Issue 24 2013 rev 2.1
THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. NO DOUBT.
Cover Feature
INTEL IDF
2013
Silicon Trailblazers
Feature
THE HISTORY OF OVERCLOCKING The First 15 Years at 14.318MHz Reviewed
NZXT Kraken X60 NZXT releases the Kraken! Reviewed
EVGA GTX TITAN A Titan amongst K|NGS Reviewed
ASUS VG248QE 144Hz Gaming Nirvana Lifestyle
MSI’s Red Dragon - GT70 Notebook
It’s an Ed’s Note – Stop expecting a title! I think I need a ghost writer for this part of the magazine, a peculiar thought indeed given my very limited creative editorial contribution in this issue. I’d have imagined that would allow me to pour all my fleeting thoughts and incomplete ideas here but that isn’t the case. With so many changes taking place in the overclocking enterprise and hardware in general it’s hard to be certain or even have a clue of what the future holds for us all. MSI has a new line of gaming products, GIGABYTE and ASRock have similarly named Z87 boards and I’ve heard conflicting stories about the future of NVIDIA high end graphics cards. As to what to make of all this, only the future will tell, but suffice to say it’ll be interesting to observe as always. What recently caught my attention, unrelated to overclocking or hardware perhaps, is AMD’s drive to align themselves with gamers and overclockers indirectly. Through the re-loaded bundles, AMD has managed to offer several “triple A” block buster titles with their hardware including but not limited to HITMAN, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, Devil May Cry, a recent announcement of Battlefield 4. It’s true that not everybody will enjoy these titles, I find that I’m amongst the many, who I believe would have invested in these games at one point or another. To have these packaged with a graphics card purchase is a tangible benefit to buying AMD over NVIDIA, especially when you’re buying the GHz HD 7970 or other highlight products in the 7000 series. In contrast to this, NVIDIA is offering (prior to the Metro Last Light bundle) an equivalent of $150 USD of in game purchases within games that are essentially free. Depending on which side of the argument you stand on, the “Freemium” model may make for a compelling business argument. However, I’m not sure that a strong argument can be made for it in as far as the quality of titles is concerned. Thus, I would suspect for those remotely enticed by bundled games, AMD’s offering is vastly superior maybe to the point where no direct comparison can be made with NVIDIA’s alternative.
Working for NVIDIA though is the GTX TITAN which when speaking to overclockers and gamers alike in person seems to be loathed, but at the same time envied. Understandable given that it’s $1,000 at the cheapest and up to $2,000 USD in Brazil. It is only ever going to land up in the hands of those who have lots of disposable income or well connected. For that price though you do get the fastest GPU for overclocking and gaming. So as much as I personally think the price is unreasonable, the rate at which these graphics cards are selling, negate whatever seemingly negative sentiment I and those I have spoken to in person have about NVIDIA’s TITAN. I’m aware that this is a rather gaming orientated Ed’s note, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while and with that said, I believe there really is too much of a separation between so called high end gamers and overclockers. In fact I would suggest that gamers with a little more money are the people who eventually become overclockers. May seem illogical at first, but it stands to reason that the individuals or demographic that spends on sub $200 graphics are more unwilling to take on overclocking than those who spend $499 on high end parts. Despite that the risks of overclocking are absurdly over exaggerated; those with high end hardware seem more willing to push it further than those who are a little more price conscious. As such, I’m fairly confident that with the changes taking place on HWBOT and the like, we may just see teams comprised primarily of people who used to game on very high end machines. If anything this is good because it will bring some new blood into the hobby and certainly liven up what had slowly become an irrelevant ranking with the old League. Anyway, I’ve run out of space and it’s time to end this. At the last minute we decided to pull a spiritual follow up to my last editorial and instead chose to go with the first official OC LAB in the industry, courtesy of GIGABYTE. Also we managed to get to IDF Beijing and back to bring you some sweet news about HASWELL and all things related. Hope you get a kick out of it. [ Neo Sibeko - Editor ] Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 3
REGULARS 3 - Editor’s note The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media (cc).
FEATURES
Editor Neo Sibeko
6 – Q + A with Knut-Eirik “Knopflerbruce” Baade 20 – A Brief History of Overclocking
Art Director Chris Savides
26 – HWBOT PRO OC CUP Contributors Dane Remendes Vincent “K|ngp|n” Lucido Pieter-Jan “Massman” Plaisier Jonathan Horne
30 – TheOverclocker and HWBOT at IDF 2013 36 – GIGABYTE OC LAB revealed
For editorial and marketing please contact:
REVIEWS 10 – GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH
Email: neo@theoverclocker.com
20
12 – EVGA GTX TITAN
Tel: +8869 8874 0949
14 – NZXT Kraken X60 18 – OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SSD
K|NGP|N’S CORNER: 16 – My PRO OC POV
LIFESTYLE 40 - Game Review – Crysis 3 44 – ASUS VG248QE 46 – MSI GT70 Dragon Edition Edit
46
4 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
12
QA
Knut-Eirik “Knopflerbruce” Baade Country Name and City: Norway and Oslo What language(s) do you speak? Norwegian and English Your nickname “Knopflerbruce”, how did that come about and how does one even pronounce that? (Always had a hard time with it) Before I started overclocking, I started downloading live music from my favourite artists, Mark Knopfler and Bruce Springsteen. When I registered on a couple of forums and torrent trackers I needed a nickname, so I picked that one as it sounded better than the other possible combinations. I wish I came up with something else for this hobby! It’s not that hard to pronounce, the k is silent, and apart from that it’s straight forward. You still sound like Nigel Thornberry if you try it, though (LOL) When did you start overclocking seriously or rather competitively for points? Is overclocking solely for competitive purposes or do you take part in it for “fun” mainly? It’s hard to give an exact date, but I guess I got hooked when me and a mate tried to cool down a WC loop by using frozen pork chops found in my mom’s fridge, trying to get some results from one of my first CPUs; a very good AMD Opteron 175 - With the sole purpose of seeing how high I could get on the HWBot rankings. I’m thinking it was in the spring of 2007. My motivation has always been to compete with other people as the competitive part of this game is 6 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
everything to me. I’m not having fun if I don’t get points or silverware after I’ve finished benching a CPU. Which is your favourite benchmark if any and what is your least favourite and why? Tough one! Right now I like the wPrimes the most, followed by cinebench (most likely because of the servers I’ve bought). In the beginning it was CPUZ and Superpi 1m. I really don’t like PCMark Vantage, as I bench a lot of older parts and I run into the single core bug very often (benchmark stops randomly after a subtest, run it a lot of times and eventually you’ll get a score). Share with us your thoughts on the new 3DMark and if you will Catzilla. I can’t – never ran those two, as I do not bench high end GPUs (or barely
GPUs at all). What was it that got you started in overclocking? An excellent, randomly bought CPU. The first CPU I bought was an AMD Athlon X2 3800+ OEM and I pushed it to 2.9GHz rock stable at stock voltage and crazy high temps with a Zalman cooler. I googled the batch and it seemed like CCBIE 0608BPMW was the one everyone was looking for back then, so I was very happy. A couple of months later I started buying other chips on eBay to see if they were better and things ‘exploded’ after a while. When you started overclocking which forums did you spend your time on mostly? Has that changed now many years into the extreme hobby? In the very beginning I think it was XS,
DFI-street and OCN. DFI-street is long gone, and I rarely visit OCN. For the most part I spend time on the HWBot forums and KPC, and from time to time XS, though there’s not much activity going on there anymore. What are you currently overclocking (at the time of writing) and how goes it? I was messing with some socket A CPUs (1h 40min 32m’s are funny!) until the mobo died a few days ago. Other than that I’m just waiting for more LN2 so I can run stuff for the Team Cup.
but I was so sure it was a corrupt one. It wasn’t and not only that, it was 0.1x MHz higher than the old record, which s7eph3n had. My benching mate and I went straight to McDonalds to celebrate that night. The Q6600 PiFast record was great too – but I never worked hard for that one. Couldn’t believe my eyes when I realized it was the top score! Ah, and the 3800+ Venice CPU-Z record! Never thought I’d beat the old one – and not by that much. What are your thoughts on the GeForce TITAN?
How feasible is it for you to get access to LN2 where you live and how much is it?
It’s a very nice GPU, but being stuck with a “useless” reference PCB, thumbs down to NVIDIA.
It costs and arm and a leg here, I used to get it at the University, at 15 NOK/L (~2€/$2.5), but I’m not sure if I can get it from there anymore. I may have to buy it from the bigger companies – heard they charge like 40-60 NOK/L, which is a lot for a student.
What is your opinion regarding AMD and the ability to turn of Tessellation in the drivers? Do you think this unfairly prejudices NVIDIA hardware on HWBOT or is it something that shouldn’t be of concern? In my opinion the problem is with
the benchmarks. If tessellation is disabled, then it should give score 0 if it’s a vital part of the subtests. As long as it still runs, I feel it’s more like LOD – but then again, I’m not a 3D expert, so I can’t really say my words are worth a lot here. With the major changes made on HWBOT regarding the shutting down of the PRO OC League in favour of a CUP, do you anticipate even more activity in the overclocking community or less? Also are you amongst those who find this to be a necessary and positive change for the scene, are you against it or are you pretty much undecided? I’m thinking we could have kept he old ranking in some way, but it’s not a major concern for me personally, as I’m fighting for exotic multi-socket records and hardware points. Nothing has changed for me, except I can contribute in the Cinebench stage this time. I bet I’m out of the Pro CUP after this stage, unless my 4P rigs are useful in the next part as well.
How often do you have overclocking sessions in a month? I used to bench non-stop (almost), several times a week – but after my LN2 deal “expired” I haven’t done much. If I get a similar deal again I’d bench like crazy for a while, I haven’t stopped buying parts on eBay though. Any hardware you’re looking forward to buying this year? Haswell, if it’s good. Another 4P server would be nice, if I can afford it – with Abu Dhabi chips this time. I’d love it if I could get my hands on 4 of those! What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement? I think the Opteron 154 CPU-Z clock of 4005.36MHz was the most memorable moment I’ve ever had. I thought it sucked, but then I rested it and realized it was only suffering from a cold bug. First test was 3983MHz at only 1.6v or so. Getting into the 3990’s was not hard either, but that last notch up to 4005 was nearly impossible, but on attempt number 300 or so it lasted long enough to save a cvf file, Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 7
You recently joined the second KPC Team (KPC Pro OC #2) with some formidable team mates like Gunslinger and Planet. Do you plan on being just as competitive as the 1st team vying for the top spot or are you in it for the fun of it and hoping to maintain a relatively high profile without necessarily aiming for the number 1 position? I felt I could contribute, so I thought “why not?” I’m not really aiming for the top spot here, but top 5 should be doable at least. It depends a lot on me; if I can be 1st in the Cinebench ranking we’ll have at least one top spot. If another vendor or vendors in partnership with a website had to start a competitor database to HWBOT, something like what we had with ripping.org. Do you envision such a venture would succeed or do you think it’s a waste of time? Ripping was nice, and from what I remember the owner quit overclocking, which is why the site was shut down – not because of “us”. There’s definitely space for more than one such site, but I hope that site is something of its own and not an HWBot rip-off. Basically, if we succeeded, others can too. It even makes us better in the long run, because of the competition. 8 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
I believe most of the top tier overclockers would post on both sites if there were two. I posted on ripping and HWBot. In your opinion, is overclocking growing, dying or staying about the same for the most part? I feel it’s a bit different now, the huge “wow”-factor from LN2 smoke and crazy mods is gone. My gut feeling is that the average Joe-overclocking is growing, as it’s very easy to get nice overclocks these days, but it’s perhaps harder for people to compete with the crazy binning that’s going on these days. Is there any thought or idea you would like to extend to the community and other readers? I think people use the word “cheat” too often in this hobby. Being a cheater means you did something bad on purpose, and most times it’s just some sort of a misunderstanding – for example enabling physX. Quite frankly, if it was up to me anyone using that word against someone without that person being an actual cheater should get some sort of punishment. You can’t walk around accusing people of murder in real life, and that’s more or less what you’re doing in the OC community when you call somebody a
cheater. So… think twice before using that word it costs very little to choose a different approach. Outside of overclocking, what else are you as passionate about and spent an equal amount of time if not more doing? I still collect live music, having a recording of nearly every Bruce Springsteen show from 1980 till today. It’s not a “passion”, though – more of a collector’s thing. I still feel like a kid on Christmas Eve when a master tape from an uncirculated mid-70’s show is posted. I also like to watch winter sports, football (soccer) and I like to play Call of Duty – though the newer games are not good compared to the very first one(Still better than Battlefield if you ask me!). I’m also addicted to folding@home, but I don’t spend much time on it – the rigs are just running 24/7. There’s a ranking, so I’m aiming for the top spot – as usual. Not quite there, yet… need more than a 2P, a 3P and a 4P to beat the most productive guys.
