It is no news that AMD FX likes high clock speeds, even if they come at the expense of energy efficiency and heat. It's only when one such chips crosses 8.80 GHz (8805.64 MHz, to be precise), that it makes headlines. Thai overclocker "ksin" claimed to able drive the chip to its record speed using a base clock speed of 303.29 MHz, and multiplier of 29.0x. A scorching 1.86V core voltage was used. Other components include ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard, and 4 GB (2x 2 GB) of ADATA-made memory, clocked at 1417 MHz. Ksin didn't bother providing more details such as method of cooling, and that seems like a reason behind the CPU-Z Validation rejection.

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer updates its Hyper 412S cooler with two slim fans. This significantly increases performance and allows usage of memory on both sides, while keeping the advantages of the previous model. The Hyper 412 Slim is best suited for LGA 2011 systems due to its compact size.

The Hyper 412 Slim is another of Cooler Master's CPU coolers using the Continuous Direct Contact technology. This technology allows the heatpipes to directly touch all of the CPU's hottest zones in order to reach the cooling performance in the places it matters most.

The first round of the annual MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) 2012 Americas Qualifier, held by the world-renowned mainboard and graphics card manufacturer MSI, ended successfully on May 10. There were overclocking experts from eight countries in the America region who competed in this event; the top three winners were Splave from the U.S., Rbuass and gnidaol from Brazil. The winners will advance into the World Final and are free to pick any member for their team to battle for the master position of the MSI Master Overclocking Arena Grand Final! For complete coverage and results of the event, please visit the MOA 2012 Americas Qualifier website.

Cooling specialist Alpenföhn presents their newest addition to the Matterhorn line of performance coolers. Dubbed the Matterhorn Pure, it focuses on delivering the best possible cooling at the best possible price. Even with its untreated surface, the Matterhorn Pure impresses with the same high quality which Alpenföhn is known for.

Weighing in at a solid 660 grams without a fan, the cooler manages to impress with plenty of heat dissipation area. But Alpenföhn has ensured, that the material used has been employed properly utilizing the same design as the Matterhorn cooler, but leaving out the Nickel plating to allow the cooler to be offered at the best price point possible. The Pure still offers six heatpipes which make direct contact with the heat spreader of the CPU and thus manages to impress with great performance as well.

Zalman's Computex launch extravaganza includes three new Computer Noise Prevention System (CNPS) CPU coolers. These include the CNPS14X, a new aluminum fin twin-tower heatsink that's ventilated by a large central 140 mm fan; the CNPS9900DF, which retains the omega-shaped heat-pipe ring design of several of Zalman's iconic CNPS CPU coolers, nestled with two "ultra quiet" 120 mm fans; and a trio of closed-loop water-cooling solutions, the LQ310, LQ315, and LQ320. We will learn more about these at Computex.

KFA2, Galaxy's European brand, launched two new GeForce GTX 680 graphics card models today, the GTX 680 EX OC Series, and the GTX 680 Limited Edition OC. The two are essentially re-brands of Galaxy GTX 680 GC and Galaxy GTX 680 Hall of Fame, respectively. Pictured below, the GTX 680 EX OC will be available in 2 GB and 4 GB variants, will pack clock speeds of 1110 MHz (core base), 1176 MHz (core boost), and 6.00 GHz memory; and will utilize an in-house design dual-fan cooling solution.

The GTX 680 Limited Edition OC, as its name suggests, will be available in limited quantities. It will utilize a unique white-colored PCB, and a triple-fan cooling solution that Galaxy and KFA2 have used on some of their most premium graphics cards, in the past. This card packs stellar factory-overclocked speeds of 1202 MHz (core base), 1267 MHz (core boost), and 6.00 GHz memory. It packs 2 GB of memory. Unlike what the picture shows, this card, according to KFA2, will include a display output layout of two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort.

Galaxy Microsystems, a leading manufacturer of custom high-performance NVIDIA graphics cards, announced today the GeForce GTX 680 GC 2 GB - the world's first non-reference GTX 680 design to be approved by NVIDIA.

The custom Galaxy build features a fully redesigned PCB, factory overclocked GPU for extra performance, and a high-efficiency dual fan cooling solution.

The Galaxy GTX 680 GC's custom dual fan cooler is built with specially designed fan blades that significantly reduce noise even at high speeds for a quieter card and more enjoyable gaming experience. These fans are encased in a sleek aluminum shroud with LED effects for a cool, high-tech aesthetic.

PC enthusiasts with Ivy Bridge engineering samples, and reviewers at large have come to the consensus that Ivy Bridge is a slightly warmer chip than it should be. An investigation by Overclockers.com revealed a possible contributing factor to that. Upon carefully removing the integrated heatspreader (IHS) of an Ivy Bridge Core processor (that nickel-plated copper plate on top of the processor which makes contact with the cooler), the investigator found common thermal paste between the CPU die and the IHS, and along the sides of the die.

