TheOverclocker Issue 32

Transcript of TheOverclocker Issue 32

THE WORLDS BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. ISOLATED.

Issue 32 2014rev 2.1

Q+A WITH WITH CHRISTOPHER PEPI BESSE OF FRANCE

Interview

EVGA GTX 980 CLASSIFIED

Reviewed

Feature

SENDING OUT INVITES FAR AND WIDE!

OVERCLOCKINGISOLATION

ALIEN: ISOLATION

Reviewed

A LOOK BACK AT MSIS MASTER OVERCLOCKING ARENA 2014

Feature

GIGABYTE X99 UD7 WIFI

Reviewed

MSI X99S X-POWER AC

Reviewed

CORSAIR DOMINATOR

PLATINUM 3,200MHZ DDR4 16GB KIT

Reviewed
Issue 32 | 2014 The OverClocker 3

A GOOD YEARWelcome to the final issue of 2014. Its taken much longer to get to you but its finally here in its full glory. 2014 has been if anything an eventful year and unlike past editors notes Ive written during this period. Theres literally a lot to talk about here. Weve seen some great changes in the overclocking landscape and we can only imagine what 2015 will bring for us. Over and above that we have seen a healthy uptake in PC gaming, be it notebooks, small gaming PCs or whatever else. Theres plenty more to be excited about this year than in 2013.

I wait patiently for INTELs drive in conjunction with SAMSUNG, for 4K/UHD monitors to retail for the magical $399 mark as this is truly the evolution weve needed. This is not only in a gaming context where the benefits of 4K are obvious, but for overclocking as well. Im relieved to see that we now have FireStrike Ultra, which is inevitably going to be the standard for all our testing here going forward. If anything it will allow us to drop another benchmark, in the form of Catzilla (at least the 720P test) as it serves little to no purpose at all in evaluating the performance of anything remotely resembling a shipping title. Bluntly put, the cats and all were cute in the beginning, but they've become bland in addition to looking decisively dated. This would obviously be true for the 1440P test as well, but it does place more strain on the GPU, so theres that. However whats clear is that the time for new benchmarks that are still firmly within the confines of competitive overclocking, but have some real world relevance has come.

On to other things overclocking, Ive been quite vocal about this on our facebook page and even on our twitter account. I do believe that the silent and unsaid, status quo for quality motherboards is something that needs to be discussed more openly by those with the capacity to do so. That doesnt always fall to media and if anything, that group is the least reliable when it comes to tackling such issues. Its a matter of transparency and accountability to you the readers. Be it you read one of the few print publications that remain, an e-magazine such as this one or a website. Almost all publication relies on some kind of funding. Since funding is provided primarily by the vendors which provide the very same products we must judge objectively. Try as we may as an industry it is inevitably going to a spiral down into bought editorial. Even if no single entity sets out to do so, it

needs only a single person to engage in the grey areas of editorial and ad spend and the rest have to follow.

Mind you Im not saying this is a helpless situation. On the contrary, it is you the readers which can bring about, if you so desire, a change for the better as to what level of honesty is expected in reviews. That simply means, actually reading the pieces all the way through and not just engaging the products superficially. Moreover, this will bring much needed value and meaning back into an award system which at present unfortunately doesnt mean much. We give out ours as fitting, especially since we dont have numerical scoring system within the main reviews section, but that only solves a small part of the problem. In an issue where we literally have only the best hardware to cover, that means virtually all products could see an editors choice award. Im sure you can see the problem here. All it needs is that you as readers and consumers should question reviews that slander a product but then end up giving a positive award. For example if we wrote that a specific keyboard was nothing but an exercise in sheer frustration. That it had no redeeming qualities outside of its primary ability of allowing you some form of basic interaction with your computer. That is a pretty damning statement and position to take. It is then inappropriate for us for example to then award such a product a Value, Hardware, Top pick or whatever other award. Rewarding what we found to be anything but a pleasant experience is dishonest above anything else. The sad part however is that, even this doesnt happen because more times than not plenty of publications write glowing reviews of products that are known to be inferior even by the very manufacturers. That type of writing has eroded away at what is otherwise a fairly straight forward process of evaluating products and services as they are likely to be experienced by the end user, you!

We as a publication have been subject to many of these pressures, but given that we are bi-monthly and in the context of others, with an odd 50,000 or so readers. Our pressures are incomparable to a site that has millions or hundreds of thousands of visitors daily. Even with that said, be it a publication has 5 readers or 5 million, they should be held to a much higher standard of honesty and objective writing than they are at present. Failure to do this not only slows progress within the industry to a crawl, but we sometimes have none at all. Just like Only you can stop forest fires, only you can change it all for the better. And with that joke that didnt go over, I wish you all a happy December and we will see you in January 2015.

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]

A GOOD YEARWelcome to the final issue of 2014. Its taken much longer to get to you but its finally here in its full glory. 2014 has been if anything an eventful year and unlike past editors notes Ive written during this period. Theres literally a lot to talk about here. Weve seen some great changes in the overclocking landscape and we can only imagine what 2015 will bring for us. Over and above that we have seen a healthy uptake in PC gaming, be it notebooks, small gaming PCs or whatever else. Theres plenty more to be excited about this year than in 2013.

I wait patiently for INTELs drive in conjunction with SAMSUNG, for 4K/UHD monitors to retail for the magical $399 mark as this is truly the evolution weve needed. This is not only in a gaming context where the benefits of 4K are obvious, but for overclocking as well. Im relieved to see that we now have FireStrike Ultra, which is inevitably going to be the standard for all our testing here going forward. If anything it will allow us to drop another benchmark, in the form of Catzilla (at least the 720P test) as it serves little to no purpose at all in evaluating the performance of anything remotely resembling a shipping title. Bluntly put, the cats and all were cute in the beginning, but they've become bland in addition to looking decisively dated. This would obviously be true for the 1440P test as well, but it does place more strain on the GPU, so theres that. However whats clear is that the time for new benchmarks that are still firmly within the confines of competitive overclocking, but have some real world relevance has come.

On to other things overclocking, Ive been quite vocal about this on our facebook page and even on our twitter account. I do believe that the silent and unsaid, status quo for quality motherboards is something that needs to be discussed more openly by those with the capacity to do so. That doesnt always fall to media and if anything, that group is the least reliable when it comes to tackling such issues. Its a matter of transparency and accountability to you the readers. Be it you read one of the few print publications that remain, an e-magazine such as this one or a website. Almost all publication relies on some kind of funding. Since funding is provided primarily by the vendors which provide the very same products we must judge objectively. Try as we may as an industry it is inevitably going to a spiral down into bought editorial. Even if no single entity sets out to do so, it

needs only a single person to engage in the grey areas of editorial and ad spend and the rest have to follow.

Mind you Im not saying this is a helpless situation. On the contrary, it is you the readers which can bring about, if you so desire, a change for the better as to what level of honesty is expected in reviews. That simply means, actually reading the pieces all the way through and not just engaging the products superficially. Moreover, this will bring much needed value and meaning back into an award system which at present unfortunately doesnt mean much. We give out ours as fitting, especially since we dont have numerical scoring system within the main reviews section, but that only solves a small part of the problem. In an issue where we literally have only the best hardware to cover, that means virtually all products could see an editors choice award. Im sure you can see the problem here. All it needs is that you as readers and consumers should question reviews that slander a product but then end up giving a positive award. For example if we wrote that a specific keyboard was nothing but an exercise in sheer frustration. That it had no redeeming qualities outside of its primary ability of allowing you some form of basic interaction with your computer. That is a pretty damning statement and position to take. It is then inappropriate for us for example to then award such a product a Value, Hardware, Top pick or whatever other award. Rewarding what we found to be anything but a pleasant experience is dishonest above anything else. The sad part however is that, even this doesnt happen because more times than not plenty of publications write glowing reviews of products that are known to be inferior even by the very manufacturers. That type of writing has eroded away at what is otherwise a fairly straight forward process of evaluating products and services as they are likely to be experienced by the end user, you!

We as a publication have been subject to many of these pressures, but given that we are bi-monthly and in the context of others, with an odd 50,000 or so readers. Our pressures are incomparable to a site that has millions or hundreds of thousands of visitors daily. Even with that said, be it a publication has 5 readers or 5 million, they should be held to a much higher standard of honesty and objective writing than they are at present. Failure to do this not only slows progress within the industry to a crawl, but we sometimes have none at all. Just like Only you can stop forest fires, only you can change it all for the better. And with that joke that didnt go over, I wish you all a happy December and we will see you in January 2015.

