Event Coverage

Bangkok Overclocked - Gigabyte OOC 2009

By Vincent Chang - 6 Apr 2009

Gigabyte Open Overclocking Competition 2009 - Asian Leg

Bangkok Overclocked

Gigabyte's Open Overclocking Competition (or GO OC for short) is back again this year and we were there at Bangkok over the weekend to catch the whiff of liquid nitrogen. The best overclockers from Asia-Pacific had been gathered to form nine teams for this Asian final. While cash and prizes from the sponsors were prepared for the top three teams, only the best team will earn a spot in the world final to be held in Taipei.

Pantip Plaza, the mall to go for all things IT in Thailand is the venue for the Asian regional leg of Gigabyte's Open Overclocking Championship 2009 (GOOC).

It's not the first time that Gigabyte has hosted an overclocking event of this scale and there are booths showcasing the various motherboards used in the competition. A great opportunity for marketing indeed.

As cool as ice? That seems to be the message Gigabyte wants to convey about its Ultra Durable 3 enhanced boards.

Since the competition is about finding the best Intel X58 overclocker, Intel is naturally one of the sponsors for the event. Other notable sponsors include NVIDIA, LG, Kingston, Dolby, Microsoft and Enermax.


Competition Mechanics

Since Intel's Core i7 is the latest plaything for enthusiasts, this year's competition revolved around getting the best out of that platform, with the Intel X58 Express chipset under the spotlight along with a Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU. Each team of two contestants had to produce the best SuperPI and 3DMark06 scores using components provided by Gigabyte and other sponsors. It was a rather impressive list of components:-

  • Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU
  • Gigabyte X58-UD4P motherboard
  • Gigabyte GV-N26OC-896H-B (GeForce GTX 260) graphics card x 2 (SLI)
  • Kingston KHX16000D3K3/3GX DDR3 memory kit
  • Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050W power supply
  • Intel X-25M SSD


The benchmarks, drivers and other software tools allowed:-

  • Windows XP SP3, Vista (32-bit)
  • Super PI 8M
  • 3DMark06
  • 3DMark Vantage
  • Gigabyte's Easy Tune 6
  • RivaTuner version 2.22
  • CPU-Z 1.49
  • GPU-Z 0.3.1
  • NVIDIA ForceWare 181.22 (PhysX enabled)


Teams were expected to bring their own overclocking gear and had the freedom to use their own cooling equipment, which usually meant liquid nitrogen. Gigabyte also provided tanks of the coolant at the venue. The contestants however were given only one change of components for each type of component, i.e. graphics, CPU, hard drive, etc. Hence, they had to take care when trying for their best scores.

As for the scoring format, only the top five teams for each benchmark, SuperPI and 3DMark06 were awarded points, with the top team receiving the most points, with the number of points decreasing for the second, third place and so on. They were given a fixed amount of time to submit their scores for each benchmark, with the best score recorded.

There was also a special competition with separate prizes for 3DMark Vantage and these results would have no bearing on the final result.

The components to be used in this competition include some high-end parts like a Gigabyte X58 motherboard, a GTX 260 graphics card and an Enermax Revolution 1050W power supply.

The staple of any overclocking competition: liquid nitrogen (LN) and vacuum flasks.

The Prizes

The winning team here gets to walk away with these prizes, including $2000 cash. Most important of all, that team wins the right and plane tickets to compete against the world's best overclockers in the grand final at Taipei in June.

The prizes for the first runners-up.

Coming in third will bag the team these prizes.

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