I began building gaming rigs and overclocking them 4 years ago. I purchased a Dell xps 700 and was not at all impressed with it’s performance. I proceeded to upgrade everything from bottom of the line to state of the art (for the time) right down to the h2c cpu water cooler, dumb right? I managed to overclock the quad to 3.85GHz stable and achieve a 3dmark06 score of almost 21k, at the time one of the top two dells in the world. I still was not impressed as Crysis was not playable at 19×12. A month later I sold the rig on eBay.

It was time to build the “warbird”. The next step for me was to take out a small mortgage, lol, and buy the best of what I thought was out there. Like most of you, I made some good choices and bad, but with a little luck, she came together well. I began my oc forum debut at a little quaint website known as eocf. There the warbird dominated the Crysis bench thread for well over a year as well as winning the first “rig of the month”. Gradually I noticed that many of my friends were no longer around. With a little digging and a tip from a Vulcan, I found they had left to form NBOC. It was clear to me that I was through with noobville, so I joined the No Borders Overclocking Club and have never looked back.

With the advent of NBOC and our HWBot team, I soon realized that I had become a bencher, not so much a gamer any longer. Our team has managed to claim the number 2 rank in the USA and I am very proud to be a part of such a great group of guys. I was anointed as the Bot coach for our newer members, and that has enabled me to forge true friendships with each of our team members…

During that time, the warbird has undergone continuous upgrades to this point. Where I started with a 790i ultra, she now boasts a e759 Classified. For GPU’s, she started with 9800gtx sli and now sports
280GTX-HC tri-SLI,..and the list of CPU’s looks something like this, a QX9650 to an E8600 to an i7 965 to finally the i7 920do which I adore. Its all happened with the PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 1200 for a power plant, all within the Silverstone TJ-10BW ESA case, which has and will remain the hull of the Warbird till the end of her days.

Unfortunately, as many of you know, a case is difficult at best for benching. Also there are very real limits to how much you can achieve under water cooling…which leads us to my new project.

Under the wise advice of many of my brothers, (MaadDawg for the Banchetto, ocgmj for the w3520, Splave for the SS, and Kal-EL for providing my pots,… just to mention a few), I have began to assemble an escort battleship for the warbird. This rig will be a boint killer and will fetch many cups for the Empire in the days to come. For more on this build, please watch for a post entitled “The Empire’s new Prototype” under the rigs & racks category.

Until then, Thanks for visiting pcwormhole.com. I hope you enjoy the articles from our fantastic group of overclockers. I look forward to what the future holds for our team as well as for our sites and until then, Enjoy the Journey…

I would first like to thank RomDominance for the opportunity to blog here with this great bunch of guys.  Many of you may have seen me around at xtremesystems, overclockaholics, i4memory or other various forums around the net.   For those of you whom havent met me yet, let me give you a short introduction.

My name is Jamie and I’m 27 years old.  I live and work in the Buffalo NY area, running a local computer repair business and an online ebay store.  I’ve been into computers from the time I could walk as a little kid.  In fact I could type my name on a computer before I could write it!  My father was a computer programmer and got me into hardware and games at a very young age.  Been an addict ever since!  I also run a small Overclocking team that is part of the PURE overclocking team.  Its called the Uberclocker OC Team and we have a small blog where I also post at.  Members include myself, Slovnaft, Chispy and Pauld5999.

My first gaming PC was an Apple IIe (no hard disk, just two floppy’s) and Ive owned many since…  From a 286 16Mhz playing Wing Commander to my current i7/classified rigs waiting for some DX11 action.

I first got into overclocking during the end of the AMD reign.  I wasnt concerned with benchmarking, it was mainly just to squeeze some extra performance out of lower end cpus to save some cash.  Then in late 2007 I got bitten with the benchmarking bug which led to heavy hardware purchases and extreme cooling.  Funny how this hobby usually starts out as a way to save some cash, but results in an expensive addiction that rivals heroin

In 2008 I skipped from air cooling right to LN2.  Never messed with water or phase, and only used dry ice a few times.  Picked up a 50L dewar and cpu, nb and 2x gpu pots from Duniek.  Earlier this year I purchased an F1EE cpu pot from Kingpin.  Been cold clockin ever since

Ive recently been on a quest to max out my hwbot hwboints, and in doing so have broken back into the top 100.  Currently ranked 75th I hope to hit 600 points by the end of 2009.

