSI crew went to a show called "Boom Chicago". We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed a comedy evening full of stand-up comedy and improvisation acts in which MSI got the necessary exposure as well. Have a look at this youtube video and you'll understand:


MSI is ready to have dinner



Afterwards, we went for a few drinks in a local bar, enjoying the Amsterdam night scene.


Sitting in a bar, telling each other interesting stories


Elmor and SF3D


Nosferatu and Trouffman

Day2: Big finals

After getting up at 8:00 AM and having breakfast to have the much necessary energy to start overclocking day 2, we all returned to the Westergasfabriek where we were welcomed by the entire MSI crew on the sounds of 'Eye of the tiger'. Yeah, it was a bit overwhelming, making us benchers feel like very important people.


Seems that all this overclocking makes people to be very tired


Another countdown, this time to the finals


Eye of the tiger playing as we enter the building

Day2: Big smiles

On day1, SF3D and me were struggling with the CPU which didn't do the right clock frequencies and held us back a lot. Because MSI offered us a replacement chip, we tested a new one, which turned out to be much better. Unlike the first day, we were able to hit 635MHz FSB superpi 1M stable, which eventually we the second best at the event! Cinebench was able to run at 600MHz, which was about 50MHz more than the day before, so after about two hours, we had an excellent set of scores and we only needed to get a decent 3Dmark05 score.

Suddenly, Murphy showed up: condensation issues! After having lost too much time due to the condensation issues, we only had about one hour for a decent 3Dmark05 score, which turned out to be not enough. Running the 9600GT at 1000/2450/1140 frequencies, we only hit 25k, due to the cpu which was only running at 4GHz; 450MHz FSB was the maximum stable we were able to get. Because of the very low 3DMark05, we were not able to compete for the spots at the top.

And what about the Belgian team? Well, sadly enough, their second motherboard wasn't doing the same frequencies as their first did, aiming for the top spots was nearly impossible. If the first motherboard had survived the extreme overclocking, they might have been in the top3, but alas.




Our Belgian, Jip and Pt1t, getting ready to start


On the right you can see Marco, one of the MSI crew members who made this event so pleasant for us


Team Finland: going for full ln²


Trouffman stalking team Finland ... at least, that is how it comes across


The Dutch team, certainly the best looking team at the event

Day2: Big winners

In the end, it were the Greek who won the competition, not surprisingly as they’ve been in the top ranking at HWBot too . Hipro5 and GPRHellas have proved to find ways around hardware issues. In all benchmarks they dominated, so first place is more than deserved.

Turkey came in second, France third. Together with SF3D, the Finland team was able to reach 5th place, which is pretty good, if you compare our 3DMark05 against those of the rest of the top10. The Belgian team came in 7th, which is still better than average; congratulation Jip and Pt1t!





Evaluation:

Qualification rounds
In Belgium, the qualification rounds were organized quite well (by us of course ;-) ), resulting in a fierce battle between Blind_ripper and Jip/Pt1t. I have no idea about the other countries, but some were complaining about the weird competition rules and problems receiving the hardware after the qualification rounds.

Transport
Excellent! It was no problem to arrive at Amsterdam and the MSI crew did more than its best to drive everyone from the airport to the restaurant and hotel. Using public transport to move from the hotel to the event and back might not have been the easiest way, but it certainly made us see more of Amsterdam.

Event organization
Perfect! I cannot find another word to describe how I felt when I entered the building for the first time. Ln², dry ice, music on the background, enough room on the tables ... it was perfectly organized. Furthermore, we all knew what was going on at all time, so no one was surprised. The evenings were planned very well and both the Boom Chicago and the guides who showed us around the center of Amsterdam made it all a pleasant stay.

Hardware
I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. On the one hand, we all hoped to be able to not only push our system to the first spot in this overclocking event, but also to reach to notch scores in the international benchmark rankings, for instance those hosted by HWBot. The hardware was not capable of giving us the last part of the hopes, as most of the scores would not even be in the top10 of their hardware ranking. On the other hand, this is an overclocking challenge, not some sort of overclocking demo. It was meant to be difficult and take a lot of energy out of the contestants. In that aspect, I have no comments as both the motherboard and the CPU were hard enough to push to the limit using liquid nitrogen.

The MSI crew
The people who worked on this event, both preparations and on the event itself, all did more than we could expect from them. Everyone was willing to help out, even if we made the weirdest requests such as toilet paper to serve as insulation. The MSI crew (and the Tweakers.net crew) helped out with filling the LN² dewars and made the event easy for the overclockers. Big, big congratulations towards them.

The overclockers and editors
Although sometimes people disagree in discussions in public forums, no one caused any problems. Most benchers helped out each other if they ran into problems and even though this was a contest, sharing settings was no problem at all! The sharing part of the overclocking community is still alive and a big part of the overclocking process.

Extra pictures and information about the event

MSI’s Overclock Site

XS’s Picture Thread

HD Movie Report - A Must See!



Conclusion:

In the end, I can only come to one possible conclusion: it was a big success. Although the results were not that super in comparison to the results you get at home, benching alone, the challenging hardware, the enthusiasm of both overclockers and the hardworking crew and the beautiful location of Amsterdam made it one great experience.

And, let's not forget that this was a live competition, so it's harder to produce decent numbers if you have a limited time-frame. What I would really like to see, may be biased by my position at HWBot, is a big international overclocking championship in which all the different companies take part. I'm thinking of a large overclocking event with different booths and different overclocking competitions, hopefully hosted by HWBot.org which already has some ideas on paper. The MSI team has shown the path to the correct way of dealing with this kind of big events and I sincerely hope that there will be a 2009 edition as well.

To end with, I'd like to mention the partners of this overclocking event. A big congratulations to them as well, for making this one of the best overclocking experiences I have had.

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