Overclock -- Engadget

MSI takes the pain, fun out of overclocking with OC Genie

by Darren Murph posted Jul 19th 2009 at 8:34AM

If you thought MSI's obsession with motherboard implants was over after it unveiled Winki to a nearly nonexistent amount of fanfare, think again. The company has just taken the wraps off its latest mobo addition, the OC Genie. In essence, this is the one-touch overclock button that laptop owners have long enjoyed, but for desktops. Right now, the OC Genie is custom built for the company's own P55 motherboard, though it insists that all sorts of mainboards will be supported in due time. If you're curious about the details, you'll have to remain that way for now; all we're told is that activating the module automatically pushes your system to a safe brink within a second, giving even the newbies in attendance the ability to squeeze more from their current rig. In related news, MSI also added yet another model to its growing Classic laptop series, the 17.3-inch CX700, which gets powered by a Core 2 Duo processor, ATI's Mobility Radeon HD4330 GPU and 4GB of RAM.

[Via HotHardware]

Liquid helium trumps liquid nitrogen at AMD's Phenom II overclocking love-in

by Tim Stevens posted May 28th 2009 at 10:38AM

Remember late last year, when AMD poured out the liquid nitrogen to boost its new Phenom II X4 to a ridiculous 5GHZ? The company's factory overclockers apparently had a lot of leftover LN2, so they invited a crew of others to come over and splash some around on a set of new Phenom II X4 955 Black processors. After burning through a ridiculous 80 gallons of the stuff they rolled out the even colder liquid helium, which led to a maximum benchmark of 6.89GHz -- more than twice the quad-core processor's 3.2GHz rated speed. In these tough economic times it's good to see that one company at least is still willing to take things to great excesses at the expense of Earth's natural resources.

ASUS introduces ROG OC Station for all your on-the-fly overclocking needs

by Ross Miller posted May 23rd 2009 at 8:22AM

ASUS is doing what it can to bump up its gaming cred a few notches with its Republic of Gamers (ROG) OC Station. The bay-mounted overclock assistant lets you tweak parameters on the fly, even in the middle of a game, without ever having to dive into the BIOS. It's got a 3-inch LCD display, too, for keeping an eye on things or, apparently, showing your pictures in a slideshow. All this power comes at a cost, and not just financially: you're gonna have to give up two 5.25-inch bays to install this bad boy. It also looks like it only works with ROG motherboards, which is gonna limit the market even further. If you are, however, an anxious and willing member of that demographic, we hate to say you're gonna have to wait an undisclosed time before you can pick one up for an undisclosed number of Benjamins.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Corsair DDR3 memory clocked at 2533MHz, women swoon 'round the world

by Joseph L. Flatley posted May 21st 2009 at 12:23PM

Corsair -- the swashbucklin' favorite of privateers in need of RAM and SSDs -- has just announced that its Dominator GT DDR3 memory has been overclocked at a pretty astonishing 2533MHz. As you'd expect from a company made of braggarts and rogues, its claiming the world record for itself -- unless, of course, one of you other memory manufacturers feels like taking this bad boy on. Kingston, we're looking at you. Hit that read link for all the salacious details.

AMD's Phenom II pushed to 6.5GHz, 3DMark record demolished

by Darren Murph posted Jan 26th 2009 at 5:10AM

Ha, and you thought a 3DMark06 score of 5,086 was intense when AMD's Phenom II was overclocked to a blistering 3.85GHz. Just after CES, a team of hardcore speed freaks with access to liquid nitrogen and liquid helium created an environment for OC'ing one of AMD's latest Phenom II X4 chips in -232 degrees Celsius weather. Once the silicon was appropriately chilled, they proceeded to push the clock speed to a staggering 6.5GHz, which proved nimble enough to deliver a patently absurd 45,474 3DMark05 score. The best part? The adoring public was there to bear witness, and every nail-biting second of it is hosted up in the video just past the break.

[Via Digg]

Continue reading AMD's Phenom II pushed to 6.5GHz, 3DMark record demolished

Project Monolith case mod takes water cooling to unbelievable extremes

by Darren Murph posted Jan 11th 2009 at 7:23AM

It's not often that pictures truly are worth a thousand words, but this is one of those rare exceptions. We won't even bother explaining what kind of hardware is packed within Project Monolith, but it's clear that its creator is at least partially off his rocker -- not that said condition is a bad one. Hit the read link for loads more images, but don't expect it to get any easier to comprehend.

Overclocking guide shows what Intel's Core i7 is / isn't capable of

by Darren Murph posted Dec 30th 2008 at 1:35AM

Oh sure, we've seen just how far Intel's most potent Core i7 chip can be pushed under the most extreme conditions, but honestly, how's that helping you? In short, it's not. To that end, HotHardware has whipped up a useful, easy-to-digest guide on overclocking the Core i7 920, complete with benchmarks, recommendations and tips for dealing with excess heat without hooking up a liquid nitrogen tank. Interested to see how to crank a stock 920 to a level that outpaces the pricey 3.2GHz Core i7 Extreme Edition? The read link, friends -- hit it.

The gigahertz Centro, also known as 'the Palm-powered grenade'

by Chris Ziegler posted Dec 24th 2008 at 10:05PM

Personally, we wouldn't want to be within 15 feet of a Centro being mercilessly overclocked to a mind-numbing 936MHz, but we reckon that's where our fearless readers come into play. We're told that this sucker reached prompt criticality and melted into the Earth's crust shortly after this screen shot was taken, and you know what? We can't say we blame it.