In comparison, Intel used flux-less solder to bind the IHS to the die on previous-generation Sandy Bridge Core processors in the LGA1155 package. Attempting to remove IHS off a chip with flux-less solder won't end well, as it could rip the die off the package. On the other hand, the idea behind use of flux-less solder in CPU packages is to improve heat transfer between the die and the IHS. Using thermal paste to do the job results in slightly inferior heat transfer, but removing IHS is safer. One can be sure that making it safe for IHS removal couldn't have been the issue behind switching back to conventional thermal paste, as everything under the IHS isn't user-serviceable anyway, and off limits for them. Perhaps Intel kept extreme overclockers in mind.

ASUS continues its industry lead in performance, superior design, quality and ease of use with its latest Intel Z77 chipset based motherboards. ASUS is excited to announce our Z77 line of motherboards has reached new performance heights. These include reaching the 7 GHz clock speed threshold on the ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE motherboard, as well as five new world records on the ROG Maximus V GENE, with more to come. These new records all showcase the benefits of ASUS' superior engineering and design, use of the finest materials and components, and industry leading user-friendly DIY features.

Achieving 7 GHz and beyond on the P877V-DELUXE

ASUS' internal overclocking group and performance team are excited to reach a 7 GHz CPU clock frequency on the P8Z77-V DELUXE, using a 3rd generation Intel Core i7-3770K processor with 16 GB of DDR3 clocked at 2800 MHz. Employing LN2 cooling, they were able to push the new processor to the limit and beyond, demonstrating the performance tuning abilities of ASUS Z77-based motherboards. The milestone also establishes that channel boards from ASUS are capable of very impressive overclocking feats thanks to their class leading Digi+ VRM power and control design. In addition our close cooperation with the enthusiast community has resulted in the P8Z77-V DELUXE easily exceeding 3GHz memory frequencies with all four DIMMS populated thanks to optimized trace layouts and superior UEFI tuning options.

Intel finally got the ball rolling on its third generation Core processor family codenamed "Ivy Bridge", which will go into making most of the company's client processor portfolio for 2012. These chips are characterized as being the world's first microprocessors built on the 22 nanometer silicon fabrication process. Intel aided miniaturization of circuits to such tiny scale thanks to 3D Transistor technology, a space-efficient nano-scale transistor design that enables chip-designers to achieve higher transistor densities, and come up with ever more powerful chips.

The third-generation Core processor family is based around a single die design (pictured below), from which it will carve out numerous SKUs in the client market in May-June, and enterprise market (under its Xeon brand, towards the end of June). These SKUs will be carved out by toggling the various parallel components (such as x86 cores, cache banks, processor graphics cores, and of course clock-speeds). The new Core processor family is expected to feature higher performance per clock-speed, and higher efficiency. Intel's Kirk Skaugen has been quoted by the BBC as saying "This is the world's first 22 nm product and we'll be delivering about 20% more processor performance using 20% less average power."

CPU overclocking new record releases today! Record-breaking motherboard maker, ASRock Inc., is excited to announce that Intel's new start Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K processor was able to be overclocked to incredible 6.9 GHz with the company's newly released Z77 Extreme6 motherboard. The overclocking-friendly Z77 Extreme6 mobo was designed for optimized performance and built upon top-quality components that are ripe for extreme amounts of overclocking.

New record was created by the World's Legendary Overclocker, Nick Shih, who had been topped the Professional Overclockers League for 18 months straight. With only two-year overclocking experience, Nick Shih is a living legend who holds the world champion title as well as being multiple overclocking world-records keeper which included both 2D and 3D tests.

Although the recent round of price-cuts by AMD covered mainly three SKUs, the HD 7970, HD 7950, and HD 7770; HIS put together its own list of price-cuts covering all Radeon HD 7000 series SKUs launched by it, including its non-reference design and overclocked ones. The new prices (in EUR, incl. taxes) are listed below.

• HIS 7750 iCooler 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DP/DVI/HDM - 89,- Euro
• HIS 7770 iCooler 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/2xMiniDP - 114,90 Euro
• HIS 7870 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP - 299 Euro
• HIS 7870 IceQ Turbo 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP - 309,90 Euro

Memory overclocking feats over 3000 MHz, aren't new. Last month, we've seen G.Skill and and GIGABYTE achieve a whopping 3736 MHz on the dual-channel AMD "Llano" platform. The duo has now cracked the 3000 MHz mark with four modules, achieving 3077 MHz. The record (>3000 MHz with four modules) was set by Coolaler, using an Intel Core i7-3770K "Ivy Bridge" processor, and GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H motherboard. The memory of course was four 4 GB G.Skill DDR3-2600 MHz modules. The entire setup was air-cooled.A video of the feat follows.

