MSI MOA and GIGABYTE GOOC 2010 - Worldwide

Hey boys and girls,

Just returned to the safe enviroment of my own house after an amazingly fun, but physically destroying trip in Taipei. Two competitions, MOA and GOOC, some vacation/work (you guys kept me busy with rev4!!) and too much alco-euh ... museums. You'll find a series of funny/crazy/beautiful/sad pictures on the different forums and websites, so none of all that in here. Just wanted to sit down and reflect on this year's live overclocking competitions.

From a OC participant's point of view:

Let there be no doubt about it: each live competition I attend with the ambition to win, or at least make sure I get everything out of my system. For MOA, that went 'okay' since we got the most out of the system although the 3D part of our overclocking session wasn't big success. For GOOC, I think I made too much errors to even call my performance 'okay' ... next year I'll have to do a lot better (if I qualify of course)!

As for the other teams, I was impressed by the quality of overclocking results this year. It seems that each year, the competition gets better and better, with this year a lot of new faces showing their skills. Obviously Mr.event (Elmor) was so furious about no qualifying to the GOOC WW final, he was determined to destroy the competition in MOA ... 1425MHz GTX480 was the result. But next to the Swedish team, I was impressed by Team Ukraine: solid SuperPI 32M and more than solid Vantage resulted in a very impressive 2nd place overall! I'm pretty sure we will see a lot more of the Ukranian team in the next events. In general, it also seems that the Asian teams are getting better and better each year, kudos for that and I'm eager to see what they'll do next year. Maybe, just maybe, next year a non-European team will win the final. That's right - I said it!

As for GOOC, I was most impressed by the performance of Matose. At first, I just figured he just had good hardware, but looking at his results posted on XS it became clear he just optimized his system perfectly for every single benchmark! I think, given there were 4 benchmarks in this competition, Matose has demonstrated the best all-round competition performance in history of overclocking! Also Kudos for two Asian competitors (Steven and Speedtime) coming in 2nd and 3rd ... again showing that the Asian extreme overclocking scene is getting to a very competitive level!

From a meeting-participant point of view:

Regardless of the overclocking competition, which is what this type of event is mainly about, I think it's very important to show my appreciation towards MSI and GIGABYTE for organizing events like this. It gives a lot of overclockers the chance to meet in real-life and forget about all the e-problems and internet warrior clashes. No more bashing furiously on the keyboard, but bashing glasses of beer against each other. The live events are just an incredibly nice way to meet people who share the same interest: overclocking. I really hope that manufacturers keep pushing towards more live events, even locally, so people all around the world can just meet up and have heaps of fun.

In this regard, I must also say that it's amazing to see manufacturer reps to be so easy-going with overclockers. From both companies, we can just hang out and make jokes about their brands and other brands without it getting (too) akward. In no way up-tight ... hell, I think most of the MFC reps could join the OC community as well .

As for the overclockers I met during the 20-days: no words to describe the honor it was to meet all of you guys! I just can't go over everyone personally to thank for the great time ... it was just awesome. Even those who seem to be a-holes on the darkness that is the interwebz, in real life there's more laughter than fighting. I reckon it says enough to say that many people agreed that the issues from the past can be left behind and we can all look forward to an even brighter overclocking future.

Just a warning: there may be some joke-pictures appearing on the forums regarding HWBOT. Don't feel offended ... they are not for real .

From an organizer point of view:

Not that I am really part of the organizing team, but I guess I'm allowed to have some kind of opinion on the organization of the events.

First of all, it was very interesting and exciting to sit down with both manufacturers and have thorough talks about how they vision overclocking competitions and how the community visions them. What struck me the most was the willingness to learn from the community in order to improve next events!

From a local perspective - by which I mean the local events - it's important for US to understand that this kind of events costs a shitload of money and that our wishes might not be practically feaseable. That being said, from what I picked up, there will be more local qualifiers next year as well as less invite-only (I hear some USA cheers?) events. The key point is here: local qualifiers are normally not organized by the central HQ, but by the local offices, which means that blaming 'the company' isn't always the right way to direct complaints. Local competitions are paid with local budgets, which can be very tight in some cases. Maybe, for next year, it's good for those people who are in contact with the local marketing teams to get in touch and agree on a cost-effective qualification competition for this kind of events! If the X58 platform is too expensive for local offices to use in competitions, just go for a mainstream platform ... as long as all have the same hardware, it's a competition right? If things are a bit difficult, please don't hesitate to contact HWBOT to get in touch with or help out the offices ... we obviously can't promise anything, but we'll try our best to help you to work out something!

