Event Coverage

Master Overclocking Arena 2008 - Live!

By Vincent Chang - 9 Nov 2008

Competition Mechanics

Competition Mechanics

Most overclocking competitions follow generally the same concept and rules and MSI's Master Overclocking Arena is no different. All participating teams (consisting of 2 contestants from each country) are given the same set of components and they have 3 hours to assemble, tweak and modify the hardware and software in order to produce the best performance in two benchmarks, SuperPI MOD 1.5 8M and 3DMark01 SE.

The judges from MSI too will use these components to produce a standard performance score that will act as the baseline comparison. The overclocked performance margin that the contestants achieve over this standard performance score will be recorded and the ones with the highest margins averaged over the two benchmarks will be the winner of Master Overclocking Arena. Contestants are given 50 minutes for each benchmark, during which they can attempt as many benchmark runs as possible, in a bid to achieve their highest scores. These will be updated on a scoreboard so that each team can see who is the current leader.

Just for this event, MSI has issued limited MOA editions of the key components used, namely a MSI P45D3 Platinum and a MSI N9800GTX+. These special editions will have certain enhancements to aid the overclocking attempts. For the motherboard, a special BIOS is available to improve overclocking allowance while the graphics card comes with an extra strength cooler with better heat dissipation.

 With the competition using Intel's Core 2 Duo E8600 CPU, it's no surprise to find Intel here as a major sponsor.

 The limited MOA Special Edition MSI P45D3 Platinum motherboard that's to be used in this tournament.

 The souped up MSI GeForce 9800 GTX+ used in MOA. Of course, it's also a Special Edition.

 Western Digital's blazing fast VelociRaptor SATA hard drives.

 Enermax provides the modular PSUs for MOA. The PSU is critical to the success of overclocking, since the overclockers need higher and stable voltages than usual.

The components used for MOA are listed below:-

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E8600
  • MSI P45D3 Platinum MOA Special Edition
  • OCZ DDR3 PC3-16000 Platinum Edition
  • MSI N9800GTX+ MOA Special Edition
  • CHIMEI 22GH LCD monitor
  • Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB
  • Genius keyboard
  • MSI gaming mouse
  • Enermax MODU82+ 625W SLI

The one thing that stood out from the component list here is the Intel Core 2 Duo E8600, which has already become famous in its relatively short lifespan for its overclocking capability, with speeds upwards of 4GHz possible even with air cooling. With the contestants given freedom to modify and tweak the hardware in any way with their own tools, not to mention liquid nitrogen, we may even see some world records here.

After all, MSI says that there is an unlimited supply of nitrogen available, along with other materials like hair dryers and vacuum flasks. Of course, there is only 1 set of spare components for each participating team in case of hardware failure, so contestants still have to be cautious. They will be disqualified if they damage both set of components.

Other utilities and drivers used include:-

  • Windows XP Professional with SP3
  • MOA Special Edition BIOS
  • NVIDIA ForceWare 178.24
  • SuperPI MOD 1.5 8M
  • 3DMark01 SE Build 330
  • MSI Dual Core Center
  • CPU-Z & GPU-Z
  • ATI Tools & RivaTuner
  • Memset
  • SetFSB
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