Do you have any advice for overclockers just starting out particularly those who are now enticed by the new CUP and the possibilities it brings with it? Be realistic; don’t aim too high in the beginning. Be happy with whatever you can get, and try to improve. Go for tweaks rather than cold, so you learn how to bench “properly”, and use some older (cheaper) parts until you’re sure you’ve figured out how to handle subzero temps, and everything that comes with it – condensation etc. Any other insights you would like to share with the community regarding overclocking, hardware or anything related? If you don’t have the cash to get the newest, most expensive gear, run older parts. It’s way more fun than you think! You’ll still feel awesome if you can produce good scores in popular hardware categories. Beating records that are a few years old is also a bit special. [ The OverClocker ] Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 9
GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH RRP: $244.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com
Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 3770K • EVGA NVIDIA GTX TITAN (314.14) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10 • OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1
T
owards the end of the Z77 lifespan then, we finally get around to testing the premium UP5TH board from GIGABYTE. This one represents the most feature packed board in the normal line up outside of the gaming and overclocking SKUs. As such we had great expectations for the UP5TH and fortunately it delivered on almost all accounts. Last issue we reviewed the UD4H, an upgraded board based on the UD3H which was our previous favourite Z77 entry from GIGABYTE.
10 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
The UP5TH is actually older than the UD4H so in some ways it has not benefited from all things learned since the Z77 boards were introduced. Take for instance the POST LED placement. It’s between the 12V ATX connector and the DIMM slots. Not the worst possible location but certainly not ideal (hence it’s relocation on the UD4H). The UP5TH also lacks PS2 mouse support and since there are no stickers labelling where precisely your keyboard and mouse should be plugged in, you may have a tough time navigating your OS, until the right drivers are installed. Not a train smash but certainly not ideal. It’s these little things that were sorted out on later motherboards which may make the UP5TH seem rather bland in comparison. However, those were the only complaints we had about the motherboard. As far as performance and tuning goes, it’s just as capable as any of the other boards in the family.
You can tell by the benchmark results which were near identical to those of the UD4H which thus far has proved to be the fastest GIGABYTE Z77 board we have tested. That alone would more than justify its purchase especially if you’re one that has to have thunderbolt connectivity for whatever reason. Talking about thunderbolt, this is where perhaps the main attraction of this board lies. It features two connectors which you can then use for 4K display and video playback. We aren’t sure how many people will find this meaningful in the overclocking and even enthusiasts community, but as we’ve learned previously. There are many DIY users who need such features and as far as we know, this is one of the few boards that actually support 4K video. On to the BIOS then, you’ll find the familiar GIIGABYTE UEFI 3D BIOS. It’s come a long way since its initial showing and navigating it is very simple and quick, especially if you’re
All results were obtained at 4600MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. We’ll not be testing on Windows XP from here on in, so there are no more 3DMark2001SE results. These are our figures, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.
Motherboard
GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH (F13a)
Cinebench 11.5
3DMark11
Super Pi 8M
Aida 64 Copy
Aida 64 Latency
9,8
13782
1.25.563
28909
29,8
1.25.213
28916
29,9
Physics: 12308
GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H (F2i)
9,79
13942 Physics: 11969
using the keyboard. Spend some time with it and you’ll be right at home, tweaking away at every possible setting like an expert. There’s really not much to say here that we haven’t said before. It could do with some improvements, but it certainly isn’t lacking in any department. Reaching those high clock speeds regardless of cooling will be down to your individual hardware and not any short coming on the board. As stated earlier, this is one of the first offerings from GIGABYTE so it won’t have some of the connectivity options found on the UD4H for, like the eight SATA ports where the UP5TH has seven. Memory overclocking is one area that has often been difficult for motherboards. When the first batch of GIGABYTE Z77 boards came, the performance was there along with the efficiency, but DRAM clock speeds were not as high as we expected. This was slowly remedied and today the UD4H will go head to head with just about any Z77 board there is from any vendor, delivering DRAM speeds north side of 2800MHz with relative ease. With the UP5TH, reaching this clock speed will prove a little more challenging but certainly not
impossible. It just means you’ll need to spend a little more time than you would on the UD4H for example. With that said, not every CPU out there can reach this memory speed, so more times than not it may be an issue of the CPU not having an IIMC capable of such a frequency rather than the motherboard. In our case, testing with another CPU sample with a fairly average IMC, we found that limits for memory overclocking to be identical on both the UD4H and the UP5TH, proving once again that the IMC has a lot more to do with the memory overclocking than the board and the memory sometimes. Overall this is the kind of quality and solid design you would expect from a GIGABYTE motherboard. It’s amongst the more impressive motherboards in the line-up only bettered by the G1 range, the UD4H and the UP7. Given the pricing of all those boards, save for the UD4H one can’t help but think this is the second best board from GIGABYTE in the entire range. At $245 it isn’t cheap but it certainly has the performance to match any and all out on the market. At this juncture, so close to the Z87 chipset release - you may
want to wait for the upcoming Z87 range from GIGABYTE, but if you can’t wait and must buy a board right now. Give this one some serious consideration. [ TheOverclocker ]
Summary The Z77X-UP5TH came out before the UD4H which we reviewed a few issues back. For all intents and purposes, the UD4H is the better board, lacking only a few features that the UP5TH has. With that said that, the UP5TH is a worthwhile purchase for those who absolutely have to have m-SATA and thunderbolt options.
Would you buy it? Sure enough, especially if thunderbolt was of paramount importance to us.
The Score
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 11
Hardware Award
EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN RRP: $999.99 | Website: www.evga.com Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 3770K • GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 314.14)
O
k, so here’s the deal with the GTX TITAN. It’s expensive; absurdly so but then again, if you have the highest performing product on the market, you can effectively charge anything you desire. So by now you’re all probably aware of what it is that makes the TITAN tick. It’s essentially the compute part that came in the form of the K20, but now made available to desktop users or power users rather for their gaming purposes. With a totally of 6GB of memory, one can safely say that there isn’t a resolution or
12 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
configuration that this graphics card cannot support. Do we need 6GB of memory at present on a graphics card? No, of course not, but when you’re paying $1,000 for an accelerator it best have all the bells and whistles. Having said that we can’t help but think, perhaps a better PCB and cooler would have done the trick even if it meant sticking with just 3GB of memory. This is simple to observe especially in our testing where we found that cooling the TITAN increased clock speeds significantly allowing you to squeeze out even more performance from the card. We also found out that, the 6-phase PWM isn’t actually enough to allow extreme overclockers to push this card to its very limits. For that you’ll need the EVGA E-Power VRM board. Given that it’s a $100, you can tell just how expensive overclocking the GTX TIITAN can be. However, even if you have the E-Power, you’ll not only need some impressive electronics skills to get it working, you’ll effectively void your warranty
and risk one of the most expensive graphics cards ever made. Should you not be deterred by any of this and provided you get it right, you should find yourself on the top 20 lists on HWBOT in almost every single 3D Benchmark. More over you’ll not be under threat of an HD7970 toppling your score due to some tweaking, as there’s nothing an HD7970 can do against a fully modified GTX TITAN. With that said, it is important to note that you’re also going to perhaps need a special BIOS which up until recently wasn’t easily available. This is effectively the extreme overclocking BIOS which was only available to a few before. Never fear though, as HWBHOT has the BIOS hosted and you can simply grab it there. We must however warn you, that use of the BIOS is not supported or condoned by NVIDIA, EVGA or any other vendor for that matter. Using it will most certainly void your warranty and expose your card to risks that will
All results were obtained at 4800MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.
Graphics Card
Clocks
3DMark Fire Strike
Catzilla: Tiger
3DMark11
HWBOT Unigine Heaven Xtreme
Hitman: Absolution (Ultra 4xAA)
EVGA GeFroce GTX Titan SLI
Default
13930
23204
20252
5325,875
80,63
Graphics: 17419
Hardware (CPU+GPU): 22554
Graphics: 26163
10196
15414
15317
3261,555
75,56
Graphics: 11528
Hardware (CPU+GPU): 14880
Graphics: 16922
8960
13483
13729
3032,096
69,81
Graphics: 9952
Hardware (GPU+CPU): 13060
Graphics: 14474
6856
10088
11115
2146,45
48,78
Graphics: 7547
Hardware (GPU+CPU): 9740
Graphics: 11253
EVGA GeForce GTX Titan OC
EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN
MSI NGTX680 Lightning
1175MHz/6.8GHz
Default
Default
likely not be covered under any circumstances. So what then of the performance in the less extreme conditions? Well, the TITAN is as you’d expect wiping the floor with every other single GPU card on the market. It doesn’t match the HD7990 or the GTX690, but it is close enough that it becomes a viable alternative. You’ll sacrifice some performance, but you’ll never have to worry about multi-GPU game support and the like. Meaning you’ll never have to wait for any game or benchmark to support SLI before you can take full advantage of the latent power. It’s all available all the time, every time. Since all GTX TITAN cards are identical, we will not prejudice EVGA for it’s cooling in anyway because they, much like all other vendors had no choice in the matter. The standard cooler, does manage to prevent the GPU from cooking itself, but it doesn’t quite deliver when it comes to the overclocking. It simply can’t tolerate the higher thermal output when you are pushing at the limits. As such, we’d recommend an aftermarket cooler, as most coolers that work with the GTX680 should work with the GTX TITAN as well. Not only will this lead to
quieter operation, but better 24/7 clock speeds and hence better performance. For the gamers, we do believe that the GTX 680 still offers better value especially with the latest Metro Last Light bundle (assuming you’re in a qualifying region). If you plan on multi monitor gaming or play at greater than HD resolutions, the GTX TITAN just may be what you need though. It handles every title right now fairly easily and allows you to crank up the AA settings in all your games. As the ultimate gaming graphics card, you can’t beat the GTX TITAN. In the end the GTX TITAN is exactly what we expected from the rumours we had heard all those months back. 2,688 CUDA cores, a 384-bt memory bus and an insanely high texture fill-rate. It’s a larger GTX680 or rather the GTX 680 is a cut down version of the TITAN. If you have the funds for such a card, we’d say go out and buy it. It’ll last you for years on end and with the amount of rendering power at your disposal, you can just about throw anything at the TITAN and get great performance. Be it in GPU computing, competitive overclocking or gaming. The GTX TITAN does it all. We still can’t get over the pricing, but it’s true that we are thoroughly moved by
the incredible performance, The GTX TITAN really is worthy of its dramatic name. [ TheOverclocker ]
Summary NVIDIA and thus EVGA and others are charging 100% more than the going price of the GTX680 for anywhere between 20% to 40% more performance. At $999 the GPU is insanely expensive, but having the fastest GPU on the planet allows you to charge as much as you want. Those single card overclocking records are going to need the GTX TITAN so buy it if you can afford it.