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]
4 The OverClocker Issue 32 | 2014

The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media (cc).

EditorNeo Sibeko

Art DirectorChris Savides

Contributors Dane RemendesPieter-Jan Massman PlaisierTimothe PineauJayda Wu

For editorial and marketing please contact:[email protected]

REGULARS3 - Editors note

6 - Interview with Christopher Pepi Besse

FEATURES12 A look back at MSIs Master

Overclocking Arena 2014

18 Overclocking Isolation

REVIEWS24 MSI X99S X-POWER AC

28 GIGABYTE X99 UD7 WIFI

32 EVGA GTX 980 CLASSIFIED

36 CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM 3200 C16

DDR4 Kit

LIFESTYLE42 - Alien: Isolation

46 ASUS Gladius

48 MSI GS60 GHOST PRO 3K 2QE

50 EKWB EK-KIT X360

46

32

The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media (cc).

EditorNeo Sibeko

Art DirectorChris Savides

Contributors Dane RemendesPieter-Jan Massman PlaisierTimothe PineauJayda Wu

For editorial and marketing please contact:[email protected]

REGULARS3 - Editors note

6 - Interview with Christopher Pepi Besse

FEATURES12 A look back at MSIs Master

Overclocking Arena 2014

18 Overclocking Isolation

REVIEWS24 MSI X99S X-POWER AC

28 GIGABYTE X99 UD7 WIFI

32 EVGA GTX 980 CLASSIFIED

36 CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM 3200 C16

DDR4 Kit

LIFESTYLE42 - Alien: Isolation

46 ASUS Gladius

48 MSI GS60 GHOST PRO 3K 2QE

50 EKWB EK-KIT X360

46

32

the competition and hardware? I think there are still a few small things that need improvement, but overall it was much better than previous years in my opinion.

What is your favourite MOA to date since 2008? It was definitely 2013. It was my first trip to Taiwan ever, only those who travelled there can understand...

Do you still compete in the rankings personally or is that not important for your anymore. Do you even find time to be overclocking as much as before?Not for a very long time. Now I only participate in HWBOT Pro OC Cup with my team mate Pt1t under a joint user profile named The Overclocking Knights. Together with Benchbros, Der8auer & Dancop we formed Team Pro OC EU which is currently ranked 1st.

What is your favourite graphics card or platform to overclock? Whatever I can get my hands on as long as it provides fun without

complications. I hate wasting time.

To those that know even a little about you, its very obvious that youre a fan of motorsport. Which discipline do you like specifically, touring, open-wheel racing etc.? Im a real fan of Time Attack! Unfortunately the nearest championship is in the UK so I stick to amateur track sessions. Besides this, I watch a lot of Rally (Sebastien Loeb FTW !) and a bit of Formula 1.

Your car is pretty tricked out. What are you working on adding to it and what mods does it have at present, visual and performance? Ha ha thanks. Engine received every bolt on mod I could buy to get more power besides a new turbo. Its currently sitting at 434hp (crank) but like every overclocker I always want to push more so next step is to save for a bulletproof engine and a big turbo kit to reach ~750hp.

Youre one of the more vocal and

high profile overclockers within the community and perhaps even outside of that. What are your general thoughts on the state of overclocking? Is there perhaps, anything youd like to see changed in the overclocking community? Id like to see more & more people involved in extreme overclocking so this hobby can become more popular and maybe evolve into an E-sport. Id also like to see overclockers relax and have even more fun than they already are! There are still some nice competitions but its not as friendly as anymore. I think that like always, once companies, money and support (hardware in this case) got involved, it changed a lot of things. Now I see a lot of overclockers whine like divas about everything and it is seriously not helping. I mean criticism is always fine when it is constructive, but there are relevant topics, right time and the right way to do it. However to finish on a good note, I think that lately, HWBots efforts could be a very good way to get new blood

the competition and hardware? I think there are still a few small things that need improvement, but overall it was much better than previous years in my opinion.

What is your favourite MOA to date since 2008? It was definitely 2013. It was my first trip to Taiwan ever, only those who travelled there can understand...

Do you still compete in the rankings personally or is that not important for your anymore. Do you even find time to be overclocking as much as before?Not for a very long time. Now I only participate in HWBOT Pro OC Cup with my team mate Pt1t under a joint user profile named The Overclocking Knights. Together with Benchbros, Der8auer & Dancop we formed Team Pro OC EU which is currently ranked 1st.

What is your favourite graphics card or platform to overclock? Whatever I can get my hands on as long as it provides fun without

complications. I hate wasting time.

To those that know even a little about you, its very obvious that youre a fan of motorsport. Which discipline do you like specifically, touring, open-wheel racing etc.? Im a real fan of Time Attack! Unfortunately the nearest championship is in the UK so I stick to amateur track sessions. Besides this, I watch a lot of Rally (Sebastien Loeb FTW !) and a bit of Formula 1.

Your car is pretty tricked out. What are you working on adding to it and what mods does it have at present, visual and performance? Ha ha thanks. Engine received every bolt on mod I could buy to get more power besides a new turbo. Its currently sitting at 434hp (crank) but like every overclocker I always want to push more so next step is to save for a bulletproof engine and a big turbo kit to reach ~750hp.

Youre one of the more vocal and

high profile overclockers within the community and perhaps even outside of that. What are your general thoughts on the state of overclocking? Is there perhaps, anything youd like to see changed in the overclocking community? Id like to see more & more people involved in extreme overclocking so this hobby can become more popular and maybe evolve into an E-sport. Id also like to see overclockers relax and have even more fun than they already are! There are still some nice competitions but its not as friendly as anymore. I think that like always, once companies, money and support (hardware in this case) got involved, it changed a lot of things. Now I see a lot of overclockers whine like divas about everything and it is seriously not helping. I mean criticism is always fine when it is constructive, but there are relevant topics, right time and the right way to do it. However to finish on a good note, I think that lately, HWBots efforts could be a very good way to get new blood

involved in overclocking and change things.

Out in France who do you overclock with predominantly or is it a solo effort most time? Mostly a solo effort but I still prefer to join pt1t in his place in Belgium or he travels to MSI France for overclocking sessions.

How often do you have overclocking sessions?It depends on what you consider an OC session. Before and after launch of Z87 and Z97, I used to spend all my weekends and late nights in the office testing BIOS revisions and reporting feedback to engineers. If we talk about real benching, I would say only once or twice a quarter.

Any interesting hardware youre looking forward to in 2015? I would like to see a strong response from AMD to NVIDIA and of course Im looking forward to Intel's Skylake.

What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement?No joke, my best memories are you writing about me in The Overclocker when I took the 3DM05 & 06 WR with a triple SLI GTX 260 and a golden i7 940 ES B0 unlocked (940XE). At that time, it felt very good to be able to achieve higher scores than masters Andre and Kingpin using lower-end hardware.

When last did you play any game and what was it and on what platform? Actually, I started to play a lot more since I began at MSI and discovered Steam.I now own an MSI Nightblade with a GTX780Ti GAMING and play like twice a week, for example Grid 2, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Naruto, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Batman Arkham Origins just to name a few.

Anything else youd like to say to everyone reading this?Thank you for this interview, thanks to everyone who supports me and my team, and hello to all my Overclocker friends all over the world!

involved in overclocking and change things.

Out in France who do you overclock with predominantly or is it a solo effort most time? Mostly a solo effort but I still prefer to join pt1t in his place in Belgium or he travels to MSI France for overclocking sessions.

How often do you have overclocking sessions?It depends on what you consider an OC session. Before and after launch of Z87 and Z97, I used to spend all my weekends and late nights in the office testing BIOS revisions and reporting feedback to engineers. If we talk about real benching, I would say only once or twice a quarter.

Any interesting hardware youre looking forward to in 2015? I would like to see a strong response from AMD to NVIDIA and of course Im looking forward to Intel's Skylake.

What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement?No joke, my best memories are you writing about me in The Overclocker when I took the 3DM05 & 06 WR with a triple SLI GTX 260 and a golden i7 940 ES B0 unlocked (940XE). At that time, it felt very good to be able to achieve higher scores than masters Andre and Kingpin using lower-end hardware.

