Round two of the ASUS® ROG Experience Overclocking contest was held during Blizzcon 2010 at Anaheim Convention Center. Two teams battled it out on October 22nd and 23rd during Blizzcon at the ASUS booth. Along with the overclocking contest, all of the attendees were able to attend an overclocking workshop on the other side of the booth.
The combination of the Intel® Core™ i7 Nehalem based Bloomfield processors and the X58 chipset has been quite a success. Intel has decided to build upon that success with a new offering of processors and a new chipset. Intel has just introduced the new Lynnfield class of CPUs which at this time includes the Intel Core i7 870 and 860 CPUs and the Intel Core™ i5 750 CPU. These CPUs share the same core architecture as the 9** series Core i7 CPUs but, they are coupled with a dual channel IMC as opposed to the triple channel controller on the 9** series. These CPUs have a different socket design with 1156 contacts as opposed to the 1366 contacts on the 9** series. They are designed to operate with the Intel P55 Express chipset. This means that Intel users can now harness the power of Core i7 in a more cost effective manner while not sacrificing performance. The new Lynnfield and P55 based systems are proving to be very powerful and feature rich based upon our testing. The system featured here proved itself to be an excellent system for all tasks put before it at the stock settings. And, the performance gets better as the system is also a very solid overclocking unit. With a minimum of tweaking we took our stock 2.8GHZ system to almost 4GHZ and saw some performance increases approaching 50%. Corsair has introduced several new memory kits designed specifically to work with the new platform. We are going to take a look at the Lynnfield Intel Core i7 860 CPU, and ASUS P7P55D Deluxe motherboard, and our new 8GB DDR3 memory kit, the Corsair Dominator CMD8GX3M4A1600C8. Read the full article here.
In these videos, Jeff Checchi from our Applications Group shows how to build a Corsair Dream PC using the Corsair Obsidian Series 800D full-tower chassis, a Corsair Hydro Series H50 hi-performance cpu cooler, a Corsair Professional Series HX850W PSU, a Corsair Performance Series P128 solid-state drive, and Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 RAM. The first video goes over installing the main components in the Corsair Dream PC:
In the second, Jeff shows you how quick and easy it is to eliminate cable clutter in the 800D:
Over the past few months, we’ve reached some key milestones in the technology transition from DDR2 to DDR3 memory. Both AMD and Intel have launched significant new processor platforms, AM3 and Lynnfield respectively, that both use DDR3 memory. At the same time, DDR2 pricing has come up while DDR3 has decreased—making DDR3 RAM not only higher in performance than DDR2, but also lower cost.
So, this makes it official... DDR3 is now THE memory for new builds, and DDR2 is now mainly for upgrades.
I’m sure you are wondering why the price of DDR2 memory has increased over the course of the year—the answer is actually very simple. For the past year or so, DDR2 memory has been a fantastic bargain for the consumer. In fact, at one point earlier this year, 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory could be had for less than $20! Unfortunately while this was great news for consumers, it turned out to be catastrophically bad news for the manufacturers. It cost far more to produce the memory than it could be sold for. Two words describe this scenario—“not sustainable”!
The guys from NCIX made a Corsair Dream PC using the Corsair Obsidian Series 800D, 6GB's of Corsair Dominator DDR3 memory, a Corsair Performance Series P128 solid-state drive, a Corsair Professional Series HX1000w modular power supply, and a Corsair Hydro Series H50 CPU cooler. Give it a look!
Our new Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 Intel® back plate design is similar to the old one, but has been changed somewhat to make it more versatile. It's an easy installation, as seen below.
Back Plate with Socket 1366, 1156, and 775 Positions and Adjustable Threaded Insert
Upgrading the memory inside a PC is not a difficult task. However, for some the plethora of BIOS settings related to the memory can be daunting. This is especially true for users that do not have the requisite experience to make these settings with confidence. And, quite frankly, many users simply do not want to spend a great deal of time tuning and tweaking their system when they could instead be fragging their buddies.
Enter, Intel® XMP or Extreme Memory Profiles. From the Intel XMP product page:
Intel XMP is a performance-packed expansion of the standard DDR3 memory specification, enabling a robust, overclocking solution designed to take advantage of the mega-gaming features built into Intel® technology-based PCs. If you like to overclock and squeeze every possible ounce of performance from your PC, then memory based on Intel XMP is the solution you need to destroy your enemies and save the universe without breaking a sweat. Designed for ultimate flexibility, Intel XMP-based platforms offer major advantages for pro gamers, novices, and everyone in between. With predefined and certified memory optimizations built into Intel XMP, overclocking on Intel technology-based PCs is easy right out of the box. Expert users still have the option of manually changing specific parameters for personalized fine-tuning.
http://www.intel.com/Consumer/Game/extreme-memory.htm
Since late 2003 and the announcement of the Intel® Pentium® 4 EE, having an unlocked processor multiplier used to mean shelling out almost $1,000 USD. While Intel previously launched an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6500K processor that was unlocked it was not widely available. However, the new Intel Core™ i5 655K and Intel Core i7 875K processors, will be widely available as part of the “K” series of unlocked processor. Two benefits of having an unlocked multiplier include the fine tuning frequencies and higher overclock potential, which can really be seen when using extreme cooling.
It's been an insanely busy time for us recently here at Corsair. We've had several new products in the works, and we just announced a bunch of them at Computex Taipei...
The new Corsair Professional Series™ Gold power supplies, continue our tradition of innovation and excellence with three new 80 Plus® Gold certified, fully-modular PSU's rated at 1200, 850, and 750 watts. Read more about the AX1200, AX850, and AX750, and check out the press release.
The Corsair Graphite Series™ 600T Mid-Tower case is something I'm personally very excited about. No other mid-tower case has the combination of features, good looks, and ease of build that this case will bring to the market. Read the press release, and check out this video from our friends at Legit Reviews:
Jessie Lawrence posted yesterday in detail (with a video!) about the new Corsair AirFlow™ Pro, our newest accessory for Dominator® memory with DHX Pro technology that provides a dynamic display of memory activity and temperature for up to six modules. Click here to read the press release.
We also just announced our compatability with the latest Intel® Core™ i7 and Core i5 unlocked processors and Corsair Dominator DDR3 memory. Check out Jake Crimmins post detailing his experience overclockcking the Intel Core i5 unlocked processor to 4.5 GHz, and the Core i7 to 4.05 GHz using all our latest and greatest products.
Finally Legit Reviews has a great article on everything we're up to at Computex, with tons of pictures and videos of our latest products.
Keep checking the Corsair Blog for all the latest Corsair news from Computex Taipei!
Last week, PC Pro issued a challenge to their readers. They wanted to see if anyone could beat the 60-second mark in a 3D rendering benchmark. They were able to achieve a speed of 73 seconds with an Intel® Core® i7 980X CPU. They thought they had a pretty good speed. The gauntlet had been laid down.
They got quite the response from Intel's UK office. Intel took the same Core i7 980x processor, brought its temperature down to a frigid -40° celsius, overclocked it to a blistering 5GHz and added some Dominator GT CMGTX2 DDR3 memory modules which they also overclocked to 2046MHz @ CL7. With this setup they crushed PC Pro's speed by over 30% and completed the benchmark in 50 seconds!