When we saw glimpses of Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Toxic 6 GB graphics card, we knew Sapphire was prioritizing on aesthetics a lot. That turns out to be the case, as the first pictures of this monstrosity reveal. The PCB and cooler are designed from scratch, by Sapphire. The PCB accommodates 6 GB of memory in 24 GDDR5 memory chips, 12 on each side. To power the factory-overclocked 28 nm "Tahiti" GPU and 24 GDDR5 7 GT/s memory chips takes some really strong VRM. Sapphire implemented an 8+3 phase power supply, that makes use of solid-state chokes (don't whine under stress), and International Rectifier DirectFETs. The VRM draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.More details, and a benchmark follow.

ZOTAC's GeForce GTX 680 Extreme Edition is shaping up to be a monster. A preview by Expreview points out its clock speeds out of the box to be 1.20 GHz (base and boost), with memory staying at 1.50 GHz (6.00 GHz GDDR5 effective). The default core voltage is 1.212V. ZOTAC also told the source that the card is capable of delivering 1.5V core voltage to assist in extreme-overclocking. It also goes on to claim that 2.00 GHz core clock speed might just be possible, in the best case scenario (you have the best cooling, best overclocking skillset, best luck).

Apart from a strong VRM (detailed in the older article), the card is also backed by several nifty features, such voltage measurement points, extreme-cooling optimized BIOS, and adequate-looking VRM cooling. The USB mini type-B connector on the back of the card turns out to be not a connection to an OC module, but a USB connection to the motherboard. ZOTAC is routing the card's SMBUS to its Firestorm OC software over USB. Maybe they haven't figured out [how] this could be done through the NVIDIA driver interface, or they didn't trust NVIDIA. For example, NVIDIA blocks SMBUS access to components that they deem "sensitive".More pictures, and videos follow.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, the leading graphics card manufacturer, announced a brand new Jetstream series at the GeForce GTX 680 The Palit Jetstream series of graphics cards features innovative cooling and an optimized product design to deliver gamers the ultimate gaming experience. As the latest and most powerful GPU in the series, the Palit Jetstream GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream guarantees gamers cutting-edge performance and an explosive new gaming experience.

The factory overclocked Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream is at boost clock 1150 MHz that is +92 MHz than the standard speed and 2GB GDDR5 memory clock is set at 6300 MHz (+292 MHz higher). Equipped with the Jetstream cooler and optimized product design, Palit GeForce GTX680 Jetstream performs 12.5% higher at 3DMark11 Xscore and average 10% higher among all hot gaming titles.

Only teased last week, EVGA's factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 680s are becoming a reality, with the first one to get make it out being the GTX 680 SuperClocked. The SC model is based around NVIDIA's reference design but has a base clock of 1058 MHz (1006 MHz stock), a boost clock of 1113 MHz (1058 MHz), and a memory frequency of 6208 MHz (6008 MHz).

The GeForce GTX 680 SC also packs 1536 CUDA Cores, a 256-bit memory interface, 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, a PCI-Express 3.0 bus interface, 3D Vision Surround and SLI support, and dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.

The 'vanilla' GTX 680 SuperClocked costs $519.99 while its backplate-equipped sibling goes for $529.99. Both should become available very, very soon.

MSI is working on a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 680 graphics card, which was briefly put up on its German website, before being pulled, suggesting that the company is not entirely ready with it. Carrying the model number N680GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC, the card features NVIDIA-reference board design. It features out of the box overclocked core speeds of 1056 MHz (base core), 1111 MHz (boost core), vs. reference speeds of 1006 MHz (base core), 1058 MHz (boost core). The memory clock is unchanged, at 6.00 GHz (GDDR5 effective).Update: Sources among retail channels told us that this particular model (N680GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC) was canned at the very last moment. It's possible, however, that the 1056(core)/1111(boost) MHz clock profile could be carried over to future non-reference design models, such as the Twin Frozr IV.

Asetek Inc., the world leading supplier of liquid cooling for the computer industry announced today a new and groundbreaking slim form factor liquid cooling technology for extreme performance and workstation grade laptops and All-In-One PCs. Slim form factor liquid cooling enables laptop and AIO PC manufacturers to deliver mobility and sleek industrial designs without sacrificing performance.

"We see a growing need for higher performance personal computers, driven by ever more powerful modeling software for engineering, scientific and financial work, and for content creation and gaming," said André S. Eriksen, Founder and CEO of Asetek. "We also see high performance hardware expanding to more portable, sleeker devices like the highly successful M-series of notebooks from Alienware."

