Hardware How to Become a Professional Overclocker

We caught up with Eddie 'PCTwin' Coyle and Tom 'RawZ' Rawes to talk tweaking, cooling and competing.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/04/21/how-to-become-a-professional-overclocker/1

 

am i being stupid but why is there a hair dryer in the final picture?

 

best guess would be to help stop condensation forming

 

To dry up condensation on the back plate?

Edit: Urgh ninja'd lol

 

that was my initial thought, but it seems strange to add to the increasing heat

 

As far as i understand it's to remove condensation but also to keep some parts of the PCB from getting too cold. The GPU loves being as cold as possible but some of the RAM circuitry doesn't.

 

ah!!!!

roll on the day when heat isn't an issue!!!

 

Why?
Will be boring then.
And to get to this event you just needed to know the right people.
There was no qualifier.

 

"the right people" is indeed the correct way about it in most cases. Basic knowledge but a background in electrical engineering would be enough for the volt mods etc but I wouldnt say the grandfather was an "elite" overclocker as he never went anywhere near a computer nevermind the components.

 

A lot of the top overclockers would laugh if you said you were a 'professional' on dry ice. That's quite apart from the actual definition of professional, whereby you are paid for your work, as compared to amateur. 'Elite' is just a level of skill.

If I didn't know much about overclocking, I'd find this interview very hard to follow - little explanation about any of the terms and you'd need knowledge of the event and how it went down to follow. Then you'd realise that the UK finished 15th out of 16 only when the team in 16th couldn't submit a score on the last test due to failed hardware so got nothing for that round.

 

Isn't there a funny story about Rawz abd cooling his pc with a can of deodrant?

Anyway, I read this... good luck to the pair of them, but I think Top Gun said it best about egos and bodies that can't cash em

 

I know it's just a hobby, and I guess it keeps 'em off the streets, but I have so never got overclocking.

It's so little else other than willy waving big numbers about. To me there are so many better ways to tinker with hardware (Arduino anyone?) that can actually accomplish something other than an end result of "My number's bigger than your number".

So to butcher an old TV theme... (http://themes.kitjunkie.org/l/887)

"Why don't you turn off that rig and go and do something less boring instead"

 

Nah, Tom ain't egotistical. He's a brilliantly down to earth kinda guy with an unhealthy obsession for AMD rigs. I always found it funny how he goes to all these Intel based gigs, but he really likes his AMD systems. I think he said it was due to their unpredictability and uniqueness found only in AMD rigs. But he still uses Intel rigs at home....

Sound guy.

 

Welcome to the word "competitive" I like the electronic and software understanding that is behind the big numbers

 

It's all horses for courses - if Overclocking aint your thing, don't worry no-one will hold it against ya, but for most enthusiasts, overclocking (in varying degrees) especially for people whom frequent this site or buy customPC, is part of the PC's attraction.... more speed for free or overclocking an older system to put off buying a new one, then hardcore benchmarking and competing for big numbers, thats the pinnacle....

Eddie the Eagle was a competitor......... but he did get there by qualifying (meeting a cetain standard) to get through to the olympic finals...... just randomly throwing it out there

Back on the topic - I thought professionals were people that got paid for doing things? Should the terminology not be different?.... before the Taxman reads the article and starts looking for the two contenders in question?

 

I wouldn't go this far!! But to be perfectly honest my experiments with GTK programming and PIC programming/board design are far more satisfying than my tinkering with watercooling and overclocking. I've probably learnt more about plumbing (and hydrodynamics) than anything I would describe as particularly "skilful". Plus I've had to stop the 4.0Ghz core i7 920 OC due to electricity costs (and flaky ram!!)

 

OC3D woop woop!

 

Just ask a couple of the regulars over at XS.

 

http://www.hwbot.org/community/user/k404

On a side note and partially related - another bencher from BTUK showing the whole world, the dedication and depth we have within our ranks - to me it's just a shame we have not been able to secure more of the other UK talent under one independant umbrella - the UK scene being fragmented is detrimental to the casual on looker as to how good this country really is with overclocking talent.