MSI OC Academy Cambridge – April 2015

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Introduction

Play3r recently had an amazing chance to attend the MSI Overclockers Academy bench meet in Cambridge, this event was created to put some of the best overclockers in the UK against each other in a battle of the coolest.. there is nothing heated about this battle! Whilst the competition was going on, we also got a glimpse at the “kings of overclocking ” – 8PACK and Der8auer attempting to break some world records. The entire idea behind this event was to showcase some of the UK’s best talent when it comes to overclocking generally creating awareness for one of the coolest things about computing! Of course, the academy was created to also give people crash courses in destroying boards and putting more volts through boards than the mighty Thor ever could.

The “master class”

I showed up to the event a day late, so I can’t speak much about what happened on Friday. Although I can presume it was the warm up to a mighty battle, so many pints probably met their makers. Saturday, however, was a different matter. Dagmar held an introduction class to LN2 and overclocking, the idea of the class was to give some of the newcomers a better understanding of LN2, from general information, and even a safety course on handling LN2 as it is a hazardous material (although it’s great for chilling your beers).

I will spare you all the finer details, but I did pick up a few interesting facts from the class. The first is that it boils at -195.79 °C which just sounds crazy when you first hear it, because let’s face it? Something that is cold boiling? Imagine a cold day.. times 20 and that’s not even close to how cold LN2 actually is. The second is the fact that under normal circumstances if it touches your skin? You aren’t going to turn into an ice cube (like all the films show) but it will more than likely just roll off not actually having touched you at all. We even got a live demo where Dagmar poured some on himself first, then on a couple of the guys in the class as well.. However be careful not to get LN2 trapped! That’s when it causes the damage. We even got a cool “how to guide” on managing LN2 and overclocking, for those wanting to pump the volts up on some hardware.

While the class was going on, the more experienced overclockers were in another room getting everything ready for the bench meet. Some of the top overclockers from the UK were there to go head to head with each other to see who would reign supreme. To make sure everything was fair, all over the overclockers were using randomly chosen hardware during the meet to make sure no one had an unfair advantage.

Part of the class also entailed getting a bit of a hands-on experience. Everyone there also got a chance to help try and insulate the CPU socket of a motherboard with eraser putty. The purpose of insulating the board is to keep from getting wet, simple as that. There are a number of ways this can be down from the eraser as seen below, to using vaseline or even liquid electrical tape.

When not using LN2 for its superior cooling power, it is also fun to try and take some photos of. As it spends a lot of its time boiling, it also emits smoke like vapors that make for some cool effects and photo ops!