What happens when you send a PC cooling expert such as Zalman into the field of PSUs? You get PSUs with genuine innovation in cooling, which translates to quieter PSUs. Such is the case of the ZM750-HP Plus, an upper-mid range 750W PSU from Zalman. The PSU replaces aluminum cooling plates with copper heat pipes that draw heat away from hot parts (such as FETs), and onto aluminum fin stacks, which are ventilated by a large 140 mm fan. Since a lot of heat is dissipated passively by these large heatsinks, the fan has very little work to do, and so it spins at low speeds, resulting in very quiet operation.

The ZM750-HP Plus features modular cabling, enough to wire out a gaming PC with two graphics cards. The PSU is 80 Plus Silver-rated. It uses a quad 12V rail design, among which two deliver 28A each (for graphics cards), one delivers 25A (motherboard and SATA), one delivers 20A (CPU, dedicated to the EPS connector). It uses a dual forward-switching design, with active PFC. A secondary protection IC governs various safety features such as OCP, OVP, SCP, UVP, and OTP. The ZM750-HP Plus from Zalman, is expected to be priced at US $189,50.

ORIGIN PC announced today the launch of their new line of desktops and laptops for professionals. Featuring options like the latest Intel Xeon E5 processors, ORIGIN PC professional overclocking, and NVIDIA Quadro workstation graphics cards. The new PRO line of systems from ORIGIN PC is designed specifically for artists, engineers, and professionals. ORIGIN PC now offers its award-winning performance, endless customization options, and industry leading U.S. based lifetime 24/7 support to professionals worldwide.

ORIGIN PC's custom workstations offer a wide range of solutions to fit mostly any workspace or budget:

- The small form factor CHRONOS PRO starts at $1299
- The mid-tower MILLENNIUM PRO starts at $1396
- The full-tower GENESIS PRO starts at $2131
- The EON15-PRO mobile workstation starts at $1581

A serious player in the PC motherboard industry, the world's 3rd biggest (in terms of volumes) at that, ASRock is one brand that has accumulated the engineering potential to make anything. It's far from finished with its LGA2011 motherboard lineup, and made sure visitors at its CeBIT booth had their jaws on the floor. Enter, the ASRock X79 Extreme11. This motherboard is designed for not just extremely-overclocked PCs, but battlestations holding their own huge storage arrays. This monster is built in the EATX form-factor.

The LGA2011 socket is powered by a 16+2 phase DigiPower VRM, which draws power from two 8-pin EPS connectors. It is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR3 memory with speeds of over DDR3-2400 MHz by overclocking. The memory areas are powered by 4+4 phase VRM. Apart from the 24-pin ATX connector, and the two EPS connectors, the board also draws power from two 4-pin Molex connectors. The board makes use of Japanese-made solid-state capacitors almost throughout.

On 27th February 2012, the highest DDR3 memory frequency record was smashed again by the well-known Swiss overclocker, Christian Ney. Using G.SKILL extreme RipjawsZ memory kit, Christian Ney has achieved the astonishing score of DDR3 3736MHz with 4GB high capacity memory stick. "It was a lot of fun while tweaking G.SKILL memory. You can feel the unlimited potential and always want to go higher and higher" said by Christian Ney.

GUN'G'STAR of TeamRussia successfully achieved an overclocking record of 5.666 GHz for the quad-core Intel Core i7-3820 processor; a feat that validates the LGA2011 i7-3820 of being a generally good chip for overclocking, despite being "Limited Unlocked" (BClk multiplier being unlocked only to a few notches above its stock setting). GUN'G'STAR achieved a clock speed of 5,665.99 MHz using a BClk speed of 131.74 MHz, a multiplier value of 43x, and core voltage of 1.6V. The chip was assisted with GeIL-made DDR3-1600 memory sitting on all four channels, and ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard. Only 2 out of 4 cores of the i7-3820 were enabled for the feat, HyperThreading was disabled. Extreme cooling was used. The CPU-Z validation can be accessed here.

A leading brand of graphics card maker - VTX3D, today introduces the most well-known X series of VTX3D, HD7970/HD7950 X Edition. The X series is designed to deliver extraordinary performance with factory overclocked setting and unique cooling design.

VTX3D HD7970/HD7950 X Edition incorporates the latest PCI-E Gen 3 to get the maximum performance from your GPU. Both fitted with 3 GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a new high speed 384 bit memory interface. VTX3D HD7970/HD7950 X Edition is clocked at 1050 MHz and 880 MHz respectively, also together with 1425 MHz and 1250 MHz for each memory, fulfilling those who thirst for extreme performance. The HD7970/HD7950 X Edition also features ultra cooling design. With two 92 mm ultra big fan and SSU-shape heat pipe design, this efficient cooling solution maximizes the speed of heat dissipation, but minimizes the noisy level, creating most pleasing environment for gaming.