k|ngp|n Sets 3DMark 11 Extreme Record with EVGA Hardware

Overclocking world records are broken so often, that normally I don’t even read into what the accomplishment was when I’m sent an e-mail – it’ll just be broken next week, after all. But the latest accomplishment of Vince “k|ngp|n” Lucido isn’t just impressive because of the overclock, but because of the unbelievable amount of high-end hardware being used.

Let’s start with the basics. The CPU is Intel’s Core i7-3960X overclocked to 5.24GHz, and for graphics, we have four EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified graphics cards – all of this being cooled under liquid nitrogen, of course. Further, this is all completed on EVGA’s X79 Classified motherboard with the help of five 1200W PSUs powering the beast – presumably one per GPU and one for the motherboard.

In our tests with a single GTX 580, our test rig scores about 1960 in the Extreme test in 3DMark 11. k|ngp|n’s setup with its intense overclocks scored 12,554. It’s important to point out that even in a regular configuration, 4x 580s would not come close to this due to scaling beyond two graphics cards – it’s certainly not 400% of one GPU. So to see a score literally 6x a single GTX 580 is quite impressive.

Taking a quick look at the hardware used, I’d estimate that you could set yourself up for the same overclocking session for about $5,000. Any takers?