When last did you play any game and what was it and on what platform? Actually, I started to play a lot more since I began at MSI and discovered Steam.I now own an MSI Nightblade with a GTX780Ti GAMING and play like twice a week, for example Grid 2, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Naruto, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Batman Arkham Origins just to name a few.

Anything else youd like to say to everyone reading this?Thank you for this interview, thanks to everyone who supports me and my team, and hello to all my Overclocker friends all over the world!

On the weekend of October the 17th MSI held the annual MOA (Master Overclocker Arena) competition. As in all the previous competitions, MOA featured over a dozen overclockers from around the world. These competitors had qualified over the course of several months in their respective regions. Unlike in previous competitions though, Instead of having a single class or overclockers all using the same hardware, MSI broke it down to two classes. Obviously entrants could only enter in a single class, but it did allow for those with lesser hardware in class B for instance to show their skill even with limited hardware. In this class there were no regional restrictions and all entrants competed around the world simultaneously leading up to the competition.

For the first time ever, MOA was streamed live on Twitch, hosted by none other than OC-TV, which has always been the go to, live overclocking broadcasting agency. As

expected, the rules were set by MSI and HWBOT to ensure consistency with international overclocking standards. To that end, HWBOTs resident celebrity (massman)was present, but not in the capacity of a judge, instead as one of the commentators of the live broadcast. The two judges were top overclockers Ian (8-pack) from the U.K and Roman (der8auer) from Germany. Two faces and names all competitors were very familiar with.

Last year MSI had decided to make this a closed event and this year was the same with no spectators. Only the independent journalists, partners, competitors and of course MSI and its hosts were present at the venue. This obviously allows the overclockers to focus exclusively on the task at hand. However, it is a pity that it has made the event and exercise very niche. We do hope next year, should MSI hosts the competition, that it will perhaps be at a venue where gamers are present as well. After all, the

A LOOK BACK AT MSIS MASTER OVERCLOCKING

ARENA 2014


similarities between competitive gaming and overclocking are more than skin deep and in structure these two activities are by and large very similar.

Where hardware is concerned, MSI had a very strong showing this year with not a single piece of hardware failing due to overclocking. As usual there is some hardware that for some reason or another exhibits odd behavior, like a particular SSD as used by the Russian overclocker Xtreme Addict. For some reason Super Pi would not run successfully on this drive which obviously ended his day prematurely. This was the only hardware glitch that was encountered outside of regular extreme overclocking challenges. The involved vendors in the competition, provided not only solid and

reliable hardware, but ensured that each entrant had two sets of hardware, in case one component failed unexpectedly.

The hardware for the competition was none other than MSIs Z97 MPower motherboard, the Intel Core i7 4790K, Cooler Masters brilliant V1200 platinum and JETFLO 120mm fans. The memory of choice was G.Skills TRIEDNTX F3 CL10 2600. KINGSTONs HYPERX 3K SSDs, VIEWSONICs VX2370SMH LED monitors along with keyboards and mice by SteelSeries completed the hardware list. The graphics cards of choice were the sublime MSI GTX 980 GAMING and the very rare, GeForce GTX 780 Ti Lightning MOA edition. During the competition only the 780Ti Lightning could be used for the 3D Benchmark, but after the

On the weekend of October the 17th MSI held the annual MOA (Master Overclocker Arena) competition. As in all the previous competitions, MOA featured over a dozen overclockers from around the world. These competitors had qualified over the course of several months in their respective regions. Unlike in previous competitions though, Instead of having a single class or overclockers all using the same hardware, MSI broke it down to two classes. Obviously entrants could only enter in a single class, but it did allow for those with lesser hardware in class B for instance to show their skill even with limited hardware. In this class there were no regional restrictions and all entrants competed around the world simultaneously leading up to the competition.

For the first time ever, MOA was streamed live on Twitch, hosted by none other than OC-TV, which has always been the go to, live overclocking broadcasting agency. As

expected, the rules were set by MSI and HWBOT to ensure consistency with international overclocking standards. To that end, HWBOTs resident celebrity (massman)was present, but not in the capacity of a judge, instead as one of the commentators of the live broadcast. The two judges were top overclockers Ian (8-pack) from the U.K and Roman (der8auer) from Germany. Two faces and names all competitors were very familiar with.

Last year MSI had decided to make this a closed event and this year was the same with no spectators. Only the independent journalists, partners, competitors and of course MSI and its hosts were present at the venue. This obviously allows the overclockers to focus exclusively on the task at hand. However, it is a pity that it has made the event and exercise very niche. We do hope next year, should MSI hosts the competition, that it will perhaps be at a venue where gamers are present as well. After all, the

A LOOK BACK AT MSIS MASTER OVERCLOCKING

ARENA 2014


similarities between competitive gaming and overclocking are more than skin deep and in structure these two activities are by and large very similar.

Where hardware is concerned, MSI had a very strong showing this year with not a single piece of hardware failing due to overclocking. As usual there is some hardware that for some reason or another exhibits odd behavior, like a particular SSD as used by the Russian overclocker Xtreme Addict. For some reason Super Pi would not run successfully on this drive which obviously ended his day prematurely. This was the only hardware glitch that was encountered outside of regular extreme overclocking challenges. The involved vendors in the competition, provided not only solid and

reliable hardware, but ensured that each entrant had two sets of hardware, in case one component failed unexpectedly.

The hardware for the competition was none other than MSIs Z97 MPower motherboard, the Intel Core i7 4790K, Cooler Masters brilliant V1200 platinum and JETFLO 120mm fans. The memory of choice was G.Skills TRIEDNTX F3 CL10 2600. KINGSTONs HYPERX 3K SSDs, VIEWSONICs VX2370SMH LED monitors along with keyboards and mice by SteelSeries completed the hardware list. The graphics cards of choice were the sublime MSI GTX 980 GAMING and the very rare, GeForce GTX 780 Ti Lightning MOA edition. During the competition only the 780Ti Lightning could be used for the 3D Benchmark, but after the

competition ended and on the following day, the GTX 980 was allowed as well. Throughout the weekend MSI managed to secure over a dozen top score results with their hardware (previously known as world records). Not surprising given that many of the worlds prolific overclockers had made it out to the event.

With three categories and only two hours for each, the pressure was on for every contestant. Given that many of the competitors had never even used some of the hardware before prior to arriving at the competition, it would be a test of who could best prepare and

dial in the settings the quickest. Experience would play a major role here and it is perhaps one of the reasons why Vivi ended up taking first place. Familiarity with this kind of competition, helped immensely as he knew that he did not have to win every round, but do pretty well in all three. This was very evident during the 3DMark FireStrike round as he posted one of the first set of scores and with it coincidentally, he would go on to win the competition. Obviously at the time, others were trying to beat this score, but it would not happen and at the end of the grueling day he stood triumphant. Oc_windforce, the


Korean overclocker, usually teamed up with little_boy at various competitions had a fantastic start. He won the Super Pi 32M round. From there his position in the top three was pretty much guaranteed unless something went drastically wrong. Given his consistent performance and perhaps even bias to graphics card benchmarks, he was always going to do well. In Cinebench, dRWeEz managed to place second, displacing Vivi from the number two spot, just below Moose83 the German overclocker. However, due to the poor quality of his first CPU sample during the Super Pi round, he had placed near the bottom of the list. At 6.2GHz, not much was going to happen in such a CPU dependent

benchmark. In the end it was Vivi who

walked off with $3,000 USD in cash and hardware to the value of $2,000 (He would claim an additional $500 USD on the following day in the No-Limits battle). A close second went to Tolsty MOA 2013 champion who received $2,000. Third place was oc_windforce from Korea with $1,500 USD and fourth place went to Moose83 from Germany earning himself $1,000 USD. Like Vivi, these individuals walked away with over $2,000 USD worth of hardware in addition to their prize money.

Since 2008, MSI has been hosting this competition and with each successive event, the input from overclockers has been injected into their retail products. Many of the wonderful

competition ended and on the following day, the GTX 980 was allowed as well. Throughout the weekend MSI managed to secure over a dozen top score results with their hardware (previously known as world records). Not surprising given that many of the worlds prolific overclockers had made it out to the event.

