Breaking Records with Dragons and Helium in the Las Vegas Desert
How do I describe what happened in a tent on the edge of the Desert in Las Vegas on the last night of CES? Completely over the top…. I can say that it was a story that included dragons and helium at temperatures near the point where atoms and molecules cease to move. While I wasn’t at the event, I had droves of people come to me within and hours to tell an account of what happened. After researching the night’s activities, I wanted to bring it to you.
“The Experiment” was held on the edge of Las Vegas with the goal to push AMD Phenom TM II X4 processors to the absolute limits1 using the most extreme techniques and methods available. The testing was done on AMD Dragon platform technology complete with dual ATI Radeon TM HD 4870 X2 and motherboards based on the AMD 790FX chipset.
Overclockers Macci, Hardman, Sampsa and SF3D were given 500 liters of liquid helium and an arsenal of motherboards from DFI and Gigabyte. I am an absolute neophyte when it comes to overclocking and have lots of fun with it, but when you add the pros and put great gear in their hands, the results are stunning. This proved quite true on this special night in the Vegas desert.
A world record score of 45,474 on 3D Mark 05 capped off the evening with all four processor cores at 6301MHz, the memory controller running at 3843MHz, and memory at DDR2-1100MHz. A pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX™ technology were air-cooled at 800/950MHz.
The team was reinstalling drivers and cold booting on what the meter read as -242C but at that point the meters are only an approximation….amazing stability at temperatures on the verge of absolute zero (-273C at which atomic motion ceases). The team even got a run with one core operating at 6.8 GHz.
Remember, almost all of this stuff is certain to void your hardware warranties and could cause serious damage to your PC hardware. We burn through motherboards, processors and graphics cards at an alarming rate doing it. And liquid helium is incredibly dangerous in untrained hands. Only the most experienced, safe and methodical overclockers should every even think of attempting something this extreme.
There is some great initial posts out there, check it out.
English
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3570593&postcount=432
Event Thread (English)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211726&page=18
German
Finnish
http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/3dmark05n-maailmanennatys-suomeen
YouTube Video of The Event
The team would like to break that record as they refine their techniques and the community goes beyond. We appreciate the support from the OC community that AMD has had over the years and hope that our Black Edition processors continue to raise the level of fun and competition. I am hearing that Dragon technology is proving to be a compelling platform for overclockers and we hope that the community enjoys it.
1) AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
POSTED IN: Home Theater
TAGS: 3dMark, ATI Radeon, benchmark, CES 2009, desktop, Dragon, overclock, Phenom
“Phenom II AMD Dragon System is the Fastest
http://neuronspark.com/videos/phenom-ii-amd-dragon-system-is-the-fastest/ “
Very cool stuff. I wonder if peltier cooling will ever reach mainstream. While not liquid nitrogen (or helium), peltier cooling systems could offer more OC’ing headroom than current fan/heatsink solutions offer.
Due, this is SICK. You guys should start a TV show and have a series of stunts like this. Do it over the internet so you could keep costs low and thats where the audience lives, so great!
Thank you for finally giving some much needed competition to Intel. When Intel gets no competition, they slow down at get lazy. They have basically walked away from the desktop market with all their centrino and atom junk. What about some desktop love? I will be replacing my q6600 with this bad boy.
I’ve seemingly always had an un-cureable AMD fettish. It was great to be able to support the AMD team to help cool these processors. Working with the team only served to increase my product loyalty. Here’s to more fun with the cold stuff — with the
the BIG DADDY of all times.
does anyone know the exact configuration used in THE EXPERIENT.
akhil916@rediffmail.com
Akhil,
The complete configuration is in the last frames of the experiment. The subsequent runs on our DDR3 platform that broke the 3DMark06 record is here. If you need more data than what’s there just ask.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwkzY8a8aFs
Enjoy!
it was almost impposible to be configured on a normal PC as it used alot of helium liquid….however, they break the record and thats the first awesome core reaching at very extreme level.
Very very nice
Will be in Slovakia it?