I will be posting the results of my OC adventures, and some hardware reviews too.  Looking forward to working with everyone here, to make pcwormhole a top destination for OC related news and reviews!

I’ve been building computers longer than I will ever admit to, but it wasn’t until about one year ago that I discovered the wonders and joys of OVERCLOCKING!!!! Quite by accident as it was….

While upgrading the graphics card in our “family” computer, I decided a good cleaning was in order. When I pulled the CPU HSF off, there was no CPU in the socket!!! AHHHHHH.. I screamed (not really, but the drama is good). Slowly I turned… the HSF over…. only to find the CPU stuck to the bottom of it, all it’s little pins bent from being pulled through the lock down device…. sob. FREAKED out, I was. Wife due home soon, she was. DEAD I was… soooooo, I scrambled to the nearest MicroCenter and put about $2300 on my AMEX and raced home to start assembling a new machine… maybe she wouldn’t notice?? hahahahaha

That rig turned out to be my first gaming rig. Based on a nVidia 780i, and Intel Q9450, 8Gigs of Corsair Dominator Ram, SLI XFX 9800GTX+, a huge HSF, and at least a dozen blue 120mm fans…. awesome dude! Also turned out to be my last blue themed rig?? (ps – I ended up buying a used Pentium and sticking it back into our “family” machine for her to use lol)

Got that bad boy up to around 3.6Ghz and my UT3 count was climbing. Then, Intel released the Core i7 processors and I was drawn like a moth to the flame. Consumed by the desire to build the ultimate rig I’ve gone where no (sane) man has gone before. From the infamous “Battlestar”, to the “Duelling Banchettos”. From the 775 socket to the socket 1366, from ASUS Rampage II Extreme to eVGA Classifieds, from water cooling to Phase Change I’ve evolved from a wannabe to a be ??huh?? 920D0, 965, 975, got one of each (only two rigs though???… note to self, build another rig)…I can see my NBOC brothers shaking their heads right now!

Soon the six core multithreaders will be out – 12 frickin virtual cores man!!!! I mean like WOW MAN!!! At least one of those unlocked versions WILL find its way to the socket in my Classified 759 mobo to be frozen into overclocking nirvana ….far f’n out man. Maybe one for my Classified 769 too ??? hmmmm… Anyway, that’s a brief look at the Maad me.

I’ll put up more on the rigs and my Maad theory behind their designs sometime soon (hints: the wc’d Banchetto boots at 4.6Ghz (with or w/o HT enabled) while the phased one boots at 4.8Ghz+.

Keep on clocking

I started out just being a gamer as I am sure a lot of overclockers have.  Searching for that extra FPS on our minimum FPS …. Nothing worse than chugging  in a game when you are totally in to it. Sort of takes the fun out of the real intense moments…Hence the overclocker in myself was born.  It started way back a long time ago with a simple PII and from there to the first 1GHz CPU to ever hit the market … It was the best of times for sure as the beginnings of the clock wars raged on for years with Intel and AMD trading blows. My first overclocking experience started with an Athlon XP … If I remember correct it was like 1.7 GHz and I got it to run at 2.2 and my FPS were up…. Learning very basic skills I made it through the coming generations with not much problem and modest overclocks on my CPU’s and GPU’s. I began to think I was not a novice anymore ….LOL wow was I wrong it was super noob for sure. But everyone has a beginning of where they start to understand what it is they are doing.  Mine was on a site most are familiar with call EOCF. Being a total noob I was commenting on things and throwing my opinions around on things I only had a very basic knowledge of. This was quickly picked up by some of the experienced members of that time. The much deserved hammer came down….LOL.

I finally jumped ship from the far more advanced AMD product at that point for the shear muscle of the q6600. Looking for help with Intel overclocking  I started asking questions mostly landing on deaf ears and the butt of jokes… But there was one who stood out and really linked me up with some great reading and some basic settings to get started. He did not hand me a template just to plug in but instead he gave me a understanding of overclocking in a depth I have never been at before. I will always appreciate what The Reverend did for me. Instead of giving me a fish he showed me how to fish. I will always remember  that post as it sat for days on end with no response until he stepped in and helped. I was still learning and thanks to some other guys such as Splave, Ether.real , Gunbo13, and DiMeLo I was able to be well on my way to having a good understanding and appreciation for overclocking.