With three categories and only two hours for each, the pressure was on for every contestant. Given that many of the competitors had never even used some of the hardware before prior to arriving at the competition, it would be a test of who could best prepare and

dial in the settings the quickest. Experience would play a major role here and it is perhaps one of the reasons why Vivi ended up taking first place. Familiarity with this kind of competition, helped immensely as he knew that he did not have to win every round, but do pretty well in all three. This was very evident during the 3DMark FireStrike round as he posted one of the first set of scores and with it coincidentally, he would go on to win the competition. Obviously at the time, others were trying to beat this score, but it would not happen and at the end of the grueling day he stood triumphant. Oc_windforce, the


Korean overclocker, usually teamed up with little_boy at various competitions had a fantastic start. He won the Super Pi 32M round. From there his position in the top three was pretty much guaranteed unless something went drastically wrong. Given his consistent performance and perhaps even bias to graphics card benchmarks, he was always going to do well. In Cinebench, dRWeEz managed to place second, displacing Vivi from the number two spot, just below Moose83 the German overclocker. However, due to the poor quality of his first CPU sample during the Super Pi round, he had placed near the bottom of the list. At 6.2GHz, not much was going to happen in such a CPU dependent

benchmark. In the end it was Vivi who

walked off with $3,000 USD in cash and hardware to the value of $2,000 (He would claim an additional $500 USD on the following day in the No-Limits battle). A close second went to Tolsty MOA 2013 champion who received $2,000. Third place was oc_windforce from Korea with $1,500 USD and fourth place went to Moose83 from Germany earning himself $1,000 USD. Like Vivi, these individuals walked away with over $2,000 USD worth of hardware in addition to their prize money.

Since 2008, MSI has been hosting this competition and with each successive event, the input from overclockers has been injected into their retail products. Many of the wonderful

hardware that MSI has been producing in the last two to three years has been a direct result of this close collaboration between the community, its own internal overclockers and the engineers within the firm. As it is, the battle for component supremacy is no longer a two horse race, but MSI is right in there, with a valid claim to producing the most robust components and products in the market.

Separate from the overclocking, MSI had displayed several other motherboards from their gaming range including the previously

reviewed MSI GTX 980 GAMING. Word was that there wouldnt be a lightning version of this card for overclockers specifically, but given just how adept the GAMING GTX 980 is already at overclocking, we can fully appreciate why such a product may not come to be.

Overall this was a successful competition, with the usual faces and plenty of new faces coming to the show. Veterans and previous winner of the MOA, Lucky_n00b form Indonesia for instance was present, covering the event in the capacity of a journalist but also giving some useful tips to his understudies


that had come to represent the Indonesian overclocking community.

Every year, overclockers, amateurs and professionals alike have come to anticipate MSIs MOA as the single largest overclocking competition in the calendar year. This is viewed as not only an opportunity for competitors to come together, but also a time where new faces to the scene may be introduced. Once you win a live overclocking competition, especially MOA, your status within the community is immortalized. MSI has been doing a stellar job since the beginning in not only promoting overclocking to every enthusiast, but to gamers as well. With each successive generation of gaming hardware, many of their overclocking features make their way on to

their gaming boards. One could even argue that courtesy of these components, getting into overclocking has never been easier. What was previously a ridiculously small community and hobby has transformed how products are designed and what end users can expect from them. This was the first time we attended a live competition where the hardware held up for as long as it did and was without any failure as a result of the extreme conditions it was operated at.

We would like to thank MSI for having given us this opportunity to cover this event. We hope to return in 2015 again to see what MSI has prepared. Whatever it may be, its guaranteed to be even more exciting. This is MSIs MOA 2014 in pictures, please do enjoy.

[ The Overclocker ]

hardware that MSI has been producing in the last two to three years has been a direct result of this close collaboration between the community, its own internal overclockers and the engineers within the firm. As it is, the battle for component supremacy is no longer a two horse race, but MSI is right in there, with a valid claim to producing the most robust components and products in the market.

Separate from the overclocking, MSI had displayed several other motherboards from their gaming range including the previously

reviewed MSI GTX 980 GAMING. Word was that there wouldnt be a lightning version of this card for overclockers specifically, but given just how adept the GAMING GTX 980 is already at overclocking, we can fully appreciate why such a product may not come to be.

Overall this was a successful competition, with the usual faces and plenty of new faces coming to the show. Veterans and previous winner of the MOA, Lucky_n00b form Indonesia for instance was present, covering the event in the capacity of a journalist but also giving some useful tips to his understudies


that had come to represent the Indonesian overclocking community.

Every year, overclockers, amateurs and professionals alike have come to anticipate MSIs MOA as the single largest overclocking competition in the calendar year. This is viewed as not only an opportunity for competitors to come together, but also a time where new faces to the scene may be introduced. Once you win a live overclocking competition, especially MOA, your status within the community is immortalized. MSI has been doing a stellar job since the beginning in not only promoting overclocking to every enthusiast, but to gamers as well. With each successive generation of gaming hardware, many of their overclocking features make their way on to

their gaming boards. One could even argue that courtesy of these components, getting into overclocking has never been easier. What was previously a ridiculously small community and hobby has transformed how products are designed and what end users can expect from them. This was the first time we attended a live competition where the hardware held up for as long as it did and was without any failure as a result of the extreme conditions it was operated at.

We would like to thank MSI for having given us this opportunity to cover this event. We hope to return in 2015 again to see what MSI has prepared. Whatever it may be, its guaranteed to be even more exciting. This is MSIs MOA 2014 in pictures, please do enjoy.

[ The Overclocker ]

After years of not being active, I had a brief stint at the annual rAge 2014 Expo down in South Africa. As usual the point was to expose the hobby of overclocking to the 30,000 and more people that would filter

through the Coca-Cola Dome. As with all overclocking demos theres a myriad of questions audiences will ask, they will go so far as to suggest things you should be doing and express concerns about it all.

As a person who has been within the overclocking ecosystem for a decade, there are so many things that I take for granted. Information that I would think or believe is so pervasive in the general enthusiast community that some of these questions should not ever come up. Obviously I was wrong and that is good and bad for many reasons.

That which we call overclocking, is something that many of the competitive overclockers and I included hold dear even when more often than not we are jaded by it all. With every passing generation and platform of hardware, we see ever increasing scores or decreasing calculation times. Weve seen HWBOTs transformation from a simple database of scores and a sanctioned score keeper, to a whole organization that has taken it upon itself to mediate the inner workings of this community with the wider enthusiast community and vendors. Its a difficult task and one that is monumental in its scope.

In an ideal world thered be tutorials on every motherboard released or at the very least a family of motherboards that would guide beginners, intermediate users and advanced users. Helping them extract the best from their systems. All this would be found on HWBOT or a parallel site, where

the guides are written by the most prolific overclockers of our time. At the very least they would help formulate said guides which would then be consumed by the all.

This isnt the reality we live in though and its becoming increasingly more relevant for the entire community to not only act as an ambassador for our past time but to actively engage others outside of our immediate contemporaries. This is not a call to arms or an attempt to rally the elite in some misguided quest to make overclocking accessible to all. What it is; is that those that find themselves putting on shows for curious observers should embrace the opportunity a little more. Engage the annoying questions; do not shy away from those that ask what difference does this all make? Those of us that have been taking part in this for several years are more often than not oblivious to just how new all this is to the wider gaming and enthusiast community.

It doesnt help that unintentionally or otherwise, our said vendors confuse the message. The search for ever increasing sales figures is what business is about and any means will be employed to see that happen. That means overclocking may be communicated in perhaps a suboptimal way to those outside the community. If the various press releases do not resonate with us within, then they have no hope of impressing the ones out on the web. When it comes down to buying decisions, theres an entire science behind why people buy the products and components they do. If at the end of 2014, most people view overclocking as a risk to their hardware, then something has not gone the way it should have.

We ourselves take for granted just how resilient the hardware we use is, in comparison to what was available 10 years ago. Broken pins on CPUs, high risk of condensation damage, and just basic

LET US OC IN PLACES FAR AND WIDE!

OVERCLOCKING ISOLATION


electrostatic damage. We were vulnerable to any one of these and our hardware was always on the verge of imminent death. This is not the case today where, we may perform hack jobs on sealing. However we manage to get descent runs in and not destroy any hardware at all. Its not uncommon that we partake in quick sub-zero overclocking with absolutely no sealing at all.

