Event Coverage

HardwareZone Iron Tech 2008: Malaysia Semi-Finals Round

By Vijay Anand - 22 Sep 2008

The Sandbox Mode Challenge - Phase 2

The Sandbox Mode Challenge - Phase 2

In the 'sandbox' (second) phase of the tournament, each participant was required to install x86 (32-bit) Windows Vista (Ultimate, Business, Home Premium or Home Basic at their discretion), together with the required drivers and choice of benchmarks and tools to begin overclocking and find their sweet spot for the final (third) phase.

 Some participants tweaked their BIOS before installing Windows.

While the initial time limit was an hour, the country competition manager granted participants a 45-minute extension, due to popular demand of more tweaking time. By the time the final extension was given, everyone was almost ready for the grueling phase that was coming up - benchmarking! In this sandbox mode, lolhalol (Reggie) once again took top spot with 1 hour 39 minutes, followed by coolice (Ng Teng Liang) with a narrow margin of 1 hour and 40 minutes. Third place was Looi (Looi Hou Tee) with another close shave at 1 hour and 41 minutes. The others finished by 2 hours.

 It was Vista installation time.

 Participants waiting for the Windows installation to wrap up.

 Storm88 took out a few minutes of waiting time by reading a travel magazine.

 Storm88 gets to the bottom of a problem.

 Multiple instances of Prime95 make for a very rigorous testing to ensure system stability.

 Something goes awry to Bryan's rig.

 This is the result of overclocking too high.

 Some cussing could be heard as they tried to break the 4200MHz barrier.

 Malaysian overclockers are a close-knit bunch - advice was shared among our six contestants that day.

 Bryan and Looi exchange some comments.

 Coolice using his notepad and calculator to determine his BIOS settings.

 De-stressing by making ape faces, coolice tries for a new setting.

 A big grin from Coolice after hitting beyond 4GHz.

 Sup3rfly reeling from the pain of a BSOD.

 lolhalol explaining some of the finer points on overclocking to our marshal.

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