VIDEO: I33, the UK's biggest ever LAN party

Posted at: Wednesday 26th March 2008 by James Morris

CPC's video reporter, the inimitable James Morris, heads to Newbury racecourse to check out the action from Multiplay's I33, the UK's biggest ever LAN party.

A decade ago, most LAN gaming ‘events’ would have struggled to fill a single room in a cheap hotel. They’re now big business, and none in the UK are bigger than the Multiplay i-Series. This Easter weekend (21-24^th March), i33 took place at its usual Newbury Racecourse venue. With 1,580 ‘bring your own computer’ (BYOC) and 50 ‘turn up and play’ (TUP) spaces, i33 was the largest LAN gaming event yet held in the UK.

Alongside players pitting their skills informally against each other in this ‘Glastonbury of gaming’, i33 was also host to challenge tournaments in eleven key titles. Top of the pile was the €12,000 up for grabs for the top eight places in the Call of Duty 4 showdown, and €10,000 for Counter-Strike: Source. Team Dignitas placed first in the former and Birmingham Salvo won the latter. There was £2,500 for the top three in Team Fortress 2, £1,750 for Unreal Tournament 3, and £1,500 each in Battlefield 2, Command and Conquer 3, and Crysis. Lesser prizes were available for Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and World in Conflict. This wasn’t just a PC gaming event, either. Consoles were also in evidence, particularly the Xbox 360. There were even a couple of prize championships for the Xbox 360, with £1,750 on hand for FIFA 08, and £700 for Halo 3.



Here's our exclusive video report from the day.

MODS AND MANUFACTURERS
Gaming wasn’t the only aspect of i33, even if it’s the reason for the i-Series existence. The event also now incorporates a large exhibition space occupied a wide array of vendors. The usual retailers had their own stands at i33 – Scan and Kustom PCs amongst others. Crucial Technology was hosting a light-hearted case-modding competition, and Intel had a large presence, including a live rock band playing USB instruments.

Over on the Aqua PCs stand, the UK’s premier extreme overclocking group, Benchtec were also in attendance. Armed with a sample of Intel’s insane Skulltrail dual-processor enthusiast platform and their usual pots of liquid nitrogen, the Benchtec team managed to grab the world top slot in wPrime 32M and second place in wPrime 1024M. In front of the i33 crowd, they pushed the twin 3.2GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 CPUs to an awe-inspiring 5142MHz apiece – 60 per cent above their stock frequency.