The hardware we have lends itself to surprisingly fewer modifications than before. Today you can easily buy a motherboard that is ready for extreme and competitive overclocking out the box. This was not the case years ago, yet the general message towards buyers and others is that its extremely dangerous. Understand that Im not advocating for disregard for the dangers that overclocking may present to your hardware. What Im saying is that, the entire industry and community has made some significant strides and thus some of these concerns and misconceptions

shouldnt exist anymore, at least not within the enthusiast/gaming community.

In light of this, I propose overclocking competitions where there is no use of liquid nitrogen or even dry ice for that matter if only to garner attention from a much wider audience. Mind you Im a proponent and advocate for all things cooled with LN2, however theres a need for various levels of engagement within overclocking. The various leagues within HWBOT are a great start to this as they do not force anyone in any way to partake in the rankings where they would be out of their depth. This singular and structured approach to overclocking engagement is a step in the right direction. We, however as a community and perhaps even vendors need to do more to make it all significantly more accessible.

The limitation isnt always a financial one, as limiting hardware for instance in a competition to sub $100 graphics cards is good. However, it takes one with significantly more resources to take the

After years of not being active, I had a brief stint at the annual rAge 2014 Expo down in South Africa. As usual the point was to expose the hobby of overclocking to the 30,000 and more people that would filter

through the Coca-Cola Dome. As with all overclocking demos theres a myriad of questions audiences will ask, they will go so far as to suggest things you should be doing and express concerns about it all.

As a person who has been within the overclocking ecosystem for a decade, there are so many things that I take for granted. Information that I would think or believe is so pervasive in the general enthusiast community that some of these questions should not ever come up. Obviously I was wrong and that is good and bad for many reasons.

That which we call overclocking, is something that many of the competitive overclockers and I included hold dear even when more often than not we are jaded by it all. With every passing generation and platform of hardware, we see ever increasing scores or decreasing calculation times. Weve seen HWBOTs transformation from a simple database of scores and a sanctioned score keeper, to a whole organization that has taken it upon itself to mediate the inner workings of this community with the wider enthusiast community and vendors. Its a difficult task and one that is monumental in its scope.

In an ideal world thered be tutorials on every motherboard released or at the very least a family of motherboards that would guide beginners, intermediate users and advanced users. Helping them extract the best from their systems. All this would be found on HWBOT or a parallel site, where

the guides are written by the most prolific overclockers of our time. At the very least they would help formulate said guides which would then be consumed by the all.

This isnt the reality we live in though and its becoming increasingly more relevant for the entire community to not only act as an ambassador for our past time but to actively engage others outside of our immediate contemporaries. This is not a call to arms or an attempt to rally the elite in some misguided quest to make overclocking accessible to all. What it is; is that those that find themselves putting on shows for curious observers should embrace the opportunity a little more. Engage the annoying questions; do not shy away from those that ask what difference does this all make? Those of us that have been taking part in this for several years are more often than not oblivious to just how new all this is to the wider gaming and enthusiast community.

It doesnt help that unintentionally or otherwise, our said vendors confuse the message. The search for ever increasing sales figures is what business is about and any means will be employed to see that happen. That means overclocking may be communicated in perhaps a suboptimal way to those outside the community. If the various press releases do not resonate with us within, then they have no hope of impressing the ones out on the web. When it comes down to buying decisions, theres an entire science behind why people buy the products and components they do. If at the end of 2014, most people view overclocking as a risk to their hardware, then something has not gone the way it should have.

We ourselves take for granted just how resilient the hardware we use is, in comparison to what was available 10 years ago. Broken pins on CPUs, high risk of condensation damage, and just basic

LET US OC IN PLACES FAR AND WIDE!

OVERCLOCKING ISOLATION


electrostatic damage. We were vulnerable to any one of these and our hardware was always on the verge of imminent death. This is not the case today where, we may perform hack jobs on sealing. However we manage to get descent runs in and not destroy any hardware at all. Its not uncommon that we partake in quick sub-zero overclocking with absolutely no sealing at all.

The hardware we have lends itself to surprisingly fewer modifications than before. Today you can easily buy a motherboard that is ready for extreme and competitive overclocking out the box. This was not the case years ago, yet the general message towards buyers and others is that its extremely dangerous. Understand that Im not advocating for disregard for the dangers that overclocking may present to your hardware. What Im saying is that, the entire industry and community has made some significant strides and thus some of these concerns and misconceptions

shouldnt exist anymore, at least not within the enthusiast/gaming community.

In light of this, I propose overclocking competitions where there is no use of liquid nitrogen or even dry ice for that matter if only to garner attention from a much wider audience. Mind you Im a proponent and advocate for all things cooled with LN2, however theres a need for various levels of engagement within overclocking. The various leagues within HWBOT are a great start to this as they do not force anyone in any way to partake in the rankings where they would be out of their depth. This singular and structured approach to overclocking engagement is a step in the right direction. We, however as a community and perhaps even vendors need to do more to make it all significantly more accessible.

The limitation isnt always a financial one, as limiting hardware for instance in a competition to sub $100 graphics cards is good. However, it takes one with significantly more resources to take the

very same graphics card, mount a cooling pot on it, make all necessary modifications and then overclock it. That entire exercise costs many times more than the retail price of the graphics card, thus the endeavor is largely exclusionary. No, that isnt quite what is needed.

As it is, the recent change in what qualifies as a world record and what doesnt is a change that has been needed for years on end. Itll take a while for world record to mean anything again. The term at present is devoid of substance and if anything has negative connotations. This isnt hard to pick up on as the various tech sites that post these press releases attest to this very point. The replies in those forums range from indifference to outright disapproval. Yes, the tendency of forums or any medium of social communication towards negativity is noted. However, there is little to no pessimism when it comes to a regular press release or announcement of a new motherboard or GPU. Yet a showing of what said motherboard or GPU can achieve under the capable hands of competitive overclockers, has anything but the desired effect on potential buyers.

This is where I would propose many more competitions, which are by structure, familiar to us but impose limits that are not exclusionary of most people. As stated earlier, no LN2, no pots, just regular, all in one units, and air coolers. No chilled water or anything of the sort. Indeed, this would be very boring for veteran overclockers, but the odds are. Those that do well there are likely to move on to the more challenging competitions, where the competitors are fewer as well as a result. We all appreciate a graphics card that is ready out the box for Liquid Nitrogen, but what does that mean exactly to the tens of thousands of people who are potential buyers of said graphics card?

That its ready for the day they have gathered all required knowledge and supplementary hardware is not meaningful at all. This cant be a viable strategy as it gains the customer nothing at all. However, can you imagine a situation where, by way of purchasing a graphics card, you gain ticket entry to a competition using your recent purchase? Since almost all competitions, require that you use the specific vendors products anyway, why does that purchase not grant you access to competition automatically?

The details of it could be written about at length, but it is one of the many ways in which competitive overclocking can gain popularity, new participants and directly help vendors reach sales targets. This is access to that which was previously and is at present an exclusive community and obscure hobby. Its simple really, if I as Joe


soap buy a Radeon 7770 for example. This is all I can afford, but if that purchase has gained me access to a competition where I may win a Radeon 290. Chances are I would be more than willing to participate in it, with just the system I have and the one I use to play games. That is at home however, in terms of live competition theres an even more organic way to engage people.

We should have, at this time, discarded our inherent reliance on fixed synthetic benchmarks. This is not to undermine the often impressive work that Futuremark and others have done. It is however saying that, the tie in between the regular enthusiast and competitive overclockers must be strengthened by way of more relevant application benchmarks. Several games at present include built in benchmarks, why not have those as the applications with which performance is measured? At a live event, this is far more engaging and even for spectators, they are more than likely to be familiar with the performance of a game rather than 3DMark FireStrike Ultra. How many of us know what a Radeon 280 scores in that benchmark for example? I would wager that very few people do. Even if we were to use such a benchmark, its staccato frame rate is anything but impressive or appealing to anyone. It is not a great showing for the hardware and perhaps even the benchmark itself.

