GIGABYTE Announces Winter OC Whiteout Overclocking Contest

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announces its latest overclocking competition, the 'GIGABYTE Winter OC Whiteout', an open overclocking competition hosted at HWBOT. The 'GIGABYTE Winter OC Whiteout' also features a special bonus prize for the snowiest and most festive submission photo.

The 'GIGABYTE Winter OC Whiteout' starts today, running until January 20th 2013 and is open to all overclockers using any Intel processor on any compatible GIGABYTE motherboard. The competition centers around three key stages, each containing a 3D benchmark with specific limitations imposed to level the playing field. A GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H motherboard plus, a Cooler Master Seidon 120M liquid cooler will be awarded for the winner of each stage.

Winter OC Whiteout Stages:

• Stage 1: 3DMark11 "No X79"- Any Non-X79 Intel CPU; Single GPU only
• Stage 2: 3DMark Vantage "Dual core" - Dual or Single core Intel CPUs only; Single GPU
• Stage 3: Heaven DX11 "Full Out" - Any Intel CPU; Single GPU only

Bonus Stage: Show us Your Winter Wonderland Submission Photos
As a special bonus, the 'Winter OC Whiteout' will also offer a prize for the submission photo that most creatively inspires the festive spirit. So make sure to snap your submission photo when your LN2 pot is at its absolute snowiest.

On January 10th 2013, the ten snowiest and most festive submission photos will be added to the GIGABYTE Motherboard Tech Column Facebook page. The photo that receives the most Facebook 'likes' by midnight on January 20th 2013, claims the prize. The bonus winner will receive a GIGABYTE Z77-HD4 motherboard plus a Cooler Master Sirus S-5.1 gaming headset.

For full contest rules, scoring and more details, please visit the contest page.

Prizes:
Each stage winner will win:

• GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H motherboard
• Cooler Master Seidon 120M liquid cooling kit

Bonus Stage Prize:

• GIGABYTE Z77-HD4 motherboard
• Cooler Master Sirus S-5.1 gaming headset

The 'Winter OC Whiteout' contest will run from December 21st 2012 with final score submissions and Facebook 'Likes' until midnight on January 20th 2013.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

Aren't these contests a bit stupid? It's just a matter of who has the best hand picked CPU/GPU and the largest canister of LN. And a grain of luck.

 

[drdeathx]

Prizes suck too

 

[NinkobEi]

If it were an air-only competition that would be great. The low-value prizes are probably to deter people from using LN2 since that is a lot of work for something so small.

 

[vega22]

or it could just be a way for them to give something back to those of us who pay with our own money to bench bits which we have.

the no x79 rules does level the playing field as it means all of us with mainstream hardware can go outside and bench in the cold air and get as good a score as we can and have a chance.

i recall when tpu was an pc hardware enthusiasts forum me....

 

[cadaveca]

i recall when tpu was an pc hardware enthusiasts forum me....

It still is. But as we've grown, not all users are interested in extreme clocking like what is required here. It's no big deal...just that many now would rather play a game then benchmark.

Overclocking as a whole has become greatly restricted on Intel platforms, too, which doesn't help. It's not like there are some special tricks, really...other than clocking ram on XP...otherwise, clocking is just a matter of setting voltage and multis...no real skill required.

AMD chips are just the same as they always were, but negative hype prevents many from buying the last real overclocking platform left. I would have rather seen AMD hardware required for this contest...since Intel does well already.

Once AMD hype died down, so did OC. I ahte to say it, but AMD really brought OC to mainstream, with Athlon chips. That was a long long time ago, and AMD hasn't much been on anyone's radar since.

 

[vega22]

It still is. But as we've grown, not all users are interested in extreme clocking like what is required here. It's no big deal...just that many now would rather play a game then benchmark.

Overclocking as a whole has become greatly restricted on Intel platforms, too, which doesn't help. It's not like there are some special tricks, really...other than clocking ram on XP...otherwise, clocking is just a matter of setting voltage and multis...no real skill required.

AMD chips are just the same as they always were, but negative hype prevents many from buying the last real overclocking platform left. I would have rather seen AMD hardware required for this contest...since Intel does well already.

Once AMD hype died down, so did OC. I ahte to say it, but AMD really brought OC to mainstream, with Athlon chips. That was a long long time ago, and AMD hasn't much been on anyone's radar since.

i think its more the amd lies which puts some users off but to say ocing died because amd chips are pants is funny, so much so nosureifserious.gif tbh.

one could say that the current skill free ocing is also because of amd, i mean it was amd who released the 1st mainstream cpu with an unlocked multi with their be range. of course intel replied with the same tact and we all know what sandy did to amd in terms of performance.

as for amd dropping off the radar, i would have to point you to the end of my last post, i guess the ram world records dont count for much either then.

being what i would class as an enthusiast i see that as a pretty big deal for amd, and pc hardware on the whole tbh. just a shame the best thing about amd these days is their memory controller.

god/allah/budah/whoever help them if intel do buy nvidia.

 

[cadaveca]

Nah I mean what I said.

AMD has always had cheap chips that clock well, when they were popular. Intel has always cost more. Combining affordability with decent OC ability definitely has it's appeal...but that appeal does not exist any more.

I don't really mean AMD leaving per se, but what they offered when they were popular definitely does not exist any more. You used to buy a cheap chip, a cheap board, and could make records.



What's funny to me about that whole FM1 memory record, is that just several weeks earlier that I told Gigabyte I hope to see their FM2 boards, mainly the FM2A85X-UP4, be as good at OC as the FM1 version.

Then Christian Ney posts that record. I got to tell Gigabyte "I told ya so!"






I'm not into the extreme end of things any more(sold off my pots and everything), but myself, I still love ram tweaking, and there's a lot to be offered by AMD in this regard. On Intel, it is a gamble, a real gamble on how good of an IMC you get(2800 MHz is still rare)...where as with AMD, that has yet to be explored, even, and how little it is looked at is easily evident by the fact that it took so long to someone to push that board like that. It had to be made obsolete first.

 

[buggalugs]

Its summer where I live so does that mean I cant play?

 

[Steven B]

i think the reason they offer HD4 and UD4H is because of their memory OC capabilities. UD4H is a perfect cost effective benching board.

 

[THE_EGG]

or it could just be a way for them to give something back to those of us who pay with our own money to bench bits which we have.

the no x79 rules does level the playing field as it means all of us with mainstream hardware can go outside and bench in the cold air and get as good a score as we can and have a chance.

i recall when tpu was an pc hardware enthusiasts forum me....

That is if you are not living in the southern hemisphere e.g. brisbane where I am where the temperature sits in the mid 30C degrees as it is summer here.....

 

[vega22]

That is if you are not living in the southern hemisphere e.g. brisbane where I am where the temperature sits in the mid 30C degrees as it is summer here.....

are you complaining about the weather you get at xmas or the timing of the comp?

only i would happily swap you this grey rainy day we have had for some 30c sunshine

@dave

i know what you are saying, long gone are the days of a £50 cpu in a £50 mobo getting more performance than you get from a grands worth of cpu and mobo at stock but i still think its amds fault, had they not made the be edition chips mainstream intel wouldnt of had the idea to lock out most chips.

that being said you can now get an rma back if you do overclock your chip which would never of happened had overclocking not gone mainstream.

swings and round abouts.