Would you buy it? You’ve little choice if you want the fastest GPU money can buy, so yes we would.
The Score
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 13
EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD
NZXT Kraken X60 RRP: $137.99 | Website: www.nzxt.com
Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 3770K • GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H (F2i) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • INTEL 335 240GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1
I
t may come as a surprise to you, that this is only the 2nd time in the history of this magazine that we’ve looked at a product from NZXT. All the way back in the February of 2011, when the TheOverclocker 2.0 was still in its infancy we looked at the NZXT Phantom. At the time it blew us away with its beautiful design, keen pricing and features. Since then, a lot has happened in the DIY market but this time we are not looking at a case but the now ubiquitous all in one liquid cooling kit. 14 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
Thus far, we’ve been impressed by less than a handful of such kits and this is not because the vast majority do not perform well. To the contrary, they are by and large very good at keeping high temperatures at bay. It’s mostly in the build quality and elaborate setup procedure where they fall short. For us who change and test hardware on a regular basis, this just won’t do. For most overclockers who are binning CPUs on air quickly before trying LN2, this is equally annoying. Moreover we have found many kits to have back plates that have mounting holes that simply give out due to too much pressure from repeated installation and removal. A line of products that have been an exception to this have been from CORSAIR. The Hydro series has proved to have the most robust and easiest installation mechanism we know off. Thus, ever since the H100
and subsequently the H100i, we’ve been impressed in all respects with everything the range offered. The NZXT X60 then, was a product we had heard great things about but remained unconvinced until we took it for a spin ourselves. We found that it’s nothing short of a splendid water cooler in almost all regards. However, before we get into what it does right, let us highlight where there could be improvements. First and foremost, the fans on the Kraken are loud. You can use the software to turn down the fan speed or even better buy some aftermarket 140mm fans, but for almost $140 you’d have expected them to be a little quieter. They move air very well; it’s just in the acoustics department where they fall short. Secondly, the back plate issue is present with the Kraken. As experienced when we looked at the Thermaltake Water 2.0 PRO. It’s easy to
The testing method we employed measured idle and load temperatures on a 3770K at 4.6GHz with a 1.3V core voltage, 1.2V VTT and 1.2 V IMC Voltage.
over tighten the screws and strip the back plate grooves. This isn’t an issue with the plate that CORSAIR uses on the Hydro Series. Such an implementation along with quieter fans would simply make this the best AIO cooler money can buy right now. That aside, it’s time to get down to what really got us excited about the Kraken. Despite the back plate, it’s very simple to install and setup. You don’t even need the manual as it’s very selfexplanatory. We had the unit up and running within minutes of opening the box. This is fantastic especially seeing as some coolers have the most annoying and unnecessarily elaborate setup procedures (such as the Cooler Master Seidon 240M). We had none of this with the Kraken and that alone ticked an important box for us. Upon installing the unit, without letting the thermal paste settle we already started to record lower temperatures than we had with any other water cooler before. We did remove the thermal grease that is on the base of the block and used instead, Gelid Extreme as that’s our paste of choice for everything. With water coolers, you’re never really going to
Cooler
4 Core Idle
4 Core Load
8 thread Idle
8 thread Load
NZXT Kraken X60 (4.6GHz @ 1.3V)
31
64
32
67
CORSAIR H100i ( 4.6Ghz @ 1.3V)
33
67
34
77
see massive difference in performance especially when looking at idle speeds or the lower end CPUs. Pretty much any cooler will do the job there. It’s when you start overclocking where the difference is very apparent. In our results you’ll see that we were comparing our previous champion the H100i against the NZXT X60. We are fully aware that the X60 uses a larger radiator and fans, thus a more direct comparison would be with the H110. However we’ve not received that yet and we’ll be sure to compare the H110 against the Kraken X60 at that time. Until then, the X60 is the best performing AIO cooler we’ve ever come across. The numbers speak for themselves, especially with hyper-threading enabled, under load. The difference in temperatures is a staggering 10’C. This obviously isn’t enough to give you extra overclocking headroom, but it will help keep a previously borderline overclock, perfectly stable or at least enough for you to finish your benchmarks and save your results. There aren’t many CPU coolers that can hold an FX CPU at 5GHz comfortably, but with the kind of performance we saw with the X60, we’re pretty sure it’ll do the job. Something worth
considering if indeed the AMD Centurion does see the light of day. Overall, we are very impressed with the NZXT Kraken X60. It isn’t perfect but it does the job so well that we are willing to overlook any and all its infractions. The NZXT Kraken X60 is a must buy. [ TheOverclocker ]
Summary NZXT has made a true class leading AIO liquid cooler with the Kraken X60. It’s not only the best performing liquid cooler we’ve tested, it’s amongst the easiest to install as well courtesy of a tried and tested familiar system. Get it if you can.
Would you buy it? Most certainly.
The Score
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 15
K|NGP|N’s CORNER:
MY PRO OVERCLOCKING POINT OF VIEW A
s I sit here catching my breath and giving my back a rest from overclocking two-way SLI 3DMark Fire Strike all day, I can't help but think, “Here I am ten years later sitting in this lab so far from home still overclocking, still going for it.” “Still pushing it" as our friend Ollie from Denmark always says. So many different components and systems over the years it’s tough to remember them all. Whether it’s all out lab extreme overclocking, preparing for and doing trade shows and public demos ,working on and testing new container designs and everything else that has to do with running KPC. It’s been a 24/7 ceaseless commitment, a way of life really. From time to time I have lost a little bit of the passion, but it usually doesn't last long. A new graphics cards, CPU, motherboard or new 3D benchmark always cures this. Why the overclocking bug bit me so hard I will never know, only that it will continue as long as this industry exists. In this and maybe the next few editions of The Overclocker rather than do prep guides, I will switch it up and do editorials on relevant and maybe not so relevant topics. The whole business of overclocking has really evolved from its humble beginnings. The overclocking capabilities of hardware components as well as BIOS and software features are heavily marketed by all the major motherboard and graphics card
16 The OverClocker Issue 24| 2013
manufacturers. Companies have hired extreme overclockers for R&D to help design and test new products; as such hardware world records are so commonly used for marketing and millions of dollars are spent on organizing global competitions. This is all great for extreme overclockers as well as mainstream PC enthusiasts for one reason or another. However, I always keep asking myself. “Why has extreme overclocking not caught on with more mainstream PC enthusiasts at a faster rate?” After all this time, why is it still so very niche? Why does it seem like more overclockers are leaving the game then getting into it? Mainstream users trending away from larger, bulkier, power hungry desktop systems to mobile and compact solutions is part of it. Cost of the components needed for achieving competitive results and a sluggish global economy in recent years has contributed for sure. These are things that can and will happen and that we cannot control. However, how about top level extreme overclocking just not being as exciting anymore? No matter how much I love extreme overclocking, it will always will be a rinse and repeat with a new piece of HW in the same benchmark or a new one. The formula doesn't really change. To make it worse, mega binning of CPUs to get the best scaling/result possible has changed the game a lot from just putting it all
together to needing to putting it all together after testing many parts. Many of the same benchmark records can be beaten by using the same setup with little variation. (Essentially you can spam your golden CPU/GPU or whatever, I agree –Ed!) Regardless of how things are today and rather than talk about how it is this or that, let us talk about what we can do to try and move forward. A while back, I was chatting with Massman (Pieter-Jan) and Neo about this topic. We discussed the declining participation of extreme overclockers and possible ways to make things more exciting for those currently active, as well as encourage new participation from others at a higher level. The latter part is critical for growth. Extreme overclocking needs more fans and followers/ spectators, not just participants only. Gone are the days when you posted record results on a forum and the thread would receive 100,000 views or more on a forum. It would also get covered on mainstream site all over the internet. I always thought and hoped overclocking would turn into an E-sport one day similar to what gaming has become and it has to a certain extent with the advent of public competitions such as GOOC and MOA as well as many online competitions. That said, it definitely has not evolved, let’s go for more... This is where the HWBOT PRO OC CUP enters. This is a fresh idea from
one of the beacons of the extreme overclocking community, which is not a fix for all - no doubt, but a step in the right direction. It has advantages over the old PRO league in many ways. The idea of having multiple stages where vastly different types of hardware configurations are needed encourages more participation from a wider pool as opposed to just one ultra-binned setup used in multiple benchmark applications (spamming once again – Ed!). Keeping it fresh is something that can be addressed as well with rounds or seasons. The team concept allows different people to team up and collate their individual skills and resources to become one competitive force. I support HWBOT through KPC so it makes sense that I also will support the new cup through multiple teams. I would be glad to see more current "pros" be a part of it leading the way. Some of you guys are representatives of your local scenes and give inspiration to up and comers who look up to and admire what you do. This is the way to grow overclocking, taking it back to grassroots level. It is a shame to see some very talented people not in it this first round and I really hope they see them become a part of it in the next round. I hope and believe extreme overclocking still can become a bigger part of mainstream high end desktop computing in the future, much more than what it is now. Through everything KINGPINcooling does and all my personal efforts in extreme overclocking, I will definitely work towards this goal. FYI-There are lots of really cool ground breaking things with the KPC brand planned for 2013 that could go a long way in helping spread extreme overclocking awareness as well as "the bug" to the mainstream PC desktop market. Everyone actively promoting extreme overclocking from the industry collectively has one main goal regardless of what company we work for or are sponsored by. It is to drive participation and get more people overclocking and enjoying this great activity. Until next time. [ K|NGP|N ]
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 17
OCZ VERTEX 3.20 240GB SSD RRP: $229.99 | Website: www.ocz.com
Test Machine • Intel Core i7 3770K • GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H (F2i) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1
H
ere is yet another SSD from OCZ. There’s no questioning that OCZ knows how to make SSD drives that are both compelling in performance and sometimes in price. Over the last few issues we’ve looked at the blisteringly quick OCZ Vector and the Vertex4, both remarkable and well worth their placing amongst enthusiast class SSDs. So what of the Vertex3.20 then? Well this is a newer version of the original Vertex3. In essence the only thing changed is that the new drives make use of 20nm Intel NAND instead of the older 25nm NAND also from Intel. This does
18 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
nothing but cut costs for OCZ, ideally without compromising performance. What it does in theory though is reduce the life cycle of the NAND. However this shouldn’t be a problem for any user at all as you’re unlikely to cause failure through repeated writes in any realistic scenario. We’ll save you the time as there’s no need to go into the internals of this drive, you’ve seen it before. The original Vertex 3 was one of the first if not the first drive to come out with the then new SF-2281 controller. So you can imagine everything associated with that controller holds true here as well. Keep in mind that this was previously OCZ’s high end offering, but was subsequently replaced by the Vertex 4, the Vector and now we’re hearing rumours of a Vertex 5. Either way this is a mid-range offering from the outfit and as such the performance should not be judged too critically or against other heavy hitters like the Samsung 840. What should be of concern to you
is the pricing which in turn will skew your opinion on the drive. From where we stand the performance is admirable for what it is, but falls short of being as impressive as the original Vertex3 when it came out and certainly nothing like the Vertex3.. The problem here is that at $229 USD, you’re essentially charging performance grade prices for a mid-range part. No doubt that with some shopping around you may be able to find it a little cheaper but based on the pricing we use consistently; this is an expensive drive. It costs more than the remarkable CORSAIR Neutron GTX. Now there’s no situation where this drive outperforms the GTX yet at the time of writing, the GTX was selling for just under $200. That means for significantly lower performance you’re paying up to $30 more. That alone may make you consider another drive because while the Vertex3.20 is faster than the INTEL 335 we reviewed last issue. It isn’t a whole lot faster. Mind you the INTEL drive is also overpriced in
“Physically the Vertex3.20 is as any SSD on the market of late, it is 7mm thick allowing you to use it in your ultra-books and the like and should do well in just about anything that takes a regular 2.5” drive.”