As for the big live finals (regional and worldwide), I do hope that next year will bring more necessary changes to the game. This year's GOOC was already pretty cool as Hicookie went through 80-ish CPUs to select the right CPUs, but it's not only the CPUs that play a role in the OC game ... coldbug/overclocking capabilities can also differ from mainboard sample to mainboard sample. As far as ruling out 'luck' I think the GOOC WW 2009 was the closest to being perfect, with one day to bin through 5 CPUs to find the best one. In general, I think we should move to a multiple-day event rather than single-day events: both MOA and GOOC were <6h competitions, which is kind of weird since some people have to travel for over 30h to get there in the first place. Also, it's not because you can handle X58, you're the best overclocker: the best overclocker can handle all platforms!

So: more days, more platforms, more fun.

The practical side of things is a bit more difficult, because more days also means more funds required to host the event. Then again, it should be possible to have a 3-day benching competition with 2 days 'behind the scenes' and 1 day full public event for the final results.

FYI, the venues and the hotels were, once again, very nice! Also, the entire schedule was well-planned and in no case I found myself wondering what was going on (well - at least not during the day). Kudos for that!

From a spectator point of view:

This might be the most difficult part for me to comment on, because I'm mostly not on this side (just kidding!). I think OC-TV is getting more and more professional and for next years they have some nice competition broadcast concepts coming up. To both MFCs I have to say: please invest more money in live broadcast - it is the best way to connect people all around the world!

Conclusion:

Again, two very nice events, a million nice people, but still room for improvement. If you have any ideas/comments on the overclocking competitions, please post in this thread ... there will be people watching for sure.

(PS: Colin - If you're reading this ... you're not thát old )

Koolness

MM

would you have allowed the other team to use the spare board?

Mass, I just we could have drank more.... 3 more beers.... sorry had to say it.... lol....

Hopefully I qualify next year so we bs alittle bit more...

totally agree on the multi-day trip... 1 day to clock... I was exhausted and had about 10 redbulls and 15 pepsis.... and that was only at the comp... lol...

It was really great time..... and hell yeah!!!! Local qualifiers......!!!!!!!

he made up for the drinking during GOOC hahaha

massman you have an old head on those young (fat) shoulders of yours. I like what you are doing here and hope that OC community will take his seriously and work with their local Gigabyte and Msi offices and try help them if necessary to put these events on.

I recently started working for Gigabyte as you know and organised the GOOC Australia. It is a very long and complicated process and all i can say is that local marketing guys need help with not only ideas but with events themselves too so i am sure the offer to help organise will come in handy.

The other smart thing to do is possibly encourage local enthusiasts to create their own competitions that local offices can simply support with cash and hardware and leave it up to the enthusiasts organise the rest of sponsors, venue, competition etc (downside is less control from MSI and GBT but at least they have an event they can jump on the bandwagon)

HWBOT could look at localisation of their website to specifically work with countries who are interested in perhaps having online contests or just online qualifications and pay a fee to HWBOT to organise it for them.

MM

 

would you have allowed the other team to use the spare board?

Tricky question since I don't know exactly what happened. Can you elaborate on that?

Mass, I just we could have drank more.... 3 more beers.... sorry had to say it.... lol....

Yeah, these events are always kinda chaotic. So little time to really sit down and have a conversation .

Just FYI, it was a real honor to meet you and Splave in real-life. Needless to say I will no longer say bad things about Splave ... I don't want to get into a fight with him .

Keep the clocks/scores coming, man! I see some nice things happening in the future for you guys!

I agree..... next time..we will have to make it a point.. hopefully multiple day events will make it happen....

It was definitely an honor for us as well...

And No worries Ill take Splave out for ya.... lol....