Competition I: Battle for the Best P45 OC Cont.
Competition I: Battle for the Best P45 OC Continued
In Round 3, teams had to compete in 3DMark 2001. Although this is a relatively ancient DirectX 8 benchmark that was first released in 2001, it remains an enthusiast favourite since it is the most CPU dependent of all the 3DMark programs.
3D benchmarking greatly increases the number of variables that competitors must take into consideration, and considering how many issues certain teams had already experienced, this was clearly a 'Make it or Break it' round.
Team USA 2 (FUGGER & Vapor) had their cooling down to a frosty art, and their system clocks were very respectable as well. Their CPU was in the 5.3Ghz range, with DDR3-2000+ 7-7-7 memory speeds, and both the HD 4870's were running at 1010Mhz (GPU)/999Mhz (MEM). However, even by the 55th minute, their results were still only middle of the pack, and they weren't even close to Team Russia's early and extremely impressive 101,639 3DMarks. The simple reason for Team USA's shortcoming is the fact that the other teams had better processors running 200-350Mhz faster, and in a benchmark like 3DMark 2001 there is almost no way to overcome such a processing deficit.
Team Sweden 2 was almost guaranteed to be a front-runner in this round due to their previously mentioned gem of a processor, which did 5.65Ghz at around 2.00-2.05V in 3DMark 2001. However, their motherboard would occassionally shut down when not under load, for example in between game tests. This greatly limited the amount of times they could run the benchmark suite, but they still briefly led the round with 101,880. It should also be noted that Team Sweden 2's graphics cards were not volt-modded, but still achieved a respectable 900Mhz/1090Mhz.
The last 10 minutes of Round 3 were some of the most exciting part of the whole competition, since there were 3 lead changes during that short period of time. Regrettably, only two of the three scores officially counted as Team China 1's impressive result was disqualified due to a lack of screenshot.
Since this was the first round were the graphics cards actually came into play, it was great to finally see the competitors utilize all of their LN2 pots. It was also great to see that Team USA 1 finally had their system running flawlessly. With their Radeon HD 4870's running at 950Mhz/1000Mhz, and a processor that was capable of an easy 5.55-5.59Ghz (13 x 425-430Mhz), they were able to grab the top spot in the dying minutes of the round.
Round 3 finalists:
Here is the full list of uploaded SuperPI results:
Click for full size…
Round 4 was 80 minutes long and dedicated to 3DMark06, the de facto DirectX 9 3D benchmarking suite. This 3DMark is more GPU-dependent than the 2001 edition, and those with high VGA clocks would have a certain advantage.
As you can see, Gigabyte Staff felt so bad for Team Australia that they put them as the leading team at the beginning of each round, just so that they could have a few seconds in the spotlight before the other competitors actually had a chance to upload any scores....The very first team to post a result was Team USA 2 (FUGGER & Vapor), and while it did not remain the top score for more than a few seconds, they were certainly were not sitting on their hands.
Team France was fairly quiet for most of this round, but they eventually posted their singular 3DMark06 score, an impressive 28,481 that would eventually secure them the third place. In the background you can someone typing on a beige keyboard, which can only mean that Team Australia was still having problems. The replacement processor they received in Round 2 showed some promise, but the new motherboard was extremely weak. It would not operate above 340Mhz FSB (compared to 450-475Mhz+ for everyone else), and this limited their CPU clocks to a paltry 5.1Ghz. After spending all of Round 3 trying to diagnose this low front side bus problem, they decided to nevertheless run 3DMark06 and managed to score a respectable 27,457.
Since this was the last round every team was really pushing their system to the limits and above, and quite a few graphics cards bit the dust. If you don’t break anything you aren’t trying hard enough was the often repeated theme of the day.
Regrettably, mid-way into this round I had a personal presentation on Ultra Durable 3 to attend, so I missed the remainder of the action, but let’s see who the finalists where:
Here is the full list of 3DMark06 results:
Click for full size…
After 4 rounds and 4 hours of action, the Battle for the Best P45 OC competition was over. Following some quick math the points total for each team was calculated and the winners revealed:
Although Team USA 1 and Team Russia were tied with 10 points each, the rules stated that in the case of a tie the team with the highest 3DMark06 score would be determined the winner. The score difference was minimal, but Team Russia's 27,945 surpassed Team USA 1's 27,847 and they were awarded second place. Needless to say,
they were ecstatic!
Here we see the victorious Team Sweden 2, along with Hicookie and Tony Liao, the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the North American market. Having placed first or second in three of the four rounds, Elmor and SF3D put in a dominant performance and this was reflected in their 26 point total. However, although it may sound cliché, all three teams were all winners when you consider the huge pool of talent that was present for this fantastic event.
Team Sweden 2's trophy received a cool −196°C/−321°F shower, while Team USA 1's trophy was proudly displayed on their table for the rest of the event. Team Russia were too busy celebrating to put down their throphy.
