At the end of an exciting month of extreme overclocking we find Extreme overclocker Luumi from Finland take top spot in the GIGABYTE Beat the Heat contest, walking away with a fantastic array of hardware prizes. Let’s take a look at all the action from yet another great overclocking contest from GIGABYTE, plus all the Lucky Prize Draw winners.

GIGABYTE Beat the Heat: July 1st to 31st, 2017

The GIGABYTE Beat the Heat contest ran throughout the month of July here on OC-ESPORTS and was centered on 2D benchmarks and the latest Intel platforms that use Socket 1151, i.e. Skylake and Kaby Lake architecture processors. The only other hardware restriction was that contestants had to use a GIGABYTE motherboard. The contest was divided into the following four stages, each featuring a 5GHz CPU frequency limitation and a specific benchmark:

Stage 1: XTU 5GHz

Stage 2: GPUPI for CPU 1B 5GHz

Stage 3: Geekbench3 Single Core 5GHz

Stage 4: HWBOT x265 Benchmark 4k 5GHz

The idea behind the 5GHz limitation is stop the contest being overly influenced by the silicon lottery where the best binned CPUs take all the spoils. To get the highest score, overclockers basically have to rely on two things; DDR4 memory tuning, and software optimizations. No restrictions were placed on cooling which means sub-zero cooling such as phase change, cascade and LN2 cooling are all fair game.

Stage 1: XTU - Stage was all about optimizing your system for the Intel XTU benchmark, predominantly using Kaby Lake architecture Core i7 7700K processors. One area where binning could still be a factor is that of the integrated memory controller. Finding a CPU with an exceptional IMC would indeed help to reach higher frequencies at tighter timings. In first place we find Greek master $@39@ with an Intel XTU score of 1,795 marks. He used a GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming SOC motherboard with DDR4 configured at 1,973MHz And 12-12-12-28 timings. Second place belongs to Bullshooter (Germany) with 1,790 marks while Luumi (Finland) managed a score of 1,787 marks.

Read the full and detailed roundup article here on OC-ESPORTS.