The Apprentice League forms the bridge between the extreme and ambient overclocking community by creating a platform for beginning sub-zero overclockers. In the near future we will roll out the new Apprentice League among other features.

Over the past couple of years we have seen the community of extreme overclockers evolve in a spectacular way. Where ten years ago it was not uncommon to see even top extreme overclockers be challenged by a system with both CPU and GPU cooled with liquid nitrogen, nowadays it's common practice. The level of competition increased dramatically as the top overclockers have no problem handling complex overclocking challenges such as finding the sweet-spot of temperature, frequency and stability with a specific memory IC. The increase in skill level has one important side-effect: it makes joining this core group of overclockers a lot more difficult.

The story is simple and often shared at overclocking gatherings. If you are an overclocker from the Enthusiast League who wants to take their hobby to the next level - Extreme - the only option is to use Liquid Nitrogen. The cooling substance allows for perfect temperature control for any hardware and is thus a perfect choice to really max out your components. Liquid Nitrogen is, however, not so easy to come by and often the price rates are too high for first-time users. As the substance cannot be stored for a long time, the cost of (competitive) extreme overclocking increases significantly. Other cooling options such as Dry Ice or Single Stage Phase Change are much easier to use, but not very effective in the Extreme League.

To support Enthusiast overclockers who want to experiment with sub-zero cooling, but who are not willing to invest in liquid nitrogen or are simply not interested in it, we have the Apprentice League. An overclocker using cooling such as TEC/Peltier/Chiller, Single Stage and Dry Ice is automatically promoted to the Apprentice League. Enthusiast overclockers who use stock, air, all-in-one or regular water cooling remain in their current league and Apprentice members who jump up to Cascade, Liquid Nitrogen or (why not) Liquid Helium promote to the Extreme League.

On our UAT test server (link) we have currently deployed the Apprentice League feature. Macsbeach98 from Australia and overclocking for Classicplatforms.com is likely to be the first ever King of the Apprentice League! In addition to the introduction of the new league, we also look forward to Rookie Rumble style competitions targeted to the Apprentice overclockers organized by the CCTF.