TheOverclocker Issue 17 | Page 7

was new and difficult, me with the memoryextreme team used to look at Hipro5, Shamino, kingpin, and the Japanese Team with a lot of attentiveness in the hopes of improving our skills. I remember the first pots, the first way to insulate hardware, lots of time spent on vmodding hardware.....I miss those days, but maybe it’s just because I’m old and because every single thing was pretty new for me.(I suspect you’re not the only one in this regard –Ed!) Now everything is much more “pro” and competitive. Manufacturers build hardware specially made for overclocking, and everybody tries to get the best CPU and VGA, spending a whole lot of money to bin them. That is all competition, it is still exciting for me, but … you know, i prefer the old days. Which is your most favourite benchmark if any and what is your least favourite and why? My most favourite is 3dmark Vantage because you need to tweak a lot; I’m obviously talking about hardware tweaking. You need a strong CPU, strong GPU and if you run quad SLI you really need to be a master to control it all during the different tests. My least favourite is AM3, probably because i never really got a good score in it. What’s your current platform of choice for your overclocking? I play with different platforms at the moment. To be in the PRO league, you need to be versatile, SandyBridge with p67, Gulftown and x58. I have also started testing X79 with SandyBridge-E. I would also like to get a go at the new AMD bulldozer. For video cards I put a lot of effort in pushing the GTX580 to its limits. What is your current take on online Futuremark or HWBOT overclocking competitions? Do you think they are helping to grow overclocking or are they dividing the overclocking scene? This is a difficult question. I used to overclocking for fun and yes, to compete with other people. Futuremark was the company that grew the overclocking scene, so a round of applause to them for starting this. Hwbot pushed the overclocking community in another direction, put a lot of effort in building a fair playing field for competing and bringing overclocking to more people. 2011 | Issue 17 The OverClocker 7