All results were obtained at 4600MHz on a normal install of Windows 7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system
Drive
Average Read
Average Write
4K Read(QD32)
4K Write (QD32)
Read IOPS
OCZ Vertex 4 512GB
463,5
509,3
306,6
318,6
Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB
473,6
496
294,3
316,2
Corsair Neutron 240GB
457,3
370,9
284,9
INTEL 335 240GB SSD
486,9
239,6
OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB
492,3
327
comparison to the GTX, so this pricing issue isn’t isolated to the Vertex3.20 at all. Alternatively it could be that the GTX is just under-priced. If pricing isn’t an issue for you however, you’ll find that the Vertex3.20 isn’t a bad at all. We don’t have the original Vertex3 numbers posted here, but suffice to say that the 3.20 isn’t as fast for the most part. For some reason it performs to varying degrees; slower on most tests but not by a whole lot. In any real life situation, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference when using either drive. For those who are looking for storage performance records, you may be better served by the older drives than this one as we can imagine the performance difference is only magnified in a RAID configuration. Physically the Vertex3.20 is as any SSD on the market of late, it is 7mm thick allowing you to use it in your ultra-books and the like and should do well in just about anything that takes a regular 2.5” drive. The package doesn’t consist of much as
Write IOPS
Maximum IO response time (ms)
71962,4
85423,25
9,2627
76753,7
83326,26
8,3643
307,9
76642,4
82769,19
11,2734
183,5
97,82
31971,3
58152,8
11,7661
145
264,4
57070,86
48527,04
11,4531
well. It’s a blister pack with no additional software or bracket. Just the SSD and that’s it, a thin package again considering the price. For less, the Neutron drives will give you software and an adapter for 3.5” bays. On the Kingston side you’ll get the Hyper X 3K, which is much faster for the same price or for around $10 more, get the USB enclosure and all sorts of other goodies in the package. Ultimately the cost cutting by moving to the 20nm NAND isn’t being passed down to the end user. It’s purely for OCZ’s benefit. Not a bad thing in itself, but it would have been great if at least the performance remained the same from the old drive to this one. Alas, this is not the case. We’d suggest you take a look at the Agility series, the Vertex 4 or the Vector for that matter. As those drives offer better value than this one. If you must have this one however, go on and get it. It isn’t slow by any stretch of the imagination.
Summary This drive represents a shrink in NAND technology for OCZ. It’s a replacement for what was previously a high end drive based on the SF2281 controller. As such the performance should be familiar to you. It’s not the most cost effective drive on the market but it isn’t a bad drive either. At $20 less it’d be hand over fist better than the INTEL 335 240GB drive.
Would you buy it? If we were die hard OCZ fans.
The Score
[ TheOverclocker ]
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 19
A Brief History of OVERCLOCKING The First 15 Years at 14.318MHz
20 The OverClocker ocker Issue 24 | 2013
Overclocking may have only become a mainstream hobby is the last decade, but its roots can be traced back to the PC itself. While the methods used to overclock may have changed, the goal has remained the same – “increase the performance of your computer”. Much like modifying a car's engine, overclocking can be done for one or two reasons. Either you can increase the performance of a cheap model to match that of a more expensive model, aim for performance greater than that of any off-the-shelf components or both.
HOW IT WORKS
A clock speed is generated by a clock crystal known as a crystal oscillator, Quartz usually the crustal of choice. When an electric current is passed through the crystal, it produces a steady pulse of 14.318MHz - this is called the system clock. It is not unique to computers and can be seen in televisions amongst other things. However, to the computer this is a seemingly useless frequency as nothing runs at 14.318MHz. To combat this problem, a circuit is used to derive the speeds required. This circuit is known as a PhaseLocked Loop, or PLL. Several of these circuits can be seen in a single clock generator, which is a chip running alongside a nearby 14.318MHz oscillator. The clock generator gives off the required frequencies for the BCLK, PCI-Express bus (if it is not tied to the BCLK), PCI bus, RAM and anything else which needs a clock speed. The PLL allows us to change these speeds through a few components - a phase comparator, a Voltage
Controlled Oscillator (VCO), and a down counter (divider). The phase comparator has two inputs; one for the reference clock speed of 14.318MHz and the other for is a looped-back input for the frequency from the VCO. The phase comparator then compares the two frequencies and generates a voltage based on the difference. Should both values be the same, the output voltage will remain unchanged and the VCO will continue to oscillate at the current rate of 14.318MHz - the same rate as the crystal oscillator. In order to generate a faster clock speed, a divider is introduced after the VCO as it is looping back to the phase comparator. If a divider of two were to be used, the VCO would feed in 14.318MHz to the divider which would result in an output of 7.159MHz. This 7.159MHz frequency is then fed back into the phase comparator which tricks it into thinking it is only operating at half the frequency it should. The phase comparator compensates for this by hitting the
VCO with more voltage to get the output frequency doubled back up to 14.318MHz. The result of this trickery is an actual output of 28.636MHz which is siphoned off and becomes the new output frequency for the system. The divider feeds 14.318MHz back to the phase comparator, which assumes that the previous voltage output was correct. It then continues to output the same voltage, keeping the higher system speed. The IBM XT computer ran at a clock speed of 4.77MHz. We can see that reversing this process by introducing a multiplier into the system instead of a divider would result in a lower system speed. By using a multiplier of three, the phase comparator would be fed an input of 42.954MHz from the VCO. It compensates for this, reducing the voltage until the VCO outputs just 4.773MHz. This 4.773MHz is once again fed through the multiplier which in turn reports the current frequency to the phase comparator as 14.318MHz. Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 21
THE EARLY DAYS
In 1983, INTEL was an unseen player as they simply manufactured and supplied the processors which IBM used in the IBM XT (eXtended Technology). Rather than being sold in component form, PCs of the day were sold as complete units and IBM at the time, was the Wintel (Windows/INTEL) of today. The INTEL 8088 processor was designed to run at up to 8MHz, and clones made by AMD (who had an x86 license) ran as fast as 10MHz. This would make AMD one of the first companies to commercially sell overclocked hardware. Despite this, IBM kept the INTEL 8088 chips running no faster than 4.77MHz to ensure stability. Overclocking of these processors could be accomplished by desoldering the clock crystal and replacing it with another, faster after-market crystal. However, this could lead to instability of the system. Today we have various bus speeds and multipliers which can be changed
such as the BCLK (base clock), Hyper Transport, and RAM/CPU multipliers. The IBM XT however, had only one - the Front Side Bus, or FSB. All system buses ran at this frequency, from the CPU to the RAM to all other communication buses. The RAM of the time had only one specification and that was a refresh rate of 210 nanoseconds. No other specification was needed as it simply ran at the same speed the rest of the system used - 4.77MHz. The RAM used in the XT came as a 40-pin Dual Inline Package (DIP) module with a default capacity of 64 KB. Moving forward to 1984, IBM launched the AT (Advanced Technology) which used INTEL's new 80286 processor at speeds of either 6MHz or 8MHz. As a result of this, the revised 16-bit ISA bus was designed to run at either frequency. People soon caught on that the only difference between the two models was the clock crystal used, and by replacing the crystal they could get the extra 2MHz
offered by the more expensive model. After catching on, IBM became the world's first company to block overclocking and it was done by introducing a method of overclocking protection at BIOS level. Once this block was in place, users had to not only replace the clock crystal but also the BIOS chip itself. A big problem with overclocking of the time was that as everything was running at the same clock speed and most software was tied to the system bus rather than using its own internal timer. Applications would often run faster than intended and rendered games unplayable. Other applications became unstable or refused to run at all. This is how the Turbo button seen on PCs from the 286 to 486 came to be. Contrary to popular belief, the Turbo button was not intended to run your system at a higher speed but rather to underclock it to a speed usable by older applications. As its purpose was misunderstood, Turbo was left enabled by most people who
PERFORMANCE RATINGS AMD released their first in-house chip, the K5, in 1996. Compared to the Pentium, it was late to market, hot and ran at a low frequency. In order to make their processors more appealing, AMD named them after their "performance ratings" rather than actual clock speed. These performance ratings were to show that the processor would offer the same performance as a higher clocked INTEL CPU. As an example, the K5 133MHz was sold as the K5 PR200, implying that it would match the speed of a Pentium running at 200MHz. AMD would not be the only company using performance ratings, with Cyrix using them for the 6x86 and MII CPU families, as well as ST's 6x86 and Rise Technology's MP6 family. Years later, AMD would once more adopt performance ratings with the launch of the Athlon XP in late 2001.
22 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
assumed application crashes were due to buggy code. Several companies licensed the technology from INTEL to make their own CPUs and Harris Semiconductor was one notable example. Though several years late to the market, the company offered 286-compatible processors operating at up to 25MHz - a 100 % overclock above INTEL's maximum clock speed for the 286.
INTRODUCTION OF THE CHIPSET AND JUMPER OVERCLOCKING
Up until 1986, the IBM PCs consisted of 100 or more chips on the motherboard keeping everything functioning. Included were DMA controllers, interrupt controllers, keyboard controllers, bus controllers, nonvolatile CMOS RAM/real-time clock chips, memory controllers and more. Other than the CMOS/clock chip which came from Motorola, these chips were mostly manufactured by INTEL or an INTEL license-holding manufacturer. Building an IBMcompatible clone computer required all of these components, leaving very little room on motherboards to integrate more functionality as well as high prices.
A company called CHIPS AND TECHNOLOGIES changed the playing field by introducing the 82C206 - the first chipset. The 82C206 included the functionality of the 8254 system timer, dual 8259 interrupt controllers, dual 8237 DMA controllers, the 82284 clock generator, 82288 bus controller and even MC146818 CMOS/clock chip. Four other chips augmented the 82C206, acting as buffers and memory controllers. This reduced most of the entire motherboard circuit design to just five chips. The four chips augmenting the 82C206 were later replaced by three chips, and the set was called the New Enhanced AT (NEAT) CS8221 chipset. This design was later shrunk down to the 82C836 Single Chip AT (SCAT) chipset in 1989, with the functionality of the motherboard shrunk down to a single chip. These cheaper, simpler motherboards meant that higher clock speeds were possible. The INTEL 386 launched in 1986 as the first 32-bit processor, allowing for access of up to 4 GB of RAM. The 386 launched with a speed of 16MHz, ultimately reaching 33MHz. The CPU still operated at the same speed as the FSB as the CPU multiplier was still several years away. A big advancement with the 386 was the introduction of banks of DIP
switches and jumpers for configuring system speeds and voltages. This made overclocking as simple as moving a plastic jumper or flipping a tiny white switch, putting an end to changing crystals. The INTEL 486 introduced burst mode memory access. After a read, the computer could access the next three adjacent states without wait states. The number of cycles required to access the four states was referred to in the form of X-A-B-C, where X equalled the first access time and A-B-C the number of cycles required for each following access. This was the first of today's primary memory timings, namely CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge and Active to Precharge Delay (CL-tRCD-tRPtRAS). Memory of the time was using a 30-pin Single Inline Memory Module (SIMM) form factor and was normally rated at 5-3-3-3 with a refresh time of 60 nanoseconds. This meant that the memory ran at an asynchronous clock speed of only 16MHz, causing it to become a bottleneck on all but the slowest processors. To counter the bottleneck, the memory supported interleaving. This was a technique used to precharge one SIMM while the other was being read hence reducing latencies. As each SIMM had an 8-bit data bus, Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 23
two SIMMs were required for 16-bit memory access (supported by the 386) and four for 32-bit access (supported by the 486).
