It looks like Computex will be very interesting for the memory speed addicts amongst the overclocking crowd. As a screenshot from the CPU-Z application leaked through - the source remains anonymous, we can see the magical barrier of DDR3-4000 has been broken! The fact that this screenshot has not made it public or, well, to a press release indicates this overclocking result was achieved on an upcoming platform. But which platform?

After all not only Intel is launching a new micro-architecture in the next month, AMD is as well. They are releasing the new Richland-based APU soon. We all know how strong Llano was for memory overclocking - Christian Ney still has the overall DDR3 record set at DDR3-3900MHz (reference) - and so far it is unclear whether the new AMD platform is capable of beating that. In any case, the DDR3-4K is true as it has been confirmed by multiple sources that will be the new target for memory overclockers.

The frequency was reached with a single stick of single sided Hynix MFR memory.

Although the high-end components computer store Tones.BE is mainly active in the Benelux region, the shop is widely known around the world for its continued support of the Madshrimps overclocking team and the overclocking workshops. The team at Tones has definitely the same amount of madness as the Shrimps. Just have a look at how they say goodbye to the Intel 3rd Generation Core platform and prepare for something new. Hilarious!

TechPowerUp announced GPU-Z 0.7.1, the latest version of the popular graphics subsystem information, monitoring, and diagnostic tool. Version 0.7.1 adds support for new GPUs, and an experimental feature that lets you investigate power-capping on some of the newer generations of NVIDIA GPUs (needs GeForce 319.xx or later drivers). To begin with, GPU-Z 0.7.1 introduces support for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 780 and GeForce GTX 770 graphics cards, along with support for AMD's new Radeon HD 8000M, HD 8000G, and HD 8000D series GPUs/IGPs, including the HD 8310G, HD 8410G, HD 8450G, HD 8510G, HD 8550G, HD 8610G, and HD 8650G; and a few exotic GPUs, such as GT 730M, GT 750M, GTX 780M, GRID K1, GRID K2, and HD 7730.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.1 | TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.1 ASUS ROG Themed

The change-log follows.

• Added support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 650 Ti OEM, GT 640 (GK208), GT 630 (GK208), GT 730M, GT 750M, GTX 780M, GRID K1, GRID K2
• Added support for AMD Radeon HD 7730, HD 8310G, HD 6480G, HD 8410G, HD 8450G, HD 8510G, HD 8550G, HD 8610G, HD 8650G
• Fixed BIOS reading on GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
• Added experimental sensor readout to show reason for power capping on recent NVIDIA cards
• Fixed clock readings on some older NVIDIA cards
• Improved detection for future NVIDIA cards

For those who are following our Computex 2013 Overclocking thread at the forums it's not a big surprise when we title "Overclocking Madness" in this news post. So far, we have listed 47 overclockers attending the IT tradeshow in Taipei, Taiwan and that number is still going up. In terms of overclocking events and demonstration, we have eight listed events before, during and after Computex being hosted this year. Not all are open for participation and some require RSVP but most of them are available to any HWBOT user who wants to check it out.

Next month's overclocking madness kicks off with a 4th Generation Intel Core Processors (we all know by now) Haswell overclocking competition as a joint effort between Corsair and Intel. The competition features not only a cash prize purse of USD $20,000 - a vast amount compared to previous live overclocking events - but also direct competition between the various ODMs. Of course, all vendor employees will compete under a pseudonym team. Whom can we expect? Well, it is a list of big names: 8 Pack, Hicookie, Pt1t, Dinos22, Mad222, Der8auer and so on. In total, we expect ten teams to participate although the official invitational only lists fifteen overclockers so far. For example, Slamms and AndreYang who are allegedly going to form the ASUS team are not on the list yet. According to the full size invitation, (click on the image on top) attendants will not only get a lot of overclocking, but also food and drinks!

The competition starts on Monday June 3 1PM and finishes at 6PM, giving the competitors five hours to get the top score. Overclocking-TV will be present to cover the event as is yours truly, Massman, but merely assisting Corsair's Jake "Cpt.Planet" Crimmins as judge. As far as I know, there is still place at the venue. For more information, check out the Eventbrite page or follow up on behind-the-scenes information of the Corsair/Intel and all other overclocking stuff in our official Computex 2013 Overclocking forum topic.

Have fun all!

Moscow, Russia (15 May, 2013) — ASUS sums up the qualification results for ASUS Open Overclocking Cup 2013. Established in 2012, ASUS Open Overclocking Cup was a local event at first, contended for by the best overclockers of Russia and Ukraine. In 2013 the Cup’s scope has expanded to include enthusiasts from Europe and CIS countries. The best 13 teams will challenge each other in the finals to be held on October 5, 2013, in Moscow at the Krokus-Expo center as part of the Igromir 2013 expo.