Contrast that with the fly-through benchmark of Hitman: Absolution, BioShock Infinite or any other triple A. Artistically these are more appealing, likely to be familiar and they have a direct relevance to what most people do who are at these competitions as spectators. If to an audience member, they are able to witness a particular game benchmark showing a frame rate of 46, instead of what they experience at home at 32 with lower image quality. It is direct way of incentivizing that individual to buy that particular graphics card. We may and always do appreciate ever increasing 3DMark scores, but theres hardly anyone who knows what a good 3DMark score is for instance.

What does 3,000 points in 3DMark FireStrike mean? What games does that play and at what quality? Its a number, but it is meaningless in isolation. Yet a frame rate is something nearly everybody can relate to. There are plenty of opportunities afforded by a slight adjustment in how we as a community, vendors and all involved presently in overclocking deal with the larger computing space. To those within the industry we by and large understand why overclocking at a competitive level matters. This is either as a necessary undertaking for the purpose of selling components, or to a lesser degree an opportunity to refine future components through user feedback

very same graphics card, mount a cooling pot on it, make all necessary modifications and then overclock it. That entire exercise costs many times more than the retail price of the graphics card, thus the endeavor is largely exclusionary. No, that isnt quite what is needed.

As it is, the recent change in what qualifies as a world record and what doesnt is a change that has been needed for years on end. Itll take a while for world record to mean anything again. The term at present is devoid of substance and if anything has negative connotations. This isnt hard to pick up on as the various tech sites that post these press releases attest to this very point. The replies in those forums range from indifference to outright disapproval. Yes, the tendency of forums or any medium of social communication towards negativity is noted. However, there is little to no pessimism when it comes to a regular press release or announcement of a new motherboard or GPU. Yet a showing of what said motherboard or GPU can achieve under the capable hands of competitive overclockers, has anything but the desired effect on potential buyers.

This is where I would propose many more competitions, which are by structure, familiar to us but impose limits that are not exclusionary of most people. As stated earlier, no LN2, no pots, just regular, all in one units, and air coolers. No chilled water or anything of the sort. Indeed, this would be very boring for veteran overclockers, but the odds are. Those that do well there are likely to move on to the more challenging competitions, where the competitors are fewer as well as a result. We all appreciate a graphics card that is ready out the box for Liquid Nitrogen, but what does that mean exactly to the tens of thousands of people who are potential buyers of said graphics card?

That its ready for the day they have gathered all required knowledge and supplementary hardware is not meaningful at all. This cant be a viable strategy as it gains the customer nothing at all. However, can you imagine a situation where, by way of purchasing a graphics card, you gain ticket entry to a competition using your recent purchase? Since almost all competitions, require that you use the specific vendors products anyway, why does that purchase not grant you access to competition automatically?

The details of it could be written about at length, but it is one of the many ways in which competitive overclocking can gain popularity, new participants and directly help vendors reach sales targets. This is access to that which was previously and is at present an exclusive community and obscure hobby. Its simple really, if I as Joe


soap buy a Radeon 7770 for example. This is all I can afford, but if that purchase has gained me access to a competition where I may win a Radeon 290. Chances are I would be more than willing to participate in it, with just the system I have and the one I use to play games. That is at home however, in terms of live competition theres an even more organic way to engage people.

We should have, at this time, discarded our inherent reliance on fixed synthetic benchmarks. This is not to undermine the often impressive work that Futuremark and others have done. It is however saying that, the tie in between the regular enthusiast and competitive overclockers must be strengthened by way of more relevant application benchmarks. Several games at present include built in benchmarks, why not have those as the applications with which performance is measured? At a live event, this is far more engaging and even for spectators, they are more than likely to be familiar with the performance of a game rather than 3DMark FireStrike Ultra. How many of us know what a Radeon 280 scores in that benchmark for example? I would wager that very few people do. Even if we were to use such a benchmark, its staccato frame rate is anything but impressive or appealing to anyone. It is not a great showing for the hardware and perhaps even the benchmark itself.

Contrast that with the fly-through benchmark of Hitman: Absolution, BioShock Infinite or any other triple A. Artistically these are more appealing, likely to be familiar and they have a direct relevance to what most people do who are at these competitions as spectators. If to an audience member, they are able to witness a particular game benchmark showing a frame rate of 46, instead of what they experience at home at 32 with lower image quality. It is direct way of incentivizing that individual to buy that particular graphics card. We may and always do appreciate ever increasing 3DMark scores, but theres hardly anyone who knows what a good 3DMark score is for instance.

What does 3,000 points in 3DMark FireStrike mean? What games does that play and at what quality? Its a number, but it is meaningless in isolation. Yet a frame rate is something nearly everybody can relate to. There are plenty of opportunities afforded by a slight adjustment in how we as a community, vendors and all involved presently in overclocking deal with the larger computing space. To those within the industry we by and large understand why overclocking at a competitive level matters. This is either as a necessary undertaking for the purpose of selling components, or to a lesser degree an opportunity to refine future components through user feedback

(a least thats what I would like to think). Theres the issue of relevance though where for the sole purpose of reaching an even higher synthetic score, we turn to GPU setups that cost several thousands of dollars. In the same way that we appreciate quarter mile runs with highly tuned cars, it is not of mass market interest and theres no real way to make it so. The volumes of people who can appreciate that exercise, but are capable of partaking in it are almost not worth counting. That doesnt mean its not something we shouldnt have. Consider however that a quarter mile drag competition with regular street legal cars is a lot more accessible. That very same car will go on a shopping run after the sprint.

This is exactly how a competition with unmodified hardware or mass hardware can be significantly more attractive. That very same computer that was taking part in the competition for the highest Hitman frame rate is well and truly capable of actually running that game.

That is to me probably the most direct way to engage everyone in this common interest and passion for hardware. How long it took for us to get a UHD/4K benchmark is indicative of this disparity between the competitive overclocking scene and the general enthusiast and/or gamer. There should not be a situation where you can get more information about game or system performance using a singular title, than you can with a benchmark which only serves the purpose of gauging system performance.

I must add that it need not be a coordinated effort by all involved to do this and perhaps it falls to the vendors more than anyone else to make these changes. After all, they are the entities that stand

to gain the most from this. With all the above said, Im well aware that within the hardware industry, creativity is a distant second to mimicry and maintenance of the status quo. It is always perplexing to come across so many within the various companies that are not in tune with their customers. This is overclockers and gamers alike. It is possibly the only industry where every product or component goes from engineering to retail, with every step between only serving to facilitate that. As such, all the above is probably esoteric at best to those which can affect this change. Vendors make this hardware for gamers and market them by way of overclockers and competitive overclockers. Yet, neither of these two demographics is understood in any capacity that resembles adequate. Alas, that is a topic for another editorial piece.

For now, this was a brief and perhaps superficial look at how we can all move to a more inviting, encouraging and diverse overclocking landscape. I still believe that weve so much potential, that weve not begun to tap into it, despite how far weve come. Theres no question that overclocking will continue to grow organically and may even be at an accelerated rate in the near future. Whatever the future may have for us, it necessitates that we constantly re-evaluate our ecosystem and make improvements where we can. For now though, its great to see an increase in the visibility of overclocking competitions and gatherings the world over. Personally I cant wait to see even more of these, from 2015 going forward hopefully with some of the suggestions herein.

[ TheOverclocker ]

(a least thats what I would like to think). Theres the issue of relevance though where for the sole purpose of reaching an even higher synthetic score, we turn to GPU setups that cost several thousands of dollars. In the same way that we appreciate quarter mile runs with highly tuned cars, it is not of mass market interest and theres no real way to make it so. The volumes of people who can appreciate that exercise, but are capable of partaking in it are almost not worth counting. That doesnt mean its not something we shouldnt have. Consider however that a quarter mile drag competition with regular street legal cars is a lot more accessible. That very same car will go on a shopping run after the sprint.

This is exactly how a competition with unmodified hardware or mass hardware can be significantly more attractive. That very same computer that was taking part in the competition for the highest Hitman frame rate is well and truly capable of actually running that game.

That is to me probably the most direct way to engage everyone in this common interest and passion for hardware. How long it took for us to get a UHD/4K benchmark is indicative of this disparity between the competitive overclocking scene and the general enthusiast and/or gamer. There should not be a situation where you can get more information about game or system performance using a singular title, than you can with a benchmark which only serves the purpose of gauging system performance.