INTRODUCTION OF THE CPU MULTIPLIER
In 1992, INTEL released the 486DX2 processor which introduced the concept of the CPU multiplier. Up until then, the CPU ran at exactly the same speed as the system bus, whereas the 2x multiplier seen on the 486DX2 allowed the CPU to operate at twice the speed. The 486DX2 was also the first time that INTEL started binning CPUs with chips failing internal tests being sold as the 486SX, which had the FPU included but disabled. This practice was later applied to CPU frequencies as well, where a processor failing testing using a 2x multiplier might be sold as one using a 1x multiplier. Worth noting is that there was a
24 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
80487 co-processor which could be bought separately for systems with the SX chip so as to add the missing FPU functionality. This was a fully functioning 486DX chip which actually disabled the 486SX CPU and took over all CPU functions. This really opened up the gates for overclockers, as while some failed chips could only manage a slight increase over their stock speed, others could get to within a few MHz of the next speed grade or even more. As CPU voltages could not be selected by the system automatically, the user would have to dial in the voltage manually using either DIP switches or jumpers. A higher than stock voltage often meant that the processor would be capable of frequencies in excess of models which were two or more speed grades above. This also introduced the concept of “clock ceilings”, where between the manufacturer and overclockers the speed limits of a process and architecture could be found. By 1993, INTEL had released the Pentium processor using the P5 architecture, but with an FPU bug, these CPUs suffered from limited widespread adoption. These original Pentium processors had an FSB of either 60MHz or 66MHz, and a 1x multiplier. With successively higher bus speeds, higher frequency RAM became a reality, while the new 64-bit memory controller meant a wider bus would be needed for the RAM. The old
30-pin, 8-bit SIMMs were replaced by 72-pin, 32-bit EDO (Extended Data Out) SIMMS. As the Pentium supported 64-bit memory access, EDO SIMMs required installation in pairs. EDO RAM had another advantage, however. When starting a new cycle, it could keep the data path open from the previous memory access, bringing timings down to 5-2-2-2. The following year, the company released IntelDX4 (sometimes referred to as the 486DX4/100) which had a 3x multiplier. This allowed for CPUs to operate at up to 100MHz by using a 33MHz FSB and 3x multiplier, although some versions used a 25MHz FSB and 3x multiplier. We had finally arrived at the era of CPU multipliers. As useful as multipliers had proved, there was one large downside (at least from a CPU manufacturer’s perspective). The 486 SX25 for example could often operate with perfect stability simply by moving a jumper or flicking a DIP switch to increase the system bus to 33MHz. It was so easy and efficient that several retailers caught on, leading to fraudulent sales and the first overclocking scam. INTEL's first attempt to combat this was only several years later with a locked 2x multiplier on the Pentium 133 (S-Spec SY022). The multiplier lock was seen again on most Pentium MMX chips, and with the introduction of the Pentium II it became the norm; a lock which would stay in place until the launch of the Pentium Extreme Edition in late 2003.
JUMPER-LESS OVERCLOCKING
Up until 1996, overclocking was done exclusively through physical adjustment on the motherboard, be it by changing a crystal, moving a ju jumper or flicking a switch. In early 1996, ABIT introduced BIOS ea overclocking in the form of the ove SoftMenu overclocking page. So SoftMenu allowed both basic and S advanced overclocking, as well as ad automatically applying the settings au required for the installed CPU. In its req most basic form, you could select mo aC CPU speed one-up from that of the chip installed. For the more advanced users and the brave alike, ad the "User Define" setting offered everything you could ask for from eve the bus speed and multipliers to core voltages. This removed the need to vo open the computer box to change op settings, making overclocking a lot se more accessible and slightly more mo ma mainstream. A Almost three years later, ABIT wo would introduce SoftMenu III first seen on the BF6 and BE6-II motherboards, us ushering in FSB overclocking in 1M 1MHz increments. Prior to this, FSB ove overclocking was done using one of
several fixed ratios offered by the manufacturer. As one can imagine, these increments were fairly far apart. It was common to see patterns such as 66, 75, 83, 95, 100MHz and so on. A processor that may have been perfectly stable at 75MHz but crashed at 83MHz was almost certainly not at its limit at 75MHz. The limit was somewhere between 75MHz and 83MHz, but even if it was at 82MHz, one would be stuck using the 75MHz option. This change alone made 1MHz increments one of the biggest advances in overclocking at the time.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Over a period of fifteen years we've gone from doing weeks of research on crystal replacement as a means to increase the performance and stability of an entire machine to lounging back in the BIOS, increasing the FSB 1MHz at a time until the CPU had nothing more to give. The next fifteen years proved to be just as exciting, with manufacturers honing in on overclocking and bringing it to the masses. Join us next time where we will tackle the next fifteen years. [Jonathan Horne]
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 25
HWBOT PRO
A CHANGE IN THE SCENE As HWBOT gently rolls through its fifth development revision, a couple of new feature already made it to the production copy of the site. The most prominent change in the latest revision is the transformation of the Professional Overclockers League into a series of Professional Overclocking Cups, A minor difference in words, yet a very significant change. In this editorial, I would like to familiarize you with the principles of the new Cup, explain why the transformation took place and help you get started in a Pro OC Team.
26 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
O OC CUP THE HWBOT OVERCLOCKING LEAGUES First things first, let’s have a look at the brief history of the overclocking leagues at HWBOT. The (perhaps arguable) fun of competitive overclocking at HWBOT started almost six and a half years ago back in 2006, on November 3rd to be precise. The first revision of the HWBoints (A collective term for everything point related at HWBOT) - featured a simple user and team ranking. The first league was actually quite similar to the leagues we have today. Only slightly less complicated. The original league was just the sum of all points, nothing more and nothing less. About three months later, on February 11 2007, the second revision of the HWBoints was introduced. The first revision was mostly about finetuning what did not work well enough at the launch. The revision included a small rework of the points balance. The third revision came much later, on Christmas day 2009 and featured significant changes affecting the member ranking. The revision included redefining the hardware rankings in terms of cores rather than sockets as well as giving more weight to the highly competitive benchmark rankings and limiting the amount of global points that could contribute to your personal ranking. Changing the hardware rankings from a socketcentric to a core-centric structure gave quite the boost to single GPU overclocking. Before, dual GPU graphics cards such as the Radeon HD 3870X2 and GeForce GTX 295 were the best choice for competitive overclockers. Up until the fourth revision of HWBOT, which came to life on June 4 2011, not much had changed to the Teams League. Because of an increasing amount of hardware sharing accusations, the fourth
revision introduced team-based benchmark rankings on which the Teams League is now primarily based. This new type of point system, TeamPower Points, did eliminate the effect of hardware sharing significantly but also made the Teams League a lot more complicated. A second major change in the fourth revision for HWBoints was splitting up the member league into three different versions: Pro OC League, OC League and Enthusiast League. The OC League is pretty much what the previous member leagues were, rewarding the overclocking efforts with both new and old hardware. The Pro OC League was designed specifically to separate the so-called Professional overclockers, of which many were unpaid but supported by vendors with hardware, from those who paid for everything from their own pockets. The Enthusiast League revolved (and continues to) around overclocking with ambient temperature cooling only and is meant as an easy starting place for new overclockers. The new HWBoints revision targets specifically the Pro OC League. It leaves every other league unaffected.
TRANSFORMING PRO OC FROM A LEAGUE TO A CUP – WHY? Before we get into the details of how to take part in the Pro OC Cup, let us have a look at why the League had to go. As the argument requires a fundamental understanding of the evolution of competitive overclocking, both in general terms and HWBOT in particular, I'll try to keep it short and concise. To make it very simple, the Pro OC League had no appeal to, well, anyone. None of the highest ranked overclockers, the sponsor, the lessextreme overclocking enthusiasts, Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 27
or the tech-minded people outside overclocking would discuss what went on in the League. It was sad given that a competition featuring the crème de la crème of overclocking had such a dismal following. The League was boring and uninspiring. It featured the same people who have been around for years as few felt enticed or encouraged to try to compete. What was initially supposed to be the billboard for overclocking – top overclockers pushing top hardware – turned into this stagnant silent and boring league. In an attempt to make extreme overclocking more appealing, the new Pro OC Cup changes the competitive aspect of overclocking on three different levels detailed as follows:
"NO START AND NO END" The league as we know it – or as we knew it – had no start or end. From our own site traffic analysis, we've learned that pages with the highest visitor numbers are not those of the leagues, but of the competitions. The most popular competitions at HWBOT are our own Country Cup and Team Cup. Just to give you an idea, in a single month, a Country Cup can generate more views than any league in that year. 28 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
A fair conclusion that an endless competition is not as interesting as one which does have a start and end is not too far-fetched. Outside of overclocking - in the real world - it seems people have already figured this out. No other successful competitive activity has a never-ending league or ranking. All competitions start and end.
"BENCHMARK BORING" In addition to the “no start and no end” problem, we find there is another reason why overclocking may be perceived as quite boring to outsiders. Most of the leading benchmark results are obtained with a somewhat similar configuration. As enthusiasts have expressed on more than one occasion, seeing the same system repeatedly is not very appealing. The fundamental problem here is that the HWBOT leagues are based on a benchmark-centric algorithm that rewards benchmark results rather than hardware overclocking results. Simply stated, this means that one could achieve a high position by using the same hardware system to run several benchmarks. Why and how HWBOT evolved to this situation requires a more in-depth analysis on the history of competitive
overclocking. For now, let’s just agree that the system is based on benchmark software rather than overclocking hardware.
"THERE IS NO I IN TEAM" The third and least important change relates to the realization that team-based competitions are usually more popular. It is hard to pin down exactly why, but based on the feedback from overclockers that have started overclocking under a single HWBOT account, it may be that it alleviates financial restrictions. As monetary requirements for participating at the highest-level are getting higher every day, team-based cooperation is an obvious way forward.
