Taking on the 3DMark06 world record with Asus and 1,000L of LN2

Posted at: Tuesday 19th August 2008 by Antony Leather

We head to Berlin to check out the European round of Asus' Advanced Overclocking Championships where overclockers used LN2 to try and break 3DMark06 records

A host of European extreme overclocking enthusiasts descended on Berlin, Germany yesterday for the Asus Advanced Overclocking Championships, to compete against each other and try to grab a world record benchmark scores using the latest hardware cooled using liquid nitrogen (LN2).

From the UK, Paul Watkinson otherwise known as ‘Sacha35’ and David Robinson AKA 4QMan, both regulars on forums such as Xtremesystems and Benchtec teamed up to combine their considerable overclocking skills at subzero temperatures.

Paul was especially keen to get going, telling us that ‘I’ve being very competitive from a young age but I love meeting like-minded people, forum members I’ve spoken to and just having a laugh.’ Other teams were in equally good spirits swapping tips throughout the event and over a beer the night before the event.

At the event in Berlin, lined up next to the test benches were stacks of Asus Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards, Rampage Extreme motherboards and Tagan 1100Watt PSUs – just in case one or two went to silicon heaven while being tweaked to the limit.

As with all events of this type, each team was given a set of components with to build their PC’s. Unfortunately this can often mean the results are a bit of a lottery, especially with CPUs as some chips are undoubtedly better overclockers than others. The CPUs in question were 3.2GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770s (currently £926 inc VAT) and with the Asus Rampage Extreme X48 motherboard (currently £240 inc VAT) supporting CrossFire and such a plentiful supply of Radeon HD 4870 X2s (currently £365 inc VAT apiece), it should come as no surprise that the main goal was to shatter current 3Dmark06 records and ignore the bank balance.

ALL ABOUT INSULATION

We observed quite a few different methods of insulating motherboards: one of the newest is using liquid electrical tape that spreads like thick paint but dries like rubber, sealing the surface of the motherboard and round the CPU socket. This also has the advantage of being easy to peel off afterwards, unlike nail varnish or dielectric grease. The liquid was popular with the UK and German teams while moulding putty and neoprene was common with other competitors.