Event Coverage

HardwareZone Iron Tech 2008: Singapore Semi-Finals

By Seow Tein Hee - 14 Oct 2008

Introduction

Introduction

Hardware Zone Iron Tech 2008. A competition filled with excitement, frustration, and accomplishment, had reached its final leg on the 12th of October. But before we proceed onwards and reveal who the Iron Tech 2008 Champion is, we relive the intense competition as experienced by our Singaporean contestants during the Singapore semi-finals, held at Funan DigitaLife Mall on the 11th of October 2008.

Similar to the earlier regional semi-finals held at Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia, the Singapore leg will be a test of the contestants' familiarity in building a rig from scratch and their overclocking knowledge to give the optimal performance for their PC with little to no compromise on its stability at a very limited time frame. Achieving this is no mean feat, as the competition will push their rigs to the limit with a series of benchmark tests that will either bestow glory and recognition as an overclocking guru, or crash and burn and leave the contestants trailing in the dust. Without further ado, let's present the Singapore semi-finalists, in no order of merit:

  • Tianyi (aka cty85), Student
  • Ng Soon Aik (aka Soon__), Student
  • Tim Marshall (aka T_M (Team.AU)), Regional Project Controller
  • Randy Hong (aka ravener), Student
  • Jeremy Chew (aka zhouwee84), Computer Salesman
  • Jeremiah Ong (aka NightRaven), Professional Overclocker

 Our emcee for the day introduces the six contestants, striving for the privilege to duke it out with their fellow regional overclockers in the Iron Tech 2008 Grand Finals. Second from the left to right: Ng Soon Aik, Tim Marshall, Jeremiah Ong, Jeremy Chew, Chen Tianyi and Randy Hong.

With the kind sponsorship of Micro-Star International and supporting partners of the Iron Tech 2008 competition, each contestant will be given the exact same components to work and tweak with, as listed here:

  • Core 2 Quad Q9400 (2.66GHz, 6MB L2)
  • MSI P45 Platinum
  • 2GB Kingston HyperX KHX8500D2K2 (DDR2-1066)
  • MSI N9800GT T2D512E-OC
  • Hitachi Deskstar 250GB SATA HDD
  • LG 22x SATA DVD-RW Drive
  • Thermaltake ModX 120mm case fan
  • Corsair HX620W PSU
  • Cyber Snipa Warboard + Stinger Mouse
  • Philips 190CW 19" widescreen LCD
  • Microsoft Windows Vista

 Given the exact same components with absolutely no differences in its performance, this will be test of the contestants overclocking ability instead of the system's innate performance.

 It wasn't only the contestants who had a chance to check out the latest MSI products. The crowd started to gather around the competition area, and had some time to enquire about more MSI products at the MSI booth.

This is where the competition heats up for the competitors. Whilst our semi-finalists gained the honor of participating in Iron Tech 2008 Semi-Finals round with their submitted benchmark scores based on performance improvement metrics, they had the luxury of working with familiar components that's in their system. However in the Semi-Finals competition, with no knowledge of the components they'll be working with, this will be a test on the contestants' ability to adapt, calculate and adjust their settings to achieve stellar results.

Segmented into three phases, the initial phase requires contestants to build their rig right from the ground up, with the fastest fingers gaining an initial advantage over everyone with bonus points that'll contribute to the overall score. In the second phase, each contestant will be required to install Microsoft Windows Vista, drivers and utilities. Following which, they'll be embark on their overclocking and tweaking of their systems. Similarly, he who is speedy, will be rewarded with more bonus points. The third and final phase is where all the action is, where contestants will no longer be able to tweak their systems and subject their rig to a series of benchmark tests, with scores from each test contributing to their final results. With the introductions done and made, let's move on to Phase 1, the Rigging Challenge!

 

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