Let's take a look at the scoring and standings from Round #52 of the Rookie Rumble contest series.

Last week saw the conclusion of Round #52 of the Rookie Rumble contest series and a first win for encrypted11, our first ever winner to hail from Singapore. German Rookie CSN7 finds himself in runner up spot again while Canada’s MeinFehr makes it into third place. Let’s take a look at the hardware and scoring that took place in a little detail:

Rookie Rumble #52: January 23 - February 15th, 2018

Firstly however, let me give you a quick reminder about what the Rookie Rumble series is all about. The central idea is to give Rookie-class HWBOT members a place where they can compete against each other on a level playing field. For this reason Enthusiast, Extreme and Elite Overclockers are not eligible to compete. Round #52 of the contest was set up with three distinct stages featuring these three benchmarks; Intel XTU, Super 32M and Geekbench 3 (Single Core). Let’s examine each stage in isolation, starting of course with the ever popular XTU benchmark and Stage 1.

Stage 1: Intel XTU

The Intel XTU benchmark is without doubt the most popular benchmark with Rookie members on HWBOT which is why it is no surprise to see 367 overclockers competing here in Stage 1. Its popularity is due largely to the fact that many newcomers experience overclocking for the first time through using the XTU benchmark. Plus it has a simplified and integrated system tweaking UI and a very simple submission process. Unlike previous contests, in Stage 1 of Round #52 we find that scores remain undivided by core-count, a fact that heavily favors the latest high-core count, Skylake-X processors.

The win in Stage 1 was,was taken by CSN7 (Germany) who used a custom water-cooled Intel Core i9 7920X processor that he pushed to a very impressive 4,980MHz, which is +71.72% beyond stock settings. His rig (pictured below) also featured an ASUS ROG Rampage VI Apex motherboard and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card. The winning score was 4,272 marks, which is quite a away ahead from second placed stafel (US) with 4,040 marks using a Core i9 7940X clocked at 4,560MHz (+47.10%). Third place belongs to HailHappen with 3,681 marks using a moderately more affordable Core i9 7900X clocked at 4,630MHz (+40.30%).

Here’s an awesome shot of the custom water cooled rig from CSN7 (Germany):

This is how the table for Stage 1 looked at the end of the contest:

The Stage 1 contest page can be found here.

Stage 2: SuperPi 32M

In Stage 2 we come to a challenge centered on the great granddaddy of all benchmarks, SuperPi 32M. Looking at the leaderboard we find that CSN7 (Germany) and his Core i9 7920X chip have been beaten to the punch by eventual Round #52 winner encrypted11 (Singapore). He managed a SuperPi 32M run of just 5min 42sec 45ms using a Coffee-Lake Core i7 8700K pushed very nicely to 5,500MHz (+48.65%). How does a six-core i7 chip beat a 12 core i9 processor? Simple, it’s due to the fact that SuperPi is an older benchmark that uses only one thread and therefore one CPU core, plenty of evidence that in single threaded applications, Coffee Lake is the more optimized and efficient architecture.

Here’s a shot of the rig used by encryped11 which is based around an ASRock GZ370 Gaming-ITX/ac motherboard with G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4 memory clocked at 4,000MHz (15-15--15-35).

In second place we have CSN7 (Germany) with a run of 5min 59sec 632ms while third place goes to BeaverOverdrive (US) with a run in 6min 16sec 899ms and one of the coolest nicknames we have comes across of late. Here’s the Stage 2 table at the end of the round:

The Stage 2 contest page can be found here.

Stage 3: Geekbench 3 (Single Core)

The final Stage of the contest is all about the Single Core test using the Geekbench 3 benchmark. The fact that the multi-core test is skipped in favor of the single core test, again means that Coffee-Lake Intel CPUs are the optimal choice. This is underlined by the fact that encrypted11 (Singapore) again takes the win with his overclocked Core i7 8700K once more clocked at 5,500MHz (+48.65%) and a score of 6,215 points.

In second place however we find a new face with Toni McGuinness (UK) and a score of 5,750 points. This was made using a Core i7 8700K clocked at a very decent 5,300MHz (+43.24%). Third place goes to MeinFehr (Canada) with 5,616 points and a Core i7 8700K pushed to 5,360MHz (+44.86%). His lower score is most likely attributed to his lower DDR4 frequency of 3,600MHz compared to 4,300MHz on the Brit’s rig. Proof that memory overclocking is certainly a significant element to consider when benching Geekbench 3 in single core mode. Here’s the table at the end of play:

Check out this shot of the rig used by MeinFehr (Canada) which features a ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero (WI-FI AC) board and a GTX 1080 Ti card:

The Stage 3 contest page can be found here.

Rookie Rumble #52: Final Standings

Here are the final standings at the end of the contest.

At the end of yet another great Rookie Rumble contest,we find encrypted11 taking the Round #52 win with a total of 128 points and two Stage wins using his Coffee-Lake Core i7 8700K processor. For the second consecutive round we find CSN7 (Germany) in runner up spot, this time besting performance in the previous round (102 points) with a score of 117 points. Canadian MeinFehr takes third place with a consistent performance and a total of 90 points.

Congrats and kudos to all the the Rookie HWBOT members that took part. You can find all the Round #52 scores and final standings here on OC-ESPORTS.