Overclock: My hobby as a degree project

Would you be interested in Overclock's practice?

  • Yes

    Votes: 45 50.6%
  • No

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 6 6.7%
  • I already do Overclock

    Votes: 36 40.4%

  • Total voters
    89
Hi members and visitors of Tom's Hardware forum.

Almost all people know what means overclock, in other cases some of them know how to do it and in another situations they try and do overclock.

In the following spoiler you can know a little about my history in Overclock and how I met this world.

I started to do overclock just few years back, around 2009-2010 with the components that I could buy at that time with my student and middle time job budget. That means a GTX 260 with an AMD X6 1090T that I still have and use in my daily machine. In a LAN event called "Campus Party" around 2011 and thanks to the support of OC-Nation team and e-Killer I had the opportunity to use liquid nitrogen with a 990FX motherboard and my precious 1090T. After a few hours, I saw how my CPU passed from run at 3.2GHz to 6.5GHz with all cores actives and programs like SuperPI and wPrime was running without problems. Amazing!!!

I could say that in that moment, in that event my interest for the Overclock passed to be in the 1st place of hobbies even better that video games. But then I started to realize that any AMD CPU with any GPU isn't a good combination and even more, that I would need to use high end GPUs for compete against others overclockers. With a little of effort (and mom's help) I moved on to the blakc side of the force (Ok, it's not black, is blue) and bought an Intel Core i5-2500k with an ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z Gen3, Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM and finally a good Corsair PSU too. After to assembly all those components I did some test and was much more exciting when the result was much better that with my AMD CPU as well as the scores in 3D test with GPUs was very good.

After a few months I sold my GTX 660 Ti and bought a GTX 680, high end GPU for keep my hobby, but the GTX 660 Ti wasn't the only one that I sold since the Gene-z Gen3 and i5-2500k was bought for a friend of mine. Then, I bought an i7-3770k with a Maximus V Gene. In 2012, in the "Campus Party" event I burn the CPU in the silliest way that I can imagine: I did a very bad installation of the pot (liquid nitrogen container). After the RMA I continued using the same components until I had to sell all of those except the GPU.

Even without components I continued in the Overclocking world, enter as a free-lance in the Overclocking-TV page that covers almost all the OC events at worldwide. I have participated in some OC contest in HWBOT that is the house of all Overclockers and have the support of ASUS, MSI, Intel and G.Skill among others. My results aren't the best since my experience isn't big and the quality and "luck" with the components are a fundamental factor. With the participation in those competitions, I have won the satisfaction of try my skills, I have learned many things and I have met a lot of people that share with me they knowledge about overclock.

But, what other useful thing I have got from this practice? This gave me the option to travel to Taiwan last year (2013 for MOA Finals), meet different cultures and people around the world that share they knowledge about Overclock and more away from this practice, they form a community that are friends and not enemies, and more important, this gave me the possibility of present my degree project as Electronic and Telecommunications Engineer based on this practice.

This project pretends use the advantages of sub-zero cooling in CPUs and GPUs, building a phase change cooler that can keep the temps of those components at -40°C or -50°C while the system runs process like Folding@Home at a much higher frequency than the stock one but without the temperature limitation of the CPU and transistors.

For this project I have to extend my gratitude to ASUSTeK Computer Inc., ASUS Taiwan and Adeline Larrouy for sponsor this project providing a motherboard ASUS Maximus VII Ranger and for graphic card an ASUS GTX 760 Striker Platinum. Thanks, many thanks to them for sponsor this project.

After the official presentation of this project that is scheduled for November 19th, I would proceed to do extreme overclock with liquid nitrogen in both, CPU and GPU components. I extend my invitation to keep visiting this thread for see the results that I can get; the idea is to get the 1st place in hardware. We would see if that is possible.

PD: English isn't my native language so, please any mistake in writing or grammar just let me know and I would try to fix it.
 
Hi Ryan.

Yeah, this last months has been of documentation about the project, the design, built and those stuffs. Now, at less that 3 weeks I am finishing the latest details about the device and hardware for final presentation.

You are right, I am part of Overclock.net's team that's ranked 4th worldwide.
 
I'm kinda curious because most do not actually disclose this, but how many CPUs do your guys have on hand to run these extreme tests, and what is the usual CPU failure during the tests and after the tests are done?

I know you are not going to an event with just one CPU in hand, so how prepared are you for the worst to happen?
 
Hello Ryan.