HOW DOES THE NEW PRO OC CUP WORK? The Pro OC Cup series is structurally different from the Pro OC League. The major change is that overclockers are no longer ranked based on accumulated results some of which were achieved years ago. In contrast to a benchmark-centric style of competition where the most points are gained simply running one or two systems across a wide variety of benchmarks. The new competition format brings more focus to a
The new HWBoints revision targets specifically the Pro OC League. It leaves every other league unaffected. limited selection of benchmarks and hardware. Each cup also has a clearly defined start and end date. The first Pro OC Cup started on the 1st of March and will end on May 31st. Up until April 1st, participants were able to register for the Pro OC Cup. After this period, no new overclockers could join or leave the Cup, so the ranking remains regardless of score submissions or not. This will be the main structure for future Cups: the first month of the competition is an open transfer period where entrants may create new teams, join existing ones or opt to completely stop participating. After the one-month registration period, the teams and their line-up are fixed. If you are in, you are in, If you are out, you are out. Throughout the following two months, all teams may submit results as they please. Even though sandbagging (the process of withholding scores until the very last moment) is a concern, this phenomenon is an inherent part of competitive overclocking online. In an attempt to curb that, two weeks before the end of the competition, elimination takes place. Only the ten best teams may continue submitting results. For the rest of the teams the competition is over. With successive cups, a Pro OC ranking based on the performance of the teams and individual members will arise. The ranking is calculated by taking into account the last three
season performances and will show how consistent overclockers and teams are. Obviously, the ranking is not online yet as it requires multiple Cups to calculate. Each Pro OC Cup will consist of five different stages, similar to the other competitions we host at HWBOT. HWBOT staff (not involved in the actual competition) will decide upon the five stages and obviously, these will be available at the beginning of each Cup. For the first Pro OC Cup, chosen were the following benchmarks: 3DMark Fire Strike (Single GPU), 3DMark 11 Performance (No restrictions), Super PI 32M, Memory Clock and Cinebench R11.5. The benchmark selection represents various levels of difficulty, popularity and relevance to current hardware architectures. Some benchmarks may return in future Pro OC Cups and some benchmarks will never make it to the Cup again. As far as teams go, each can consist of up to five members. As the members are part of a Pro OC Team, they are no longer competing in any one of the Overclocking Leagues. After a Cup finishes, they may choose to return to the other leagues. Members are not obliged to submit any results, but can still play a part in the team's performance. For example, if someone takes up the role as team manager, he or she may be responsible for finding sponsors but may choose to not submit a single result. As each competition starts
from scratch, moving from one team to the other will not affect the team’s ranking.
THE CUP THUS FAR As we were putting the finishing touches to this editorial, the final line-up for the first season of the Pro OC Cup is finalized. In total, the Cup features 18 teams and 57 overclockers – a greater turnout than expected. Amongst the participants we find prolific competitors such as KIngpIn, AndreYang, NickShih, SF3D, Rbuass as well as a couple of surprising new comers to Pro overclocking. The G80 (Geforce 8 series) Scottish king for example - K404 is part of the 5xP team. In that UK based team we also find Anandtech’s Borandi, leader of the Enthusiast League for quite some time and former MOA Grand Final attendant DrWeez. Others include Gunslinger, I.M.O.G, 8 Pack, the Russian boys from OCLab.ru and last year’s MOA 2012 Grand Final winners, memory clock record-holder Christian Ney and multi-CPU Cinebench dominators Patriot, Knopflerbruce and Dhenzjhen to name a few. With such a great line-up, we are expecting big scores in the next month. Thus far we have either seen a record broken or a close attempt in every one of the five stages. We honestly cannot wait to see how this pans out! [ The OverClocker ]
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 29
TheOverclocker and HWBOT at
INTEL IDF
BEIJING 2013 4TH GENERATION CORE TECHNOLOGY FOCUS Earlier this month, we were fortunate enough to attend one of INTEL’s most important events on the Calendar year, IDF Beijing. Not only did we attend numerous seminars during the course of this event, but we were able to get some inside knowledge from the people involved on just how INTEL ticks. Moreover, besides, interacting with the minds from the firm through seminars, we also had the opportunity to meet several employees who are not only passionate about their chosen field of technology but very knowledgeable in CPU and GPU architecture. For two days solid, we were practically submerged in geek heaven learning about what INTEL has no doubt been planning for years now. Seeing as we are TheOverclocker and are mainly concerned with enthusiasts and high performance desktop parts, we chose our seminars accordingly and what we bring you here is but some of the information we gathered at IDF Beijing. It is worth noting however, the forum was more than just about computing power using next generation platforms and technologies. Several Keynote speakers were actually addressing computing as a whole and how we as end users are interacting with our computing devices. As per usual when dealing with INTEL, we discovered some interesting facts about many things seemingly unrelated to computing but general society and its relationship to information and data. There were several demos throughout the two days and at turn, we were intrigued by what computing 30 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
power has allowed in several direct and indirect ways. Social media being a big driving force was shown to benefit in the most interesting ways from more powerful and better computing technology. From nature conservation to resource management, INTEL covered it all. Of particular interest to us as well was the drive for ultraportable devices leveraging several architectural changes that have allowed for the most flexible, but powerful portable devices we have seen to date. Significant increases in battery life, hybrid sleep states and obviously performance advances have allowed for some unique usage scenarios that were simply not feasible with older technology. The greatest draw for us was all the
information we could gather about INTEL’s HASWELL microarchitecture and what gains we could expect from it. Therefore, what follows is a brief explanation of what we learned and if you’re as clued up as we expect you our readers to be, we can safely say that you’ll be as excited about HASWELL in much the same way we are.
HASWELL NOVELTIES IN SHORT – WHAT’S NEW? As the technical readers amongst you already know, Haswell is a new Tock in the INTEL micro-architectural evolutionary process. A Tock is INTEL’s terminology for implementing a new micro-architecture using an already known and working silicon process, In this case the 22nm process. Previous Tocks were Sandy
Bridge and Nehalem for example. The next generation of INTEL products will be a tick essentially bringing the Haswell microarchitecture to 14nm. The fifth generation of INTEL Core products we know as Broadwell. The next Tock, after Broadwell in 2014 is Skylake, scheduled for 2015 release. So what is new about Haswell? From a practical overclocking point of view, not much, however from an engineering and focuson-overclocking perspective, a lot has changed. The most dramatic novelty in Haswell is moving a large chunk of the VRM from the motherboard onto the CPU die - that is integrating it into the CPU package. This is quite an impressive feat from a design perspective. Many people, enthusiasts such as you and us, feared that INTEL’s taking over the control of the VRM design would limit the overclocking capabilities in a similar fashion as integrating the clock generator limited overclocking on Sandy Bridge. Fortunately, that is not the case. Apart from the VRM implementation, Haswell introduces a couple of new instruction sets, an on-die eDram and a variety of improvements for overclocking.
HASWELL FREQUENCY CONTROL - THE BASICS As the main structural parts of the Haswell micro-architecture are quite similar to those of Ivy Bridge, we can distinguish mostly similar sections on the CPU die: - Core(s) - L1, L2 and L3 cache - Ring bus - System Agent - Integrated Memory Controller - Integrated Graphics Processor - Edram IC Simply stated, the Ring bus connects the various sections of the silicon, just like on Sandy Bridge. The L1 and L2 cache are still exclusive to the CPU cores, meaning each CPU core has its own L1 and L2 cache, and the larger L3 cache is shared with all cores as well as the internal graphics processor. The ring bus serves as a data bus for transferring data around the CPU die. New in Haswell is the introduction of an on-die IC called eDram, [which according to INTEL provides significantly more bandwidth and reduced access latency compared to regular DDR3 and will be used to support the integrated graphics processor for performance purposes].
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 31
The size of the eDram and is said to be large enough to hold frame buffers at about 128MB. With that said, let’s talk overclocking!
HASWELL FREQUENCY CONTROLS - THE DETAILS For the Core frequency, INTEL added an additional register for turbo multipliers increasing the theoretical maximum multiplier value from 63X to 80X. The BCLK frequency increments are still the standard 1MHz steps and the voltage is programmable via the iVR (more on that later). Note that opening up the CPU ratio registry to 80X is not a guarantee that the CPUs can reach such a speed (8GHz). As INTEL states, its engineers look for ways to give as many tools as possible for users to find the physical limits of their design with no arbitrary limits. Regarding BCLK frequency, Haswell brings the same BCLK gear ratios to us as featured on the X79 platform but absent on Ivy Bridge. In case you did not know, about a year ago INTEL stated that there was simply not enough time to add the gear ratios to Ivy-Bridge when questioned about their absence. It is not simply a matter of just "adding the options". The gear ratio requires an additional DB1200 clock multiplier in the CPU package not as simple as it sounds! With Haswell, the gear ratio
selection includes options for 1x, 1.25x and 1.67x as BCLK "multipliers", giving you an offset of 100MHz, 125MHz or 167MHz. For those who are wondering, the BCLK gear ratios are fully functional with S3 sleep state enabled. This means your Haswell system is able to resume from S3 with the BCLK ratio overclocked. For those who wonder if Haswell supports the 2.50x gear ratio that was also available on the early X79 motherboards, the answer is yes and no. Yes, theoretically, it might be possible to use a 5:2 PEG/DMI ratio which is the 2.50x BCLK gear ratio. Implementation however depends on the motherboard vendor. We will find out when the products launch. The leeway for BCLK adjustments, for each gear ratio is similar to what Ivy Bridge offered: about five to seven percent either way. On Ivy Bridge, the highest BCLK frequency we have seen so far is 117MHz (+17%) and there is no reason to assume this will be worse on Haswell. So perhaps we might see a 195MHz BCLK frequency. Completely new for Haswell is gaining control over the Ring Bus frequency. In simple terms, you can see this ring bus frequency as the new "uncore frequency" - although that is technically incorrect. The ring bus is adjustable with ratios up to 80X as with the CPU. Typically, it is clocked
“Regarding BCLK frequency, Haswell brings the same BCLK gear ratios to us as featured on the X79 platform but absent on Ivy Bridge.” 32 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
lower than the CPU core frequency. As INTEL stated, they had not recorded much of a performance increase from overclocking the ring bus frequency, but did hint at the possibility of the its frequency frequency affecting overall system stability. It will be interesting to see what overclockers (i.e. you) will come up with. As we know, Ivy Bridge featured somewhat mediocre memory overclocking. That is, if we compare it to the AMD record-breaking memory overclocking capabilities. DRAM frequency overclocking seems to have improved with Haswell as INTEL is officially supporting memory all the way up to DDR3-2933. Although several Z77 motherboards already support the DDR3-2933 ratio, it is not official. Having this ratio supported by INTEL is in fact a step forward as this means it passed the internal validation and qualification process at this rated speed. Nice! Last but not least is the IGP clock frequency that remains unlocked. INTEL provides a ratio as high as 60X, in 50MHz steps. This means a theoretical maximum overclock of 3GHz. Given the GT2 can reach about 2GHz under extreme cooling; we do not expect the more complex GT3e to reach that 3GHz number, but who knows? Overclocking has never been an exact science.
“Last but not least is the IGP clock frequency that remains unlocked. INTEL provides a ratio as high as 60X, in 50MHz steps.� HASWELL VOLTAGE CONTROL THE IVR OPTIONS One of the more significant changes in Haswell - at least for tech enthusiasts - is of course the integration of the Voltage Regulation as mentioned earlier. On previous architectures, the CPU had several external voltage regulation units each powering one of the various parts of the CPU. There was a separate VR input for the Core voltage (Vcore), IO (VIO), Graphics processor (Vgfx), System agent (Vsa) and the PLL clock generator (Vpll). With Haswell, this changes. Instead of having separate Voltage input signals, INTEL has merged them all into a single one. This single input goes by Vccin and serves as input voltage for the integrated voltage regulation (iVR). It supports up to 3.04V input, which means a lot of current can be driven
into the CPU. The iVR uses the input to distribute voltage to the various parts inside the CPU. Unlike what many feared, INTEL has not limited the voltage options for overclocking. You can still deliver all the way up to 2.0V to the cores. The ring and the integrated graphics support a 500mV offset for the system agent and the IO. The rules for overvoltage on Haswell are similar to Ivy Bridge with one very important exception: As a rule of thumb, the Vccin should be at least 400mV higher than the Vcore. In other words: Vccin >= Vcore + 400mV.
