Kings of the Overclockers - an ElMaxi interview
Contents1. Introduction and General Questions2. Software and Benchmarking 3. Hardware and Final Thoughts For the second interview in our Kings of the Overclocker series, we tackled another big name in the tweaking and benching fraternity: ElMaxi. As with all his fellow competitors, he's no stranger to voltage modding, liquid nitrogen and other extreme measures. He's also well-known around the web, so who better to talk to about what it means to be a top-flight benchmarker and what the current state-of-play is like. General Questions to start things offYouGamers: Let's start this off with some background info – a little bit about yourself. What's your name (or nick, or both), what forums do you frequent, where are you located (physically, not virtually), what do you do to pay the bills in Real Life? Do you have an affiliation with any manufacturers that you'd like to disclose here? Give as much information as you're comfortable revealing, and feel free to throw in more tidbits. ElMaxi: My name is Mark. I go by Maxi on OCF & G H Z on XS. I am also a moderator for HWBot.org. I live in Seattle and work for a small software company. I like 'on the edge' activities - mountain biking, skiing, anything that gets the adrenaline going. I spend a fair amount of time with dogs and, of course, I love overclocking.
When on the most extreme cooling will do – an insulated container appropriate for use on a video card.
YouGamers: The first piece of hardware I overclocked was a NVIDIA Riva TNT2 card, and I learned the hard way that overclocked hardware needs better cooling. How long have you been overclocking computer hardware? ElMaxi: I started overclocking back in 2002. I ran across OCF one day, signed up and shortly thereafter volt-modded [an ATI] Radeon 8500. That card didn't last long but the bug had grabbed me big time, I've been chasing the top of the ORB ever since.
YouGamers: Benchmarking was destined to be competitive. When did benchmarking first become a competitive experience for you? ElMaxi: Right off the bat, I used to build cars and overclocking for me has a similar theme - making things go faster. I took some time to develop the skill to get where I wanted to go but that's all part of the fun in it for me. The dead hardware never bothered me; the goal is pretty much unchanged.
YouGamers: What got you started with overclocking? Was it a desire to get more value out of hardware, a challenge to push hardware to the limit, or sheer curiosity? ElMaxi: Mainly the challenge of pushing hardware past the limits. Of course running a mid-range chip at 100 percent overclock has a lot of appeal also - if you're lucky enough to find the golden CPU.
YouGamers: How about benchmarking? What drives you to be competitive with others? ElMaxi: I don't know, for me the main competition is really myself. Pushing your limits and reaching new highs is always a lot of fun for me. I get a kick out of the friendly competitions with other benchers in the community too. There are a lot of great people in this game and when you meet someone of equal skill things can get very interesting. It's great fun.
YouGamers: Everyone gets a little help along the way, and the overclocking community tends to be very open with information sharing. Who do you have to thank for showing you the ropes with regards to overclocking and benchmarking? ElMaxi: That's a big list. Basically, everyone I've benched with on Team OCF [OCForums.com], all the guys from XS 3D Team [XtremeSystems.org 3D Benchmarking Team]. There's a lot of talent among them both.
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