The Greek duo Aristidis and Steleras have become the winners of the ASUS Open Overclocking Cup 2012 qualifications, proving their reputation of recognized masters of extreme overclocking. Relying on their vast experience and excellent hardware tweaking skills, they set a new world record in 3DMark Fire Strike. Using an ASUS Maximus V Extreme mainboard and an ASUS GTX Titan graphics card overclocked to 1730/1753 MHz, they scored a record 14744 marks!

Full press release: http://hwbot.org/news/9544_asus_open_overclocking_cup_2013_qualification_results

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce EK-SF3D Triple Point EVO, company's first product from the line of liquid nitrogen (LN2) evaporation cooler for competitive overclockers. Used in conjunction with up to four Module Adapters this unit allows extreme overclocking of virtually any (DDR-)SDRAM memory module (of any generation).

EK-SF3D Triple Point EVO is a product of joint venture between Petri 'SF3D' Korhonen, legendary overclocker and extreme evaporation cooler designer from Finland, and EK design & engineering team. The product is made of electrolytic grade nickel plated copper in order to provide the necassery mass to even out the temperature fluctuation. Top extension is made from high quality POM Acetal - with it's poor thermal conductivity it is better at preventing unwanted condensation formation that many overclockers are not fond of.

Bundled with the evaporation cooler itself are the two (2) EK-SF3D Triple Point Module Adapter heatsinks. Each of these items are made of CNC machined high quality aluminium and feature black anodized finish. Heat transfer between the memory module and aluminium heatsink adapter and copper base of the EK-SF3D Triple Point EVO is ensured by the use of enclosed Gelid GC-Extreme TIM (grease).

Full Press Release: http://hwbot.org/news/9538_ek_releases_its_first_ln2_evaporation_cooler

As interesting Intel's processor launches may be, the (unofficial) launch procedures hardly ever change. As usual, we got the first real review from the United States performed by Tom's Hardware Guide - not Anandtech, surprisingly - and the first retail samples are leaking through in the east. Usually, we would see the first retails popping up in China but this time it seems Taiwan made the holeshot. Who else than Coolaler could managed to get his hands on a pair of brand-new Core i7 4770K CPUs. From the pictures posted at Facebook, we can clearly see the new design of the processor box as well as distinguish the batch code: Malay L306B332. For overclocking results we will probably still have to wait a bit, but I doubt we will have to wait for the launch at Computex.

... now where is that shop ...

Another quick news post to highlight the two new benchmarks we added to our database yesterday. The first benchmark is one that you all know: WinRAR. When you open the WinRAR application, go to the tools section and click on benchmark (short key is alt+b). For about 30 seconds, WinRAR will test the compression performance of your system. After the benchmark completes, you will find a resulting KB/s performance index highlighted in the WinRAR benchmark dialog box.

At the moment of writing, the database contains 58 benchmark results and has Daniz185 from Indonesia holding the #1 spot in the hall of fame with a Core i7 3930K clocked at 4960 MHz resulting in a score of 16962 KB/s.

Using "Benchmark" command you may compare performance of RAR compression algorithm on different computers.

This command generates random data, which contain specially introduced redundancy increasing load to processor and memory. Then data are passed through RAR compression and decompression algorithms and output of decompression algorithm is compared with source data. If any difference found, WinRAR reports "Errors found - Yes" in the command window. Such errors may indicate hardware problems like unreliable memory. Also WinRAR displays a size of processed data and compression speed, current and resulting, in kilobytes per second. You may use the resulting speed value to compare RAR performance in different conditions. For example, "Benchmark" command may be helpful, when you need to choose a new computer and wish to know which one will compress data faster. Only the general compression algorithm in "Best" mode with 4096K dictionary is called, all additional filters and algorithms are disabled, so it measures performance of core RAR compression on worst case like data.

Using "Multithreading" option you can compare performance of usual single threaded and multithreaded (optimized for multiprocessor architectures) versions of RAR compression algorithm. Depending on results, you can enable or disable multithreading in General settings dialog dialog.

It takes some time to fill the compression dictionary, which is empty in the beginning. Until it is done, the speed value is inconsistent, so the command window starts to display the current speed only a few seconds after activating. Resulting speed is displayed when at least 10MB of source data are processed, collected statistics is enough to get an accurate result and current speed changes are near zero. After the resulting speed has been set, it is not changed more. Though source data are random, their redundancy level and other parameters are always the same. So this command will report practically the same current speed regardless of execution time, provided that system load is not changing.

"Benchmark" command is never finished automatically, you need to cancel it manually. It does not use the hard disk, all operations are performed in memory.

The second benchmark we have added is probably a bit less known. It is an image rendering benchmark from 2011 and goes by the name of FryBench. The benchmark might be considered an alternative to Cinebench R11.5 as it scales in a similar way. The multi-socket processor platforms will rule the hall of fame without any doubt, but it should be interesting to see who and how grabs the lead in the consumer grade product categories. This benchmark does not seem to have a working homepage anymore, but you can freely download it from Guru3D.