HASWELL VOLTAGE CONTROL THE OVERVOLTAGE OPTIONS One aspect of overvolting and overclocking Haswell the speakers were very proud of was the available possibilities for fine-tuning your system Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 33
overclock. In fact, the possibilities of fine-tuning Haswell are practically the same as what’s available for Ivy Bridge which, given the complexity of the iVR, INTEL sees as a major achievement. First, let us quickly go over the options for overclocking again. All of the options are based on reconfiguring the Turbo mode feature. As you know, INTEL allows any processor that supports Turbo Mode to increase the clock frequency automatically. A couple of parameters define the maximum Turbo Mode overclock: - CPU Specification: the highest clock frequency is determined by the CPU SKU – some products have more options than others. - Workload: depending on the type of workload, all cores can be overclocked or one core can be overclocked while others remain at default. - Temperature: the CPU is overclocked unless the critical temperature threshold is reached. - Current: the CPU is overclocked unless the critical current threshold is reached. Based on these four parameters, the CPU is automatically overclocked via turbo mode. The turbo modes are defined by P-states, where P0
34 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
represents the highest possible power. In other words, it is at highest defined turbo multiplier. Note that all of the overclocking on Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Haswell happens through the turbo multipliers. Effectively, it means that when overclocking any of these platforms, you are always configuring the turbo mode, even when you apparently "disable" turbo mode. Actually, by disabling turbo mode in the BIOS you force the P-state to P0. Therefore, maybe a bit ironically by disabling the turbo, you are actually enabling it permanently. Anyway, these are the four types of overclocking as provided by INTEL. 1) Default turbo configuration: you have the processor overclock automatically according to the default INTEL specifications. 2) Increase max turbo ratio: you increase the maximum turbo frequency, but let the CPU determine the required voltage. 3) Increase Voffset: you increase the voltage offset for your processor, allowing for possible higher ratio bins via automatic overclocking. 4) Manual override: Full manual control. Each of the four possibilities for
overclocking are still supported for Haswell. You will be able to use the default overclocking options as well as the manual override mode (as discussed before). Additionally, you may also configure the turbo mode behaviour of your system via manual tuning of the maximum turbo ratio and adjust the voltage offset. In future overclocking articles we’ll go deeper in on how to finetune your Haswell system.
“With the re-introduction of the data bus frequency control (Ring Bus) and BCLK gear ratios, Haswell provides us with a couple of extra knobs to play with compared to Ivy Bridge.”
THE HASWELL - HWBOT CONNECTION: EXTREME TUNING UTILITY New with Haswell as well is full support for the new INTEL Extreme Tuning Utility ("XTU"), which features smooth integration with your HWBOT website. I (Pieter-Jan / Massman) have been part of this project since the absolute beginning in January 2012 and I am very happy to see it finally come to fruition. When Haswell launches, the new XTU software will allow you to: - Upload and download overclocking settings - export and import the overclocking settings into your XTU - Compare benchmark scores, overclocks and configurations onsite - Link and feed information to other benchmark scores (e.g. SuperPI) - Participate in HWBOT competitions via XTU - Analyse your system configuration and get suitable OC suggestions The INTEL XTU integration will be available to any brand and motherboard that has XTU support implemented via the BIOS.
IN CLOSING Without having seen a Haswell system overclocked (in public), INTEL fully disclosed how to overclock a
Haswell-based system at IDF 2013 Beijing. As usual, it's quite difficult to predict how far the new microarchitecture can be pushed exactly - there are some leaks on the internet already though - but as INTEL continues to work on the overclocking aspect of their products, we can rest assured that overclocking on Haswell seems to be working just fine. We still have to wait until June 2nd to know every detail about Haswell in terms of performance and clock frequency ranges, but at least now we know the theory. With the re-introduction of the data bus frequency control (Ring Bus) and BCLK gear ratios, Haswell provides us with a couple of extra knobs to play with compared to Ivy Bridge. As the performance should go up by 5-7% based on performance leaks - it will be interesting to see if Haswell can break all the overclocking records or not. Additionally, we are pleased by the cooperation between INTEL and HWBOT and hope it boosts the social aspect of overclocking through the sharing of overclocking profiles. In any case, we look on to Computex 2013. We would like to thank Pallas PR, Mike Moen, Joachim Algstam from INTEL and all who made our coverage possible. Also let’s not forget to congratulate Hicookie from Gigabyte for showing 7GHz in a live demo. [ Pieter-Jan Plasier | Neo Sibeko ]
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 35
GIGABYTE OC LAB Revealed! E
arlier this month (on the 12th of April to be exact), GIGABYTE invited us to the official opening of their OC lab, a project that we had first heard about almost half a year ago. The OC LAB was finally revealed on the Friday evening and not only were we impressed with what the GIGABYTE had come up with, we stayed for a few photos which we have brought to you here. The Lab as you can tell from the pictures was devoid of any hardware when we were there except for a few overclocking workstations. Just briefly looking around we found, suction and ventilation at each station, dedicated power outlets and just about everything else any respecting OC Lab should have. Fully decked
ABOVE: The OC LAB Glass doors in all their glory, Needless to say you can’t see inside usually because most of the time there’ll be some unreleased hardware testing going on inside.
RIGHT: Once the doors are open, the first thing you’ll see is a little fridge stacked with most overclocker’s choice of beverage, which - if you look at the average geometry of overclockers, is beer and such. No overclocking session would be complete without it!
36 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
out with hardware this lab will be one of the best in the business if not the best. We will re-iterate again this is the most impressive lab we’ve seen from any vendor and it should encourage others to build or at least improve what they have at their own offices. Christening the Lab a week later were Team.AU along, 8Pack and Mad22 with KK from Hong Kong. Within the week that followed several records were broken such as the 3DMark03 and 3DMark Vantage single card records, surely just the beginning of things to come. Here are a few pictures for you from that day; you will spot Cameron from TweakTown, Pieter-Jan from HWBOT, Hendra from Jagatreview and yours truly in some of the pictures.
BELOW: See what we mean about the chosen drinks for most overclockers, Good fun!
ABOVE: Another grand view of the Lab, it’s actually bigger than what it may seem like in the photos. There is enough room inside to house anything up to 12 overclockers each with their system we reckon. RIGHT: Tim Handley, formerly a Marketing Director at GIGABYTE up until recently was also present. Seen here having a chat with Hendra from JagatReview, no doubt overclocking related.
This is what Massman looks like when he is passing on the blame, HiCookie is looking at the right camera, and Hendra is ecstatic for an excessive amount of reasons to list. Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 37
RIGHT: Spot the Titan’s in the back on the shelf. These were but a prelude of what was to come a week later, all courtesy of the Z77X-UP7. BELOW: Note that these banners, speak of OC boards but not of any one in particular. We think Haswell.
TOP: More nutritious goodness at the event with an orange punch that really does pack a punch. ABOVE: The man who will be spending more time in here than anyone else – HiCookie the legend.
ABOVE: From Left to right, Colin Brix, Cameron Wilmont, Pieter-Jan Pleiser, Phillip Ke (better known as HiCookie), Hendra Wijaya, Neo and Tim Handley.
As it’s still early days, we’ll be making some visits to this lab in the future and brining you some coverage of what’s cooking inside. Until then, we would like to thank GIGABYTE once again for making this opportunity available to us. Until next time, TheOverclocker Out. [ The OverClocker ]
38 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
Crysis 3 GENRE: First-person shooter | Website: http://www.crysis.com DEVELOPER: Crytek | Publisher: Electronic Arts | RRP: $59.99 (PC)
S
et more than 20 years after the events of Crysis 2, the third, and supposedly final game in Crytek’s Crysis series takes us back to New York City. But it’s not the New York you know, the New York you remember. Things have changed since Alcatraz’s journey through Crysis 2 left the city devastated. The Earth has begun to reclaim the urban landscape; vegetation grows thick, lush jungle born from the lifeless concrete. The Ceph threat lies mostly inactive, with the remaining aliens now leaderless and feral, but no less terrifying. Then there’s the Liberty Dome – a gigantic Nano-shell encasing the whole of New York. Within it, the CELL Corporation harvests a mysterious, sustainable energy source, using it to dominate the global economy and with it, practically the entire world. You’ll don the Nanosuit once more, this time as Prophet (fans of Crysis will recognise the name), and infiltrate 40 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
the Liberty Dome to take the fight to the heart of CELL. There’s a far greater threat to humanity looming than CELL, however – a threat that you alone have foreseen, and will have to face when the time comes. That’s Crysis 3’s premise. The narrative, while effective and provocative enough to make you want to expose it, and boasting some cool ideas, isn’t as memorable as that of the second game in the series. Perhaps my memory of Crysis 2’s Nanosuit-obsessed tale is different to the reality, but I seem to remember its narrative being unexpectedly thoughtful and intelligent. It’s no surprise, given that revered sci-fi author Richard Morgan had a hand in penning its story. Crysis 3’s tale, by comparison, isn’t quite so striking – although it does boast some powerful moments along the way. On to the gameplay then, and this is where the game shines brightest. Stepping back into the Nanosuit
“This is a Crytek game, so I’m practically obligated to talk about the technology powering it; and rightly so, because Crysis 3 looks absolutely remarkable.”
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 41
will be instantly familiar to series fans, and the potential to creatively overcome any and all combat obstacles in any way you see fit is still there. The suit’s Armour and Stealth modes are intact, as is the default Power mode – each playing their role in giving you the tools necessary to tackle any conflict however you see fit. And when your battle plans inevitably go awry, you’re always able to adapt and implement a new approach. As you’d expect, you’re once again able to upgrade your Nanosuit’s capabilities. This time you do so by hunting for collectibles in the game world, which you’re then free to exchange for a range of upgrades. They let you augment your skills in ways like increasing the rate at which you replenish the energy your suit uses to power itself, or lengthening the amount of time you’re able to stay cloaked. Each upgrade generally focuses on a specific gameplay style – so if, for example, you like to go in guns blazing, be sure to buy all the upgrades that complement your Armour mode. You’re also only able to have four upgrades active at any time, which means you’ll have to refine your selection based on your
42 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
immediate needs. It also fosters experimentation – and inventive experimentation is a massive part of what makes Crysis inherently fun and unique. Beyond the Nanosuit’s awesome effect on the gameplay lies the arsenal of punchy weaponry. As with the previous games, Crytek does an astounding job making the weapons feel satisfyingly powerful, giving them a hefty virtual weight that nicely distinguishes the gunplay relative to other shooters. This time around you’ve also got access to Ceph weaponry, which is suitably alien in its design and has a unique feel relative to the human weaponry. You’re still able to customise your guns on the fly, outfitting them with different scope types and attachments to give you ever more options in dealing with explosive skirmishes. That new Predator Bow that’s been such a prominent piece of the game’s marketing is a useful novelty, allowing you to take out enemies silently while cloaked without expending any suit energy – and utilising a number of different ammo types – but in essence, it’s really just a very cool sniper rifle. This is a Crytek game, so I’m practically obligated to talk about
the technology powering it; and rightly so, because Crysis 3 looks absolutely remarkable. Play it on any platform and you’ll be greeted by one of the most visually astonishing games available today – especially if you’ve got a capable PC (and bear in mind that DirectX 11 is a requirement to run this game) that can handle the game at maximum graphics settings, in which case you will be amazed by the capabilities of CryEngine 3. It’s that simple. On the audio front it’s suitably powerful, although I found the voice acting to occasionally be a bit over-dramatic, particularly the incidental dialogue between random CELL soldiers – although the blame can’t purely be placed on the actors, as the writing is also shoddy at times, venturing much too close to ludicrously macho silliness. If I had to point out one other complaint I have with the game, it’d be the artificial intelligence, which often manages to be worryingly psychic. Enemies are capable of spotting you un-cloak from what seems like miles away, and I’d occasionally be inexplicably
spotted while hiding behind ample cover. It makes attempts at stealth occasionally finicky, but is honestly easily overlooked. Finally, there’s the multiplayer component, which is highly entertaining. It definitely won’t be for everyone, because its Nanosuitinfused shenanigans give it a very unique feel and require a different attitude compared to certain other multiplayer shooters; but if you’re keen to try something new, Crysis 3’s multiplayer is totally worth a look. It’s packing some interesting mechanics and game modes. I found Hunter and Assault to be the most intriguing of those modes. Hunter sees a limited number of players being supplied with permanently cloaked Nanosuits and Predator Bows, and they must hunt down a group of CELL players – who have proximity alarms and the advantage of numbers. Assault, meanwhile, is a bit like Counter-Strike, except the attacking team gets Nanosuits and weaker weaponry, while the defenders have no Nanosuits, but superior firepower. Naturally,
the multiplayer features all the requisite modern trappings like persistent stats, unlockable gear and customisable classes. I like Crysis 3. It’s a fantastic game. Personally, I think I preferred Crysis 2, not only because its narrative is smarter, but also because it felt like a more refined game overall than this new one. Still, the third game is an excellent conclusion to the series, one which is sure to make fans mighty happy. [ Dane Remendes ]
Would you buy it? Definitely. While I preferred Crysis 2, I still had a blast with this third Crysis, and the multiplayer should provide many hours of frantic fun.