[Thanks, Jason]

AMD Phenom II processor bought, benchmarked, coveted

by Tim Stevens posted Dec 23rd 2008 at 9:40AM

AMD, a company not exactly known for meeting its own deadlines, seemed to be trying to avoid news of painful delays for the Phenom II by simply not letting anyone say when the thing would be available. Now the chip is apparently in the hands of one lucky gamer at the HardOCP forums, Table21, who was kind enough to run it through its paces. The Phenom II 940 running at 3GHz scored a 4,091 on 3DMark06 and, once OC'd up to 3.85GHz, delivered a score of 5,086. It's rather too early to draw any conclusions from these numbers, and we don't know what he paid for the thing, but that performance does fall well behind Intel's Core i7 Extreme that was similarly benchmarked last month, scoring 6,608 at the same clock speed. That's quite a gap -- but nothing a little liquid nitrogen won't fix.

[Via PC Perspective]

Intel's Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 overclocked to 5.5GHz

by Darren Murph posted Dec 3rd 2008 at 8:59AM

Right, so Intel's 3.73GHz Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 is fast enough for the vast majority of PC users across the globe, but not for Japanese overclocking enthusiast duck. Oh no -- duck decided to pair the chip up with ASUS' ROG Rampage II Extreme motherboard, which facilitates hardware-based OC'ing, in order to reach a top speed of 5510.09MHz. The point of the exercise? Just to say he could, not to mention set the bar for OC Team Italy to try and demolish.

Liquid nitrogen-cooled MSI Wind U100 overclocked to 2.3GHz

by Darren Murph posted Nov 25th 2008 at 7:59AM

When MSI rolled out its v1.09 BIOS, we're willing to wager it absolutely did not have anything like this in mind. The mad scientists in Team Australia are at it again, this time overclocking a netbook to the point (almost, anyway) of implosion. The unafraid members grabbed hold of a hopeless Wind U100 with 2GB of RAM, hooked up a little liquid nitrogen and proceeded to push the poor 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU to an amazing 2.385GHz. No telling how quickly the whole thing was over, but still, this is pretty ridiculous, mate.

Palit's Radeon HD 4870 X2 has preposterous clock speeds, marketing hype

by Samuel Axon posted Nov 7th 2008 at 12:25AM

Hong Kong-based video card manufacturer Palit is excited about its Revolution 700 Deluxe video card -- so much so that we're a little frightened by the force of its enthusiasm. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 GPU is no slouch to begin with, but this iteration has cores overclocked to 750MHz and 2GB of GDDR5 memory at a face-melting 3.8GHz. As imposing as clock speeds are, they likely can't measure up to the epic hype from Palit. "All other cards beware," the press release boldly cries, "there is a new king in town and it only comes from Palit!" Tap the read link for the whole thing -- best enjoyed while listening to the Mortal Kombat theme song.

MSI Wind v1.09 BIOS update makes overclocking easy

by Darren Murph posted Oct 24th 2008 at 11:31AM

We've long since known that MSI was a fan of overclocking. After all, just about every last one of its gaming notebooks come with one-button OC'ing courtesy of the Turbo Drive Engine technology. Now, it seems that the company is giving the spoils once reserved for the Crysis crowd to those with netbooks, or more specifically, the Wind. The freshly released (and absolutely official) v1.09 BIOS update enables simple overclocking by mashing Fn+F10, giving users the ability to push things 8%, 15% or 24% beyond their normally specified limits. Electric Feel over at ElectricVagabond has found that the update provides up to a 30% boost in performance, which he claims is quite noticeable in processor-intensive apps like Photoshop. You know you're dying to give your Wind a little lift, so hit the via below for the step-by-step of getting this installed.

MSI ships AMD-powered GX630 and GT735 gaming laptops

by Darren Murph posted Oct 21st 2008 at 5:08PM

If the Intel-based GX620 and GX720 were too, um, Intel-y for your liking, how's about a fat slice of AMD? MSI has just announced the availability of its freshest duo of AMD-powered gaming notebooks, the GX630 (shown above) and GT735 (shown after the break). Both units pack a Turion X2 Ultra dual-core processor and possess the ability to be overclocked by up to 15% at the touch of a button with the Turbo Drive Engine technology. The former also boasts a 15.4-inch LCD, NVIDIA's 512MB GeForce 9600M GT, up to 4GB of RAM, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, optional Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, integrated stereo speakers, a 4-in-1 card reader, VGA out, a 2-megapixel webcam and a DVD writer (Blu-ray optional). The brawnier GT735 steps it up with a 17-inch panel, ATI's 512MB Mobility Radeon HD 3850, a five speaker system including a subwoofer and most everything else already found on its partner in crime. Snap either up now for $1,049.99 / $1,249.99 in order of mention. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading MSI ships AMD-powered GX630 and GT735 gaming laptops

Team overclocks Core 2 Quad to 5.1GHz, claims world record -- too bad it's not

by Nilay Patel posted Jul 31st 2008 at 5:02PM

So we hate to break it to the good guys at Tom's Hardware, but while we're impressed that they managed to overclock a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 to 5.1GHz using a cryogenic cooling system, it's not nearly close to the world record they're claiming -- we've seen P4's at up to 8.18GHz, and just a couple months ago someone jacked a Core 2 Extreme QX9775 on a Skulltrail board to 6GHz. Still, it's always fun to watch people pour liquid nitrogen over a mobo -- video after the break.

[Via PC World]

Continue reading Team overclocks Core 2 Quad to 5.1GHz, claims world record -- too bad it's not