GO OC 2010 North American Final

This was the first time I have had the pleasure of covering any sort of extreme overclocking event, although Rob attended last year’s competition. While on one hand my personal system runs a 24/7 4.4GHz overclock under water, it still isn’t remotely anything like the style of overclocking found at these events, that’s for sure!

While most users try to maintain and preserve their computer hardware, the mere act of using subzero cooling alone requires some pretty hardcore and often one-way modifications to their equipment. It takes a passion and an honest interest in taking hardware to the absolute limits, because most of the time it is only going to result in damaged, fried, or melted hardware!

For example, although Mikeguava managed to recover fairly well to place second, he did blow several chokes on his first UD7 motherboard necessitating a full tear down and rebuild for the second round. 3oh6 was another overclocker that ended up with degraded memory controllers on his second processor, prematurely ending his run for the top. For every top score there are quite a few stories of people not able to make it. This sort of competition is rough!

The amount of camaraderie amongst the overclockers competing in the Gigabyte GO OC event was also a surprise. Most of these guys know each other fairly well, and not just from past events either. If one overclocker needed a LN2 pot, some insulation, petroleum jelly, or even advice, another contestant would step up and/or help out.

As all competitions go there must be a winner. Duex is a relative newcomer but posted a very respectable fourth place showing with 40 points, so we suspect we will see him again during next year’s event! Ross placed third with 52 earning him some nice swag. mikeguava and sno.lcn both had a very tight race during the second round, but sno.lcn took first with 68 points with mikeguava placing second with 60.

Both mikegauva and sno.lcn will move on to compete in the grand final, which will take place on September 25th, 2010 in Taipei, Taiwan. Live streaming, info on the fifteen global finalists, and more info can be found at the official website!

The complete list of official results can be found here!

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