Last weekend, organised MSI a overklokwedstrijd for European hardwareredacteuren, as part of the launch event of its P45 motherboards. Also an editor of Tweakers.net was the party for the Austrian Farms, which is located at a height of 750 m, a P45 system.
MSI had for the race ten systems prepared, which consisted of a P45D3 Platinum motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, 2x 1GB OCZ ddr3 pc3-16000 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition memory, an MSI Radeon HD3870 X2 video card, a OCZ Silencer 750 Watt power supply, a 320GB Western Digital Caviar SE and a Vendetta 2 cooler from OCZ. The operating system was Windows Vista. All participants were divided into a team and the groups were given two hours to create with their system is the highest possible score in the Xcpu benchmark of Cinebench to achieve, and thereby minimize energy consumption.
The participating editors were drawn from a large number of European countries. This writer was in the team with Martin Schneider of WCM from Germany and Thomas Axel of Tweak.dk from Denmark 
. We started with the disabling of all unnecessary services from Vista and then we will have the bios explored to everything off that was not necessary to the system to keep it running. Then we decided to see how far we could go under the motto: first boost, then watch how the power consumption can be reduced.
In coarse steps, we performed the clock speed, after which we soon out that the system is fairly simple to 3.6 GHz. In the attempts to 3.8 and even at 3.9 GHz to transcend, we had the vcore is still an increase, but even at this clock speed, we got the system running. Not bad for a system with a only by air-cooled cpu. We decided to try the cpu over the 4GHz to lift. Who not try, who do not win finally. The power consumption within limits to keep we linked the optical drive, and we pulled one of the plugs from the Radeon HD3870 X2, which we however not needed for the Cinebench test. The first attempt failed but after we stock some extra prick gave started the system, to our amazement, however.
When it still seemed good to go, Thomas (l) looks at how the opponents voortploeteren, Martin (r) explores the possibilities of an extra vent under the motherboard-tray.
Be assured of the highest score we waited until Windows Vista was ready with a boot to the Cinebench-result view and the necessary energietweaks to carry through with MSI’s Green Powercenter application. This program is part of the Dual Core Center software from MSI which from Windows the moederbordinstellingen to adapt. Disaster struck, however. Windows froze and got a bluescreen for our choosing. A second attempt to start Windows failed and even safe mode, we did not have more, even after we get the system in the bios to restore to the standaardsettings.
With which configuration we tried: Vista left us in the lurch and ran continuously. Overklokkerguru Sturla ‘Stoolman’ Haukeb lwa came along to give advice and he spooned out his head a number of values on which we must enter at the geheugentimings, but in vain. Also, the onsite engineers of MSI could not help, then the situation is hopeless leekt. The clock ticked in the meantime inexorably by.
The jury measure the energy consumption, for some, the excitement almost did not keep 
We gave the courage to have a score down, but with about fifteen minutes to go seemed to be Windows, however slightly, to restore. We were on the umpteenth reboot, actually the desktop is presented, we also got immediately the error message that the ATI driver crashes had not survived and could not be found. Worse was that Cinebench to one or other dark reason it would not boot. It took two new restart this application to get it, and then our first benchmark of the competition turned. The score: 13.477. At that moment it was the jury, however, for our nose and refused us even more time to give. Paniekvoetbal followed, and through the Dual Core Center software, we gave the cpu a little push in the back. In the Xcpu benchmark of Cinebench, we then 13.698 points. In the field of energy we score, however, is the worst: 233,7 W. Not surprising since we ultimately not make any adjustments in this area have been able to do.
According to the organisers we were able to our score still stayed with the competition that afternoon took place: a race snowscooteren on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier at 2000 m altitude! There were, however, new groups can be formed and the person from the winning group that is also in the team with the best overclocking results sat was to the eventual winner. This was Pierre Dandumont of the French THG. With only 193,9 W got his team 13.985 Cinebench-points. The highest score achieved was 14.790 points, while the lowest consumption on 142,1 W lag, but that team was the only 7635 points on the other side of the trip.
All in all, was the contest a fun, they the natural not too serious, prelude to the European OC Challenge that MSI together with Tweakers.net on 23 and 24 August, where the pro’s to see the work. Who on behalf of Tweakers.net this competition will do will be seen from the preliminary rounds, Sunday 18 may at the headquarters in Amersfoort will be held.