I must add that it need not be a coordinated effort by all involved to do this and perhaps it falls to the vendors more than anyone else to make these changes. After all, they are the entities that stand

to gain the most from this. With all the above said, Im well aware that within the hardware industry, creativity is a distant second to mimicry and maintenance of the status quo. It is always perplexing to come across so many within the various companies that are not in tune with their customers. This is overclockers and gamers alike. It is possibly the only industry where every product or component goes from engineering to retail, with every step between only serving to facilitate that. As such, all the above is probably esoteric at best to those which can affect this change. Vendors make this hardware for gamers and market them by way of overclockers and competitive overclockers. Yet, neither of these two demographics is understood in any capacity that resembles adequate. Alas, that is a topic for another editorial piece.

For now, this was a brief and perhaps superficial look at how we can all move to a more inviting, encouraging and diverse overclocking landscape. I still believe that weve so much potential, that weve not begun to tap into it, despite how far weve come. Theres no question that overclocking will continue to grow organically and may even be at an accelerated rate in the near future. Whatever the future may have for us, it necessitates that we constantly re-evaluate our ecosystem and make improvements where we can. For now though, its great to see an increase in the visibility of overclocking competitions and gatherings the world over. Personally I cant wait to see even more of these, from 2015 going forward hopefully with some of the suggestions herein.

[ TheOverclocker ]

Here with us this issue is another MSI overclocking motherboard. With each generation we see subtle changes to the physical layout of the MSI motherboards, but that isnt a bad thing. They are in general well designed and for the purposes of competitive overclocking offer all the bells and whistles to attack the competitive rankings. In a word, MSI has hit their stride and this will only continue with future motherboards and certainly

MSI X99S X-POWER ACRRP: $384.99 | Website: www.msi.com

Test Machine

INTEL Core i7 5960X CORSAIR Dominator

Platinum DDR4 3200 C16 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 SAMSUNG PX941 512GB CORSAIR AX1500i Windows 8.1

with graphics cards. With the X99S-XPOWER

MSI has brought back several features which we are highly appreciative off. In fact we wish that more vendors would take these ideas into consideration and implement them on their motherboards. Many of these conveniences are not talked about enough in editorial and we are guilty of that as well here at TheOverclocker.

For instance, MSI has included with this motherboard an OC BACKPLATE. Simply put this is a back plate that does not have the grooved screw holes. These are obviously necessary for regular coolers, but for extreme overclocking, the normal back plate is troublesome. Since most bars as used on LN2 pots are grooved as well and of the same diameter they can be used with a regular plate, provided you dont mind making holes in the

plastic film thats on the board by default. This film prevents regular screws as used on normal coolers from going through the back, the very thing you want for mounting your pot. Thus the OC BACKPLATE is without any threading so your barbs go right through and are easily secured on the underside of the motherboard. Theres no turning of the barbs individually, hundreds of times trying to get them all through the board and potentially causing an uneven mount on the CPU. The OC BACKPLATE is not only appreciated but we would say is a necessary addition to any and all overclocking motherboards. Together with Delid Die Guard as seen on the Z97 equivalent of this board provide some very useful overclocking components. (Diminished application for the guard however as theres no need


for that with Haswell-E CPUs). Adding to the above is the OC Fan stand, the fan isnt included, but you can get a matching yellow accented fan from Shark.

Board layout is the typical affair but we do have the added benefit of DIRECT USB which is just a USB port on the motherboard where you can attach any USB device. Its useful for USB keys that have a BIOS update, utilities, drivers or anything like that. You need not reach for the back of the motherboard which can be a chore or some sorts. This is added convenience that we wish once again was present on other competing boards as well. The oddity here is that MSI clearly acknowledges the benefit of not having to reach for the back of the motherboard, yet the Clear CMOS button, which will come into use plenty of times during overclocking, is located

at the rear of the motherboard. Where youd expect a clear CMOS button you find instead a Complete Discharge button which only differs from a normal clear CMOS button in that it apparently clears data stored in the PCH as well. This is certainly a convenient feature to have but rarely if ever has it ever proven to be more useful than a regular CMOS reset button.

The rest you should be well and truly familiar with by now, as MSI has kept largely the same design ethos as with their more recent offerings. The BIOS is still butter smooth and it is an absolute pleasure to navigate. Its detailed but not difficult at all to use with a mouse or keyboard. We can never sing its praises enough and on this motherboard its very much welcome.

So this should be the ultimate X99 motherboard,

at least under $400. MSIs crowning achievement for the current crop of overclocking motherboards. This would be the case save for two issues it suffers from. The first is that this board is not capable of the high UNCORE frequencies (around 3.5GHz for our particular CPU which has seen upwards of 4.5GHz on another motherboard) but secondly and perhaps isolated to this motherboard is that there are issues with memory overclocking.

Currently on the site it stipulates that this motherboard is capable of DRAM speeds in excess of 3333MHz. Throughout the entire testing duration of this motherboard, we were never able to get 3,000MHz to work let alone 3,200MHz, the native frequency of our testing kit. We have to wonder how this 3,333MHz was achieved and with

Here with us this issue is another MSI overclocking motherboard. With each generation we see subtle changes to the physical layout of the MSI motherboards, but that isnt a bad thing. They are in general well designed and for the purposes of competitive overclocking offer all the bells and whistles to attack the competitive rankings. In a word, MSI has hit their stride and this will only continue with future motherboards and certainly

MSI X99S X-POWER ACRRP: $384.99 | Website: www.msi.com

Test Machine



with graphics cards. With the X99S-XPOWER

MSI has brought back several features which we are highly appreciative off. In fact we wish that more vendors would take these ideas into consideration and implement them on their motherboards. Many of these conveniences are not talked about enough in editorial and we are guilty of that as well here at TheOverclocker.

For instance, MSI has included with this motherboard an OC BACKPLATE. Simply put this is a back plate that does not have the grooved screw holes. These are obviously necessary for regular coolers, but for extreme overclocking, the normal back plate is troublesome. Since most bars as used on LN2 pots are grooved as well and of the same diameter they can be used with a regular plate, provided you dont mind making holes in the

plastic film thats on the board by default. This film prevents regular screws as used on normal coolers from going through the back, the very thing you want for mounting your pot. Thus the OC BACKPLATE is without any threading so your barbs go right through and are easily secured on the underside of the motherboard. Theres no turning of the barbs individually, hundreds of times trying to get them all through the board and potentially causing an uneven mount on the CPU. The OC BACKPLATE is not only appreciated but we would say is a necessary addition to any and all overclocking motherboards. Together with Delid Die Guard as seen on the Z97 equivalent of this board provide some very useful overclocking components. (Diminished application for the guard however as theres no need


for that with Haswell-E CPUs). Adding to the above is the OC Fan stand, the fan isnt included, but you can get a matching yellow accented fan from Shark.

Board layout is the typical affair but we do have the added benefit of DIRECT USB which is just a USB port on the motherboard where you can attach any USB device. Its useful for USB keys that have a BIOS update, utilities, drivers or anything like that. You need not reach for the back of the motherboard which can be a chore or some sorts. This is added convenience that we wish once again was present on other competing boards as well. The oddity here is that MSI clearly acknowledges the benefit of not having to reach for the back of the motherboard, yet the Clear CMOS button, which will come into use plenty of times during overclocking, is located

at the rear of the motherboard. Where youd expect a clear CMOS button you find instead a Complete Discharge button which only differs from a normal clear CMOS button in that it apparently clears data stored in the PCH as well. This is certainly a convenient feature to have but rarely if ever has it ever proven to be more useful than a regular CMOS reset button.

The rest you should be well and truly familiar with by now, as MSI has kept largely the same design ethos as with their more recent offerings. The BIOS is still butter smooth and it is an absolute pleasure to navigate. Its detailed but not difficult at all to use with a mouse or keyboard. We can never sing its praises enough and on this motherboard its very much welcome.

So this should be the ultimate X99 motherboard,

at least under $400. MSIs crowning achievement for the current crop of overclocking motherboards. This would be the case save for two issues it suffers from. The first is that this board is not capable of the high UNCORE frequencies (around 3.5GHz for our particular CPU which has seen upwards of 4.5GHz on another motherboard) but secondly and perhaps isolated to this motherboard is that there are issues with memory overclocking.

Currently on the site it stipulates that this motherboard is capable of DRAM speeds in excess of 3333MHz. Throughout the entire testing duration of this motherboard, we were never able to get 3,000MHz to work let alone 3,200MHz, the native frequency of our testing kit. We have to wonder how this 3,333MHz was achieved and with

which BIOS and set of memory this was done.

