Author: TheMadDutchDude

When you are looking at a particular piece of hardware, you will most likely come across the name “TaPaKaH” at some point. As of this moment, TaPaKaH, or Sam as some of us know him, has quite a few cups to his name. Well, a few is a serious understatement. He currently holds 616 golds, 296 silvers, 151 bronze and 167 medals for his overclocking efforts.

Sam is currently ranked 3rd in the Extreme league, and he is the king of the Hardware Masters at present. Here’s a brief snapshot, and I really do mean brief, of some of his top earning scores. The silver which you can see in this particular screenshot below is actually a joint first position with another member, “The Mutt,” who got the score first and thus earned him a gold cup, putting Sam second as a result. However, it’s not all bad as he got the same points for the submission (due to the tie). The maximum amount of hardware points you can currently earn in any one benchmark is 49.9, which is dependent on how many participants benchmark both that test and that piece of hardware.

Whilst he doesn’t possess anywhere near the amount of cups that Norwegian overclocker “knopflerbruce” has to his name, Sam definitely has his fair share.

There’s a vast amount of knowledge that is required to master so many platforms, and he seems to do it with ease. Aside from the knowledge aspect, you have to go through a process that we overclockers call “binning” in order to obtain the best chip, and sometimes that can take a hundred CPUs until you find the one that you’re looking for. This not only costs a small fortune, it also takes a lot of pre-testing and dedication to pull it off. Some of us have pot luck, and we win the silicone lottery with an absolute gem (quite rare these days), and sometimes we strike out for months on end. That is story for another day, though.

Congratulations on your recent cups from what is a very heavily contested set of processors that you’ve used in recent days, Sam. From all of us at HWBOT, keep up the good work and most importantly, keep pushing!