X3 was born and it was epic in my quest for maximum performance. The thread spread like wild fire through the forum and everyone was optimizing for this bench.  Little did we know that IMO it is the most prolific total system performance benchmark available today… There are some that do not agree.  But many have found performance they have only dreamed about optimizing for this bench.  OC, Dentlord, RickSS, GFDuke, Daawg and Rom even laid down a score but is not a big advocate of X3….LOL (Sorry Rom)  just to name a few have all run this as well as all the founders of NBOC  I only mention this as at EOCF there are well over 200 results, over 5000 posts and almost  100,000 hits in the sake of creating a performance based table that all can see and used for possible upgrade paths and also things that don’t work so well. Stop by and lay down a number and trust me on this one the competition is fierce …. See OC for your official X3 Avy ………………….LOL (Sorry OC) It was not long after that that things fell apart there as many quality members left and NBOC was born.

I was invited to join very early on at NBOC and to this day I do not know why as there were many more skilled overclockers than myself. This site saw me through the e8600 and i7 builds and grasping a good understanding  of what makes them tick. With prolific threads of real information and learning I was indeed fortunate.  Things this year have been a bit of a mess but I am working through it and the whole time the team has been supportive and as I do not know any of them personally in life I feel that I am fortunate to have such friends. It truly is the last stop for me as I visit other sites and read many threads I will always think of NBOC as the best of the best. All the founders and members are rock solid and as there are many who visit only a selected few are invited to be members.  It is my hope I can come out of this year strong and stand beside my team mates in our quest to be the best overclocking site/team in the world.

My future plans are up in the air as money is tight now. But I will try to wait for the nV release before making a decision on new Vid cards. I would love to grab a DO as well so I can maximize my i920 results in the bench threads and at the Bot . But with the budget may be worth saving for the new Intel flagship. Still working this out in my mind. I would like to build a dedicated room in the basement of my new house just for my PC exploits. It would have a great work area with a 600 CFM draft induced ducting system to bring outside ambient in and also have a by pass to bring in AC form my heat pump in the summer. This will solve my ambient problem year round for intake air. It will also have plenty if dedicated power outlets to keep the flow of power pure and strong. Plenty of area to work and try to implement a dual set up on a cool ass rack RickSS sent me with two screens and hardware and peripherals for head to head gaming when I have guests. For now H2O is the only alternative I have but once I get on my feet may look into a SS or a custom chilled water system. Can’t say that Dice or LN2 intrigue me much. That is not to say that I do not totally dig watching it and seeing results it is just not my cup of tea as I want something I just turn on and off ………….Lazy I guess …..LOL  Below are a few pics of my current rig now down to just one 295

Current Rig Specs:

Lian Li PC 70
Gigabyte EX-58 Extreme
Intel i920
3x2Gb’s G skill PI Blacks
nV GTX 295

Creative PCIe Titanium XFi
PCP&C 750 quad
Pioneer slot load DVD Rom
74 Gb Raptor

500 GB WD Black Edition
500 GB Seagate
DD Dual 5.25 bay res
2/120 Thermochill Rad
4/120 Fesor rad
655 Swiftech
(7) 80mm and
(10) 120mm fans

Six partitions XP, 64 Vista, 64 Win 7

I also look forward to what the Wormhole has in store for us all as the founders here are all NBOC team mates that I have come to be friends with over the last year or so. Great site guys keep up the good work and keep kicking ass and taking names.

The Witchdoctor

Out of disaster triumphs pure pwnage. I wont mention any names but after a fallout on a previous forum a band of brothers stuck together and NBOC was born.  The cream of the crop was then invited to join No borders OC team. Benching fever spread like wildfire and my wallet has never been the same. You guys on NBOC are what drive me to bench my heart out and I appreciate you all for that.

Being a youngster (22) my first system was an abit and +3200 754 with 6600gt 128mb agp GPU setup. After running aq3 and 3dmark01 2 billion times I had decided I had found a new hobby and future life long love.