The Score
8.7/10 Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 43
4 3 2
6 1 5 GAMING GEAR AWARD
ASUS VG248QE 144Hz 3D Monitor RRP: $289.99 | Website: www.asus.com
G
aming monitors are most often the most overlooked part next to audio in most gaming setups. Usually the rendering power is maxed out, but much like audio, the display is neglected. One can’t really blame most users for this because for the longest time, we have been stuck at 1080p displays which have made very little progress in visual fidelity over the last five to six years. Previously my gaming monitor of choice was the ASUS VG278H, which was my first introduction to 3D Vision 2. It simply blew my mind when I played Crysis 2 with it in stereoscopic 3D. As more games showed up with even better stereo imaging, the monitor seemed to get better and I was convinced there wouldn’t be a better monitor at any reasonable price for a very long time. After all, this was as perfect as TN LCD monitors were going to get as far as gaming is concerned, at least that seemed to be the case.
44 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
Fortunately I was wrong and for all intents and purposes the VG248QE is a better monitor. It’s smaller at 24”, it doesn’t have a built in emitter and as such you can’t use it for your 3D gaming with consoles as you could with the VG278H. Having said that, what you compromise on isn’t much given how much more you get for under $300. For this price you’re not going to find a better gaming monitor and I knew this the minute I turned it on. What you get for your money is better pixel density than the 27”, 144Hz gaming, a 1ms response time, 3D Lightboost support and obviously 3D Vision compatibility. You should keep in mind however that this monitor does not ship with the 3D Vision kit so you’ll have to buy that separately. However even with the additional outlay for the kit if you don’t have one already, the VG248QE proves to be the better monitor over its bigger brother. If only because gaming at 144Hz is nothing short of incredible,
offering the smoothest, tear free picture even with V-Sync enabled. The higher pixel density and increased contrast ratio also help deliver a more hat vivid image resulting in a monitor that grows on you with time. After I used the VG248QE in both und traditional and stereoscopic 3D I found k to myself hooked and unable to go back e of any other 60Hz monitor. The absence or motion blur and reduced lag made for ce arguably the best gaming experience I’ve had on any monitor to date. te The downside here is that, despite the 144Hz refresh rate, one cannott enable stereoscopic 3D at this frequency. When you engage 3D re Vision, you’ll be dropped to the more common 120Hz where each eye is ot refreshed 60 times a second. I’m not e sure what why this is or at least the ce technical reason behind it but suffice to say in 3D Vision mode it is still a little better than the VG278H. This could have been due to the slightly sity, brighter image or better pixel density,
whatever the reason; it produced a wonderful image that has to be see seen to be believed. I’d go so far as to sa say if this was the monitor that ushered ushere in 3D Vision all those years back instead of the Samsung 22” monitor monito that was very strenuous on the eyes, eye this technology would be a lot more mor widespread and supported. Either way, for such a low price I’m hard pressed to find issues wit with this model. You could easily buy other 60Hz units for this price which whic look nowhere near as good or have anything to offer. However I’d suggest sugg you give the VG248QE some serious seriou consideration because I can bet my bottom dollar that there just isn’t a better monitor out there for gamin gaming at this price. This one from ASUS is a must have.
1 2
Control panel is easy to navigate, naviga nothing special here.
White LED backlit so you do ge get those very vibrant colours. As far as we’re concerned all gaming screens should be at least white L LED backlit from here on in.
3
The main selling point once ag again is 144Hz gaming. It just has to be experienced to be appreciated. AS ASUS did a fantastic job here as this sing single feature will eliminate all V-sync and an screen tearing issues you’ll ever have. h Add 3D Vision and Lightboost support supp and you have a near perfect monito monitor.
4
This is where we would have liked like to see a built in emitter, that way we’d we have full compatibility with all consoles conso which don’t use active stereoscopic technology, alas this isn’t big deal especially considering the price.
5
Height adjustable stand is han handy. You can also rotate the display with ease.
6
HDMI, Dual-Link DVI and Display Displ port are the order of the day. I doubt if much else is needed these days really. [ The OverCloc OverClocker ]
The Verdict
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker OverClocke 45
5
EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD
7
6
2
1
MSI GT70 DRAGON EDITION RRP: $2,999 | Website: www.msi.com
I
’ve never been a fan of gaming notebooks. I have always found them too expensive for what they offered. Most of the time, they were bulky, unsightly, with very poor battery life and lackluster performance. All the above holds true for many gaming notebooks, but once in a while I’m presented with something a little different. This time it was with MSI’s GT70 Dragon Edition notebook. Before I tell you what I liked about this notebook, it is important that I go through the list of quirks which I feel take away from what is otherwise a fantastic product. There aren’t many so bear with me. The power brick is huge, not sure how necessary that is given how relatively light it is but more so than that, there’s no power light indicator. So you can’t know from a quick glance if the power brick is operational or not. That aside, I also found the keyboard to be somewhat congested given just how much space you actually have on this notebook. Other than that, I would have to say this is one smooth operating machine. Aesthetically, it says or rather
46 The OverClocker Issue 24 | 2013
shouts “gamer” and there’s no way you can pull this out without soliciting some comments from those around. This is a good thing I guess since it is part of MSI’s gaming series of products. The velvety red may not be to everyone’s taste but I like it and it helps break the monotonous black of the other notebooks in the series. Size and weight wise, it is as you’d expect with no less than three drives (two of which are solid state), a dedicated GPU, a large full 1080p screen (driven by the NVIDIA GTX675MX) and some respectable speakers. This is not meant to be an ultra-book but a desktop replacement. Despite all the features and its dimensions, weight distribution is fairly even and it feels lighter than my other notebook which is only a fraction of the GT70 in every respect. Once I started using the GT70 Dragon Edition it became difficult to go back to the other machine and as such this is the first gaming notebook that I think I could actually live with on a day to day basis. Effectively replacing my desktop machine with something powerful enough to play games and do
some serious work on. As usual there is just too much to write about this notebook and it would turn this review into four pages if I had to list every feature, but below I’ve highlighted some stand out features which are worth a mention. Overall I’m very impressed with the GT70 Dragon Edition; the specs are great and the price generally fair and in line with other high end notebooks offering similar configurations. I’ll say once again, this isn’t for those looking for ultimate portability, for that look to other MSI solutions. Please keep in mind, while the GT70 will play any game on the market today, you may not be able to play at the highest detail in all titles. The configuration of NVIDIA mobile GPUs dictates that the 675MX is essentially a hybrid between the GTX660 and the GTX 670. That is you’ll get 32 ROPs/80 TMUs, a 256-bit memory bus like the 670, but you’ll have a clock speed of 667 MHz for the core and 900MHz for the memory along with only 960 CUDA cores. As such the 3DMark Fire-Strike score when plugged into the wall socket was 2,809. Respectable, but far from the
3 4
numbers you’d expect on the desktop equivalent. With some overclocking (via MSI’s Afterburner) I was able to raise that score to a more desktop like 3,235. This was stable and I could play games and run benchmarks for hours on end, but I’d not recommend it simply because there’s no way of telling what kind of stress it’s putting on all the other components in the notebook in such a small space. With that said, I’m more than impressed by the GT70-Dragon Edition and I do say, if you have the funds for it, give it some serious consideration because you’ll not be disappointed.
1 2
Power button – you can’t miss this one
This control panel has the Turbo button, Wi-Fi, screen brightness and cooling enhancement. You best engage this feature if you plan on doing a little mild overclocking for those demanding games that need it.
3
Keyboard designed by SteelSeries, an outfit which is certainly
synonymous with competitive and casual gamers alike. The tactile feedback is great and allows for some comfortable speed typing as well. The keyboard backlights are also customizable through the KLM (Key LED Manager) software.
4
Full surround sound outputs and a headphone out with builtin AMP. This should come in handy for those headphones that need a little more juice to get going. Dynaudio speakers sound alright by notebook standards. Not quite the B&O sound reproduction we’ve heard from some notebooks before, but certainly above average in all respects.
6
Killer Ethernet NIC just like the recent GAMING motherboards from MSI. Prioritize game packets over other network traffic. Not sure how much this helps in a real gaming context, but it can’t hurt. That it’s banned in some LAN events means there must be some advantage to it at the very least.
7
The Notebook comes with Windows 8 pre-installed, not the easiest operating system to get to grips with, but if you’re not a fan you can always go back to Windows 7. Having said that Windows 8 does grow on you and it’s a perfect fit for the GT70. [ The OverClocker ]
5
NVIDIA Optimus technology enabled notebook, allows you to switch between the integrated 4000 series INTEL graphics and NVIDIA’s own GTX675MX GPU with 4GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory. Incidentally, the built in GPU produced a score of 531 in 3DMark Fire Strike making the GTX675MX at least 5X faster.
The Score
Issue 24 | 2013 The OverClocker 47
Issue 17 2011
Issue 18 2012 rev 2.0
rev 2.0
THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. USUALLY.
THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. SERIOUSLY.
INTEL
The
the KING IS HERE!
board to silence them all?
X79
X79
Feature
HWBOT COUNTRY CUP Reviewed
Reviewed
AMD HD7970
ASUS MARS II
Lifestyle Feature
THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM
AMD FX 8150 Lifestyle
WARHAMMER: SPACE MARINE 40,000 REVIEW! Lifestyle
SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 10.1 WiFi 16 GB REVIEW!
Issue 19 2012
Issue 20 2012 rev 2.0
rev 2.0
THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. FOR REAL.
THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. ALWAYS.
Intel 3rd Gen i7 Power, Performance, Perfection.
Feature
INTEL Z77 MOTHERBOARD BATTLE ROYAL Feature
Reviewed
GIGABYTE GV-N68OC-2GD Interview
BRAZIL’S FINEST “RBUASS” SPEAKS Lifestyle
KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING
Computex
2012
We cover the most prestigious hardware event in our massive eight page feature!
KINGPIN’S Z77 LN2 GUIDE Reviewed
ASUS MAXIMUS V EXTREME Reviewed
GIGABYTE’S Z77 UD3 Worth rapping about?
rev 2.1 THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. SERIOUSLY.
FIND US ON