Team Finland qualified to MOA 2009 worldwide finals
20.07.2009 by Sampsa

First of all, sorry about lack of updates on the site. We have just been too busy overclocking ;) We will try to update the site more frequently in the future.

We (Petri on left and Sampsa on right) spent last weekend in Münich Germany and joined MSI's Master Overclocking Arena 2009 EU finals. We used a system including Core i7-950, MSI Eclipse SLI, MSI N260GTX Lightning, OCZ Blade DDR3-2133 & PC Power & Cooling 920W PSU to compete in three benchmarks (3DMark03, Aquamark 3 & SuperPi 32M).

In the end we were 4th and qualified to MOA 2009 worldwide finals which will be arranged in Beijing China in September. Other TOP5 countries which qualified to MOA 2009 finals were Poland, Greece, Sweden and Denmark.

See you there!

3DMark Vantage P32663
7.11.2008 by Sampsa

Finally we can reveal our results with Core i7 CPU. In Stockholm we managed to score P32663 in 3DMark Vantage's Performance preset. This result was done with B-0 stepping Core i7-940 CPU, Asus Rampage 2 Extreme motherboard and GeForce GTX 280 3-Way SLI configuration. CPU + 3 GPUs were cooled with LN2 during the tests.

We managed to push the Core i7-940 to 4678 MHz and graphics cards were running at 820/1900/1280 MHz. This was no way near the limit of the system but a good start and first experience of Intel's new microarchitecture and CPU. Stay tuned for more :)

Overclocking Core i7 at Intel Sweden
4.10.2008 by Sampsa

Team Finland was invited to Stockholm where Intel Sweden and Asus organized invitational weekend to some top overclockers from Scandinavia. Idea was to offer some first hand experience about overclocking Intel's new Nehalem based Core i7 processors with liquid nitrogen. Among us there were Kinc, elmor, Öjvind, Aspertin, dpa, Nosfer@tu, Xt0m and Ivan overclocking the CPUs.

Everyone had to sign NDA so unfortunately we cannot show any clock speeds or peformance numbers but I can tell the performance was very promising! We had some issues (with LN2 cooling and high clocks) with one stepping of Core i7 CPUs but the earlier stepping seemed to work better. In the event me and SF3D were mainly focusing on 3DMark Vantage with LN2 cooled GeForce GTX 280 3-Way SLI configuration but we also ran some SuperPi and Cinebench action.

During the weekend we got to play with Asus Rampage 2 Extreme and P6T Deluxe motherboards which are based on Intel's X58 chipset. Core i7 overclocking experience was very similar to current Core 2 generation, you just have to forget good old Front Side Bus and get used to 133 MHz base clock (BCLK). We had no issues raising the BCLK and since all the CPUs were multiplier unlocked, we hit pretty promising clocks already and it is still one month to the offical launch.

SF3D and elmor won GOOC 2008 and $5000!
30.8.2008 by Sampsa

Gigabyte organized world wide overclocking competition in Taiwan. SF3D was invited to join Swedish overclocker elmor and together they formed Team Sweden 2. Unfortunately I was there just to represent media so no overclocking action for me. But luckily there is always next year :)

After a bad start in Everest SF3D and elmor gathered them together and stormed through SuperPi, 3DMark2001 SE and 3DMark06. In the end they won the overall competition with a good margin and collected the $5000 grand prize.

Event was very well organized and everyone seemed to enjoy their time in Taipei. Russia managed to snatch second place and USA's Team 2 was 3rd.

SF3D 5th in MSI's European OC Challenge 2008
29.7.2008 by Sampsa

MSI organized European Overclocking Challenge 2008 in Amsterdam 24th of August. SF3D won the Finnish qualification organized by Muropaketti.com but due some miscommunication other countries had invited two persons to finals. Since SF3D was alone MSI asked if I could assist him with some overclocking activites. Unfortunately I had some problems stopping my trip from San Francisco to Helsinki in Münich and eventually couldn't make it to the event. Luckily SF3D had no problems handling the situation alone and he got some help from massman.