In my case, I buy the components with my own money so, that only give the possibility to have 2 CPUs per session. Now, in a real competition ambient, you can see guys with 10 CPUs but that doesn't mean that all those are burned, fail or die in competition. We buy all those CPUs just looking for a golden CPU that can do a more higher frequency that others. Most commune OCers buy CPus until they find the correct one.

After that you find the golden one, the other CPUs are re-selled or returned to the store (open box item sale that you after see on pages like Newegg). What percentage die or have failures? It's not really high, as soon as we hit the limit of those CPus, we know that you have to stop or the next option is RMA. Mostly all of those CPUs finish the test alive and can be used for a long time.

The CPUs that die are because you exceed the voltage or OC limit of that CPU, or just because you did something wrong (i.e. install the pot). In my specific case, I will be using an i5-4670k for the test but I also have a G3258 as backup, but I doubt that CPU go away, since the test will be "controller" at max 5.5GHz with the lowest voltage possible.
 
After that you find the golden one, the other CPUs are re-selled or returned to the store (open box item sale that you after see on pages like Newegg).

I often wondered how Newegg could end up with an open box CPU for sale?

What motherboard insulation methods do you use?
 


Sorry, it's now Newegg. Microcenter in this case, you can return the CPU adn get a new one.
 


Forgot that...

Exist many things that we use to insulate the components:

1) Foam isolation (Armaflex) like you can see in this page: http://kingpincooling.com/oc-supplies/
2) LiquidTape like this: http://www.der8auer.de/shop/article_ISO07/LiquidTape-100g-(black).html?sessid=PibGpDhwDmhg2ZNWg1qHdnFzG1MHr7Qlye8zCOmape7HpX7DC4gALFuhUG3vVZAl&shop_param=cid%3D3%26aid%3DISO07%26
3) Art eraser like this: http://i4memory.com/reviewimages/cooling/insulation/erasers/fabercastell_generals/content/bin/images/large/fabercastell_generals_erasers_1.jpg
4) Some guys also use vaseline or a combination of 2 methods for "security".
 

looking forward to seeing the results.

btw, did you overclock any amd fx cpu?
or do you plan to? should be very exciting.
8ghz? 😉
 

Cheap chips? (775) ( Semprons) maybe 3-4
Expensive chips:1
Free Hardware that I have: 1 set of nice of nice Hypers. 😍
 
Ok guys, a little update...

I am waiting the arrive of some other Z97 motherboards because the initial test with this ASUS has not been really good. 4.8GHz with a lot of voltage and under phase change, on those conditions use LN2 doesn't work the money.

I will test the CPU to check if the problem is the CPU or some configuration in BIOS.
 
Maybe you should have opened this thread after you actually had something to share?

You Think?

The threads been opened and stickied now for over 2 months and we've yet to see any real interesting results? :pfff:

Surely you had plans of showing us more than this?

Ok guys, a little update...

I am waiting the arrive of some other Z97 motherboards because the initial test with this ASUS has not been really good. 4.8GHz with a lot of voltage and under phase change, on those conditions use LN2 doesn't work the money.

I will test the CPU to check if the problem is the CPU or some configuration in BIOS.

I think most of us were looking forward to a fulfillment of the statement below, with detailed results?

After the official presentation of this project that is scheduled for November 19th, I would proceed to do extreme overclock with liquid nitrogen in both, CPU and GPU components. I extend my invitation to keep visiting this thread for see the results that I can get; the idea is to get the 1st place in hardware. We would see if that is possible.

Not trying to rain on your parade Saint19, you know I love and respect you, but come on lets see some results, at least consider how long we've been waiting?

**************************************************************************************************

For some reason this reminds me of a trip to the doctors office! :)

If you guys want some reading entertainment while waiting check out my TEC/Peltier CPU Chilled Water Cooling Thread, it just had a 2 full year in operation birthday!

It allows me to overclock my Ivy Bridge i7-3770K to 5ghz daily rock stable 24/7, and the 3770K is not delidded :) (See CPU-Z validation to the right).

Or if you want to get your overclock stable.

Remember to keep it cool.

And a little memory tip.

Just scattering a few magazines in the doctors office for all to read, if you want to.





 
Hi Ryan.

Sorry for that, has been busy weeks. I will upload the results in next week as late, CPU given me a lot of problems (not good batch) and was hard get it stable with good clocks for 3D test.

My apologies for the long wait.