Ultimately this is probably the largest problem we have with this motherboard. MSI by its very nature and certainly in its MOA competitions sells many of their motherboards as overclocking boards. When confronted with an issue like this, it is only fair to try other combinations of hardware; however that goes against the fundamentals of a controlled test environment. If the behaviour of the hardware is consistent with other motherboards and this particular board exhibits odd behaviour. We must investigate the incompatibility and make the initial assumption that it is very motherboard specific. What we found is that, this inability to load an X.M.P profile successfully indeed spoke

more of the BIOS issues than our testing hardware. Using the latest public BIOS available at the time of writing (1.4B) upon loading the X.M.P profile, the Bclk would automatically increase to 120MHz. Obviously theres not a single CPU we are aware of that can use this base clock while keeping the 1X base clock multiplier. Using 1.25X is possible however that would mean under clocking from the reference 125MHz to 120MHz and thus pulling down all related clock frequencies in the system as well (PCI-E clock for example).

To give you some context or back story to this. If this was an issue prevalent in all X99 motherboards then we would be more than forgiving of this simple yet greatly disappointing incompatibility. If this issue, much like the UNCORE situation,

was a symptom of once again the inability to make the most out of a platforms potential performance we would understand. However this is something else, because we have motherboards from other vendors where the very same memory and the very same CPU have no problem reaching these memory frequencies (As per standard testing procedure and philosophy of only using reporting repeatable results). Far more concerning is that even the cheapest X99 motherboard we have at our disposal is capable of this. The entire point of X.M.P is that you load the profile and the system sets itself accordingly. It is at the very least a simple way for everyone to extract the most from their systems, regardless of their proficiency or skill level. Thus, when a motherboard such as this, geared towards


Summary

Would you buy it?

MSI has once again manufactured a respectable high end motherboard. It has all the bells and whistles weve come to expect from their overclocking line of products and perhaps a few more features. Its unfortunate that theres a memory clock issue that persists even months after it was released, preventing it from being a board we would recommend immediately. There is hope however that it will get rectified and chances are by the time you read this, it will be fixed.

Not at present but perhaps in future.

overclocking and performance by its very design is not capable of such, we are at the very least disappointed.

That aside, this is overall a solid motherboard provided you keep your memory speeds below or at the 2,666MHz mark (Remember the 1.4B BIOS doesnt even have multipliers above 2,6666MHz). Its more of what weve seen before from previous MSI offerings on the Z97 platform. Those particular motherboards are sublime and the X99S-XPower AC follows them closely within the BIOS, board layout and in just about every value add feature. Theres very little to complain about here short of the memory issue, but it turns out that, this singular issue is enough to undermine our perception of this motherboard. Weve no question that this will be resolved with future BIOS updates and in fact we had throughout the last part of our editorial process, received a 1.51 beta BIOS. It at the very least allowed the

system to POST with the X.M.P loaded but sadly we could not get into windows at all. It is however a step in the right direction.

Depending on when you plan on making your purchase, this could just be the motherboard to get for all your overclocking undertakings on the X99 platform. At present consider waiting a while before purchase and look to see how the situation with the memory pans out. That is only if you care about such things though. If not, and youre only ever planning on the lower frequency memory, theres really no reason why you should not be looking to buy the X-POWER. As stated earlier, it does have some neat features and at the very least is a great looking board if aesthetics matter to you. The X-POWER then in closingis a competent board that with one or two BIOS updates could just be what was promised and the motherboard you want.

[ TheOverclocker ]

which BIOS and set of memory this was done.

Ultimately this is probably the largest problem we have with this motherboard. MSI by its very nature and certainly in its MOA competitions sells many of their motherboards as overclocking boards. When confronted with an issue like this, it is only fair to try other combinations of hardware; however that goes against the fundamentals of a controlled test environment. If the behaviour of the hardware is consistent with other motherboards and this particular board exhibits odd behaviour. We must investigate the incompatibility and make the initial assumption that it is very motherboard specific. What we found is that, this inability to load an X.M.P profile successfully indeed spoke

more of the BIOS issues than our testing hardware. Using the latest public BIOS available at the time of writing (1.4B) upon loading the X.M.P profile, the Bclk would automatically increase to 120MHz. Obviously theres not a single CPU we are aware of that can use this base clock while keeping the 1X base clock multiplier. Using 1.25X is possible however that would mean under clocking from the reference 125MHz to 120MHz and thus pulling down all related clock frequencies in the system as well (PCI-E clock for example).

To give you some context or back story to this. If this was an issue prevalent in all X99 motherboards then we would be more than forgiving of this simple yet greatly disappointing incompatibility. If this issue, much like the UNCORE situation,

was a symptom of once again the inability to make the most out of a platforms potential performance we would understand. However this is something else, because we have motherboards from other vendors where the very same memory and the very same CPU have no problem reaching these memory frequencies (As per standard testing procedure and philosophy of only using reporting repeatable results). Far more concerning is that even the cheapest X99 motherboard we have at our disposal is capable of this. The entire point of X.M.P is that you load the profile and the system sets itself accordingly. It is at the very least a simple way for everyone to extract the most from their systems, regardless of their proficiency or skill level. Thus, when a motherboard such as this, geared towards


Summary

Would you buy it?

MSI has once again manufactured a respectable high end motherboard. It has all the bells and whistles weve come to expect from their overclocking line of products and perhaps a few more features. Its unfortunate that theres a memory clock issue that persists even months after it was released, preventing it from being a board we would recommend immediately. There is hope however that it will get rectified and chances are by the time you read this, it will be fixed.

Not at present but perhaps in future.

overclocking and performance by its very design is not capable of such, we are at the very least disappointed.

That aside, this is overall a solid motherboard provided you keep your memory speeds below or at the 2,666MHz mark (Remember the 1.4B BIOS doesnt even have multipliers above 2,6666MHz). Its more of what weve seen before from previous MSI offerings on the Z97 platform. Those particular motherboards are sublime and the X99S-XPower AC follows them closely within the BIOS, board layout and in just about every value add feature. Theres very little to complain about here short of the memory issue, but it turns out that, this singular issue is enough to undermine our perception of this motherboard. Weve no question that this will be resolved with future BIOS updates and in fact we had throughout the last part of our editorial process, received a 1.51 beta BIOS. It at the very least allowed the

system to POST with the X.M.P loaded but sadly we could not get into windows at all. It is however a step in the right direction.

Depending on when you plan on making your purchase, this could just be the motherboard to get for all your overclocking undertakings on the X99 platform. At present consider waiting a while before purchase and look to see how the situation with the memory pans out. That is only if you care about such things though. If not, and youre only ever planning on the lower frequency memory, theres really no reason why you should not be looking to buy the X-POWER. As stated earlier, it does have some neat features and at the very least is a great looking board if aesthetics matter to you. The X-POWER then in closingis a competent board that with one or two BIOS updates could just be what was promised and the motherboard you want.

[ TheOverclocker ]

If youre confused as to why we are looking at GIGABYTEs mainstream motherboard line (Ultra-Durable) instead of the SOC FORCE or the Gaming range weve grown very fond of here. Well, well not beat about it, but let it be known that the UD7 is better. Thats not a typo or a facetious attempt at what would otherwise be a dull intro.

GIGABYTE X99 UD7 WIFIRRP: $384.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com

Test Machine



This is actually true for many reasons. Perhaps and most relevant is that in the DIY hardware industry of today. Especially for competitive overclockers and power users, we rely on software. More specifically we rely on the firmware of the various components we buy. This applies to motherboards more than it does anything else really, because outside of the LN2 BIOS for our graphics cards and other voltage tuning software, theres nothing else thats needed.

For motherboards, we need the brilliance right here; we need it to work better with each update. We need a firmware that, with successive iterations, adds features, increases compatibility and for the most part makes a

good product even better. This is ideally what we would like to see, this is especially for overclocking motherboards if not exclusively. In the context of the UD7, this motherboard is a sleeper hit with us because it has an identical BIOS to the SOC-FORCE and the G1 GAMING. By identical we really do mean, identical in layout, options and everything, save for the colour scheme in HD mode on the GAMING motherboard. Every

TheOverclocker Issue 32

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