At the moment of writing, the database contains 16 FryBench benchmark results and has Sea Sheperd from Switzerland holding the #1 spot in the hall of fame with a quad socket configuration of 4x Opteron 6276 clocked at 4000MHz resulting in a score of 1min 43sec.

The HWBOT staff hopes you enjoy the two additions to the benchmark suite. Who knows, perhaps the benchmarks will end up getting medals and points in the future!

Again spread via Facebook, we found another overclocking attempt of the upcoming Core i7 4770K Haswell. John Lam and Mad222 from HKEPC shared a video of one of their overclocking attempts. The CPU was briefly clocked at 6.4GHz using 1.445V vCore. This frequency is most likely not very stable since we just see the frequency quickly pop up on CPU-Z and the testing is part of "near voltage and temperature threshold" theory. This same theory was used to clock the Core i7 3770K to 6928MHz with only 1.488V.

In any case, it's an interesting video!

Just a heads-up for everyone who is following, as participant or spectator, the online qualifier for the ASUS Open Overclocking Cup 2013. At the moment of writing, participants have only sixty-two hours left to qualify for the live final. Currently, the competition leader is Aristidis from Greece. He was also present at last year's competition. Further down the leaderboard we find Ananerbe from Russia, T0lsty from Ukraine, Phil and Smoke.

The ASUS Open Overclocking Cup 2013 takes place on October 5th in the Crocus Expo in Moscow during the Igromir 2013 Exhibition. There are thirteen (13) seats (two per team) in the final. Perica_barii and Xtreme_addict are already qualified as the winners of last year's Cup. From the qualifier, the best nine teams will receive a ticket to go to the final as well as the best from Russia, Ukraine and Kazahstan.

By the way, the (so far) last entry of the competition comes from Austria and features a GTX Titan and a steamy frosty looking CPU pot. Good luck all!

More information on the contest: http://hwbot.org/competition/aooc_2013_qualifier/.

This news post is a little bit overdue as Monstru (from Lab510) already posted some pictures of the (retail?) new SF3D Inflection point package contents on his facebook page some time ago. We present you the news now because Lab501 just posted a news item about their Extreme Overclocking Party experience. Although we love seeing a good extreme overclocking gathering (beer, pizza and nitrogen), our attention mainly went to the pictures of that new CPU pot and the way it mounts on the motherboard.

We have included a couple of pictures below. For more pictures and detail, check out the article at Lab501 (click) or the ranslated version of that article (click).

I stumbled upon this article in the printed Australian PCPowerPlay magazine and was surprised about the quality content. Memory overclocking is not a simple activity for people who are not really into overclocking as it requires more technical knowledge than for instance overclocking the CPU core ratios. For example, it is important to know what role the IMC (integrated memory controller) plays in the memory overclocking story. But Matt Wilson pulled off a great article, covering everything from the basics of choosing the right memory kit (GSKill PerfectStorm - if anyone disgrees?) over the importance of the right CPU to the details of the memory timings.

Mind you, although the article titles the word Expert, it is definitely written for the novice overclocker. That being said, I believe this is an important article for any overclocker, whether seasoned or just arriving at the scene, to read through. If not to learn from, at least to acknowledge the quality. Well done!

Link to the article: http://www.pcpowerplay.com.au/2013/04/remember-me-the-experts-guide-to-ram-overclocking/.

Overclocking RAM is something that hasn’t really evolved too much over the years. Sure, it’s changed slightly with the removal of the Front Side Bus on the Intel platform, but the principal has always remained the same. Essentially, all that needs to be done in order to run your RAM at a higher frequency these days is enable XMP (if you’re using a compatible Intel kit and board), or change the bus:RAM ratio accordingly. This should be fairly self-evident from within your BIOS, and as you’re here in The Bunker we’re going to assume a sound understanding on your behalf.

...

The list of benchmarks we can run isn’t all that long when it comes to RAM overclocking. MaxxMem is officially supported by HWBot, though not many overclockers tend to use it, which leaves SuperPi and PiFast as some of our favorites, despite CPU speeds having a heavier influence on results.

Other recommended benchmarks are AIDA64 (Memory Suite) and Sandra 2012. However, given their slightly more complex software, they are more prone to crashes at high clocks when compared to Pi calculations.

Arguably, the most popular form of competing with memory overclocking would be for frequency records. This is fairly self-explanatory, and currently dominated by the AMD Fusion series. For these records the system does not actually have to be benchmark stable; only stable enough to POST, load Windows and capture a verified screenshot using CPU-Z. Cache timings are not important either, so generally expect to see numbers around CL15 or so for most frequency records.