Kings of the Overclockers - a Super Nade interview
Benchmarking Questions Alas poor motherboard - I knew it well... until I fried it, overclocking the living daylights out of the thing! YG: How about benchmarking? What drives you to be competitive with others? SN: I try to compete when I can in order to help out the OCForums team in the international benching arena.
YG: 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? SN: I would have to thank, IMOG, ElectronChaser and Edwarduane for helping me with the baby steps, hitechjb1 and Gautam for detailed help with the A64 platform and Oklahoma Wolf for introducing me to the intricacies of the SMPS world.
YG: I've got a closet full of dead hardware that's been sacrificed to the overclocking gods. What's your most memorable hardware failure as a result of overclocking? SN: I've never gone to extreme lengths with overclocking. Couple that with a shoestring college student budget and you have a rather sparse collection of dead hardware. Mine include 2 x 6800GT's (crushed cores), 2 sticks of BH5 (burned out by 3.75V) a dead NF4-SLI DR and a dead Ultra-D.
YG: Benchmarking is a world of bragging rights and high scores. What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of? SN I'm proud to be a part of the OCForums benching team. These guys are pushing the envelope and most importantly enticing the abundance of talent on the forums to get into benching. We have grown over 100% in just a span of a few months!
YG: This can be a time-consuming hobby. How much time do you devote to benchmarking? SN: Hmmm...tough question. I really have no idea. :)
YG: I once overclocked the Saturn processor in an HP48GX calculator. What's the most eclectic piece of hardware you've overclocked? SN: A single-mode, grating stabilized external cavity diode laser. Yes, I killed it and got yelled at by my graduate advisor. :)
Software Questions
Futuremark's 3DMark06 YG: Software is a key component to benchmarking. Which benchmarking applications do you use on a regular basis? SN: 3DMark06, 05, 03 and 01. Complete comprehensive set of benchmarks! Other programs I use are, Orthos, ATI-Tool, SuperPi and CPUBurn.
YG: What other applications do you use when overclocking and preparing for benchmark runs? SN: When benching, I do it on a barebones Windows install with minimal services.
YG: We're now a full half-year into the consumer release of Windows Vista. It's still a bit of a rocky road with regards to benchmarking, and many are sticking to Windows XP, which has more mature drivers. Some benchmarks, though, are producing higher scores under Vista. Do you favor one release of Windows over the other? SN: I have not tried Vista, so I cannot comment on it. But if anything, I'd switch over to Linux than deal with Vista bloatware. My buddy who works at a popular retail computer store has a new story everyday of a Vista disaster.
YG: Futuremark's 3DMark series of products have become the standard in graphics benchmarking. Do you feel the benchmarks' popularity is justified? Are there any improvements in the software that you'd like to see? SN: I would like to see more CPU centric tests (not just 640 x 480 rendering) added to the suite.
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