My favorite setup in the last year or so had to have been my 3xgtx-260 216sp 55nm rig.  After new TIM they had no problems at all running 792/1584/1205 for benching. Currently running a single gtx-295 but have yet to really push it. (Thank witch)

A couple things Id like to work on in the future would be moving out of this apartment and into a house so I can really start hitting some global points with LN2 and or a Cascade/dual stage phase unit. You can only get so far with a SS but what I have learned from using it is just incredible.

Really appreciate this site ROM. Big ups to you, your bro and OC for sure. I look forward to posting in the future. PAAYCE!

Heres a shot of one of my earliest builds. an AMD FX55 with 2 Geforce 6800gt’s

Later on i moved up to the FX 60 because i was really liking this stuff and i actualy started competing. So i expanded my cooling and bought some more hard drives and started getting into RAID setups and more voltage and more heat meaning i needed better cooling.


I think you can see the trend here. Pc building is truly an art. Its not only about beauty its also about Speed. Speed means higher voltage. higher voltage, more components in the case,  means better cooling is needed. I decided to move to a better air flow solution by using an open case and got a rack to mount my hard drives in so that heat wouldn’t be a part of the equation.

Water cooled Tri-Sli in a Danger Den Torture Rack.

Then my move to a Custom Phase Unit.

This phase unit was built for me by the man Drewmeister. Very cool. Pun Intended

So now this is where i am at. Core i7 platform, Tri – Sli GPU’s, 4 – SSD’s in RAIDO. Phase cooling on the cpu, Modded AC Chiller for the GPU’s, Separate loop Water Cooled Voltage Reg with north and south bridge also in the loop. It’s an amazing ride that will never end.

Pc building and overclocking has become a huge part of my life over the past 8 years and will continue to be. I am not an engineer, i have never been schooled in pc building. I am self taught. The one and only reason i can do these things is because of the great online forums that are available, and the super super guys that are a huge part of my life over at NBOC forums, Overclockers forums and the like. I will always be in search of that next higher bench score and i love it. Technology has more than tripled in the last 8 years and it will continue to improve until the day i die. And trust me on that day,  i will be at my pc and Overclocking the crap out of it.

More pics to come. So put this site in your fav’s people because it will be updated regularly with some amazing stuff.

Thanks Rom for letting me post here.
NBOC Forever!!

Regards

Duke

I thought I would kick this off by showing in chronological order my overclocking experiences and hardware collection from the beginning. Let’s get started…

This DD WaterBox is where my OCing ventures began in earnest. What an ordeal! It was a pita to put together and to be candid, was the catalyst for my future “caseless” builds. It sure was flashy and it did produce results, but it was like performing open heart surgery just to swap out a video card. On a positive note, the results and my determination led to some recognition and an invite to join the NBOC Hwbot team where I reside to this day. At the time it held a Evga Vanilla X58 and a Intel 920 CO.

Wind tunnel cooling…

From there I progressed to my first true bench rig.

Oooh baby! Thought I was really high teching now! Check out the “custom” chiller set-up I have going on…

The above was a much needed improvement but I was on a quest now. It led to the incarnation of the “DoubleDoowieGigantunourmousTortureRack”. I designed a little chilled water set-up that I thought was the cat’s meow. I was bringing a cooler of ice home every evening.

Well, you know how it goes…always looking for that majic bullet. Finally bit it and had sdumper build me a SS phase unit. Made a huge difference in my daily bench sessions (no more ice to deal with or water to dispose of after every bench). Upgraded to a Classified mb and a PC Power & Cooling 1200w psu while I was at it. With the addition of a 965XE/950 DO/920 DO selection of chips, this is where the bench rig is at the moment.

I was in a hurry to get it up and running so I used a cardboard “Cuisinart” box to set the phase unit on. It was aptly named the “Cuisinart” by fellow NBOC members.

We all got a laugh out of this when I pointed it out…

Alas, the cardboard Cuisinart could not stand up to the pressure and I was forced to build another base. She will be sadly missed…

A recent addition to the family is this dedicated game rig just completed. It holds the original Vanilla X58 mb, a 965 cpu and two Zotac 8800 GT’s.

rickss69

rickss69

rickss69

rickss69

You knew I could’nt resist benching it at least once…

rickss69

Currently testing a Evga X58 LE mb which will become my 24/7 pc.

Been toying with AMD here lately after many years absence…

Note to self…insulate – insulate – insulate

And I really need to get my butt in gear for this…