In the competition everything looked good after SuperPi 1M and Cinebench but then disaster struck when 3DMark05 category was about to start. MSI's motherboard gave some serious problems and SF3D was unable adjust GTL ref values so he pretty much had to run 3DMark05 with auto settings. Problems in 3DMark05 caused him missing the TOP 3 by ~220 points and he finished 5th. Greece did a perfect job in the competition and managed to secure 1st place without any threat. Second was Turkey and third France. All top 3 teams will participate to world wide final in Taiwan which is being held in November.

SF3D and Kinc on fire in Assembly 08
29.7.2008 by Sampsa

SF3D headed almost straight from AOCC 2008 to Helsinki where Assembly 2008 took place. SF3D teamed up with our good friend Marcus "Kinc" Hultin from Asus for a full weekend bench session.

Kinc had prepared similar 3-Way SLI system which we had just tested couple days before in Hong Kong so it was easy for SF3D to jump along in middle of action. Unfortunately humidity in Hartwall Areena was very bad so system had some serious problems with condensation.

During the weekend SF3D and Kinc managed to capture top spots in all 3DMark Vantage presets. Hours of benching and great effort gained some excellent results, congrats guys!

2nd place in 3DMark Vantage: P29197
29.7.2008 by Sampsa

Sampsa, SF3D, crotale, elmor and giorgioprimo teamed up for the most challenging task on second day of AOCC 2008 in Hong Kong. Our goal was to break 3DMark Vantage Peformance preset WR which is P29416 by Kingpin.

We prepared system with Team Sweden's hand picked QX9770 CPU, Asus Striker II Extreme motherboard, three GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards, Kingston DDR3 memory and two FSP power supplies. CPU and all three graphics cards were cooled down with LN2. We had some problems with motherboard but managed to do couple good runs when QX9770 was running at 5,6 - 5,74 GHz. Three GeForce GTX 280 were overclocked to 950/1975/1350 MHz frequencies.

After some hours of benching, several crashes, BIOS updates and a hundred liters of LN2, our final score was P29197 which in only 219 points shy from Kingpin's WR. After all breaking the WR wasn't the most important thing and team had loads of fun during the benching. Thanks to everyone!

Team Finland 5th in AOCC 2008, $500 prize
28.7.2008 by Sampsa

Team Finland finished 5th in Advanced Overclocking Championship 2008 event which just finished in Hong Kong. Prize for 4th runner up was $500. Competition lasted 4,5 hours and included three benchmarks. The undisputed winner was China who won all the categories and scored perfect 100/100 points. Team Sweden was the only team who was even close to challenge China but just couldn't keep up with Team China's golden QX9770 which did ~5,9 GHz 3D stable. Team Portugal was third. We had a tight battle against Team Singapore who eventually finished 4th just four points ahead of us.

Tomorrow we will team up with Team Sweden and Italy and try to break WR in 3DMark Vantage with GeForce GTX 280 3-Way SLI configuration.

Team Finland invited to AOCC 2008 in Hong Kong
24.7.2008 by Sampsa

Team Finland has been invited to join Advanced Overclocking Championship 2008 event in Hong Kong. Team members Sampsa and SF3D are flying there on Friday. In the event there will be 20 teams from different coutries. Among them are some of the best overclockers in the world so it will be a tough challenge to win the competition or make it to TOP 5. Every team will get:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
• Asus P5Q3 Deluxe (P45)
• Asus ENGTX280
• Kingston HyperX DDR3 memory
• +1kW power supply

Every team will also get pre-installed HDD and will use 3DMark2001 SE, SuperPi 8M and 3DMark Vantage to get the highest score possible. Results will be added together and best team will win $5000. Second day there will be a group attempt to break some WRs.

Stay tuned for the results, now we are leaving to the airport!

SF3D qualified to MSI’s European OC event
15.7.2008 by Sampsa

SF3D will be presenting Finland and Muropaketti.com website in MSI's European OC event wchi will be organized in Amsterdam 22nd - 25th of August. He won the qualifying competition hosted by Muropaketti.com and posted the highest 3DMark06 result with LN2 cooled QX9650 CPU and GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card. His score was nearly 30k but in the end another Finnish overclocker mtzki gave him a good competition with two Radeon HD 3870 X2s in CrossFireX configuration.

Both of Team Finland members will join the MSI event, SF3D will be competing and Sampsa will be covering the event for Muropaketti.com