The results, 3 lucky winners!

Ladies & gentlemen, the time has come!
We can announce the lucky winners today.
First off, let's start with the correct answers:

1. What is nVIDIA Fermi ?
  b. The next generation CUDA Architecture
2. What is MSI Afterburner ?
  b. An overclock utility for VGA developed by MSI and rivatuner
3. How is the high-end VGA series of MSI called ?
  c. Lightning
4. Which one of the below names is not an MSI VGA cooler ?
  b. Fridge
5. What is the thickness of the MSI Superpipe ?
  d. 8mm

You can hold your breath now... here comes the lucky winners list:
Out of 17.568 participants the following 3 were the luckiest:

1. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Oscar Olsson from Sweden!
2. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Asger Hansen from Denmark!
3. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Dora Christodoulou from Greece!

Congratulations to the winners and thanks everybody for participating.
The official page of the contest will be updated later on today.
http://www.msi.eu/fermi

A few days ago FutureMark, the developer of the well-known 3D Mark series benchmarks sent us an e-mail with footage & information regarding their upcoming DirectX 11 benchmark called "3D Mark11".
If you would like to see some screenshots, a 720p tech demo video and some information regarding their upcoming benchmark read our mini-article now!

Click here to read the 3D Mark11 tech preview article now!

Hello everybody,

I'm very pleased to be able to announce that I have a new review for you guys ( and girls ) to read today!
I've been working on this one for quite a few days, but things got complicated due to various reasons and breaks ( personal stuff & some business trips ) and some delayed hardware arrivals ( everything's ok now and we'll be back with another review ASAP! ) resulting in a relatively big delay.
Anyway, I guess you're looking for the product I reviewed and present to you today, so here it comes:

It's a nice and relatively affordable 6GB DDR3 triple channel memory kit from Kingston, the HyperX DDR3-2000C9 kit ( part number: hmm.. hold on... ok! KHX2000C9AD3T1FK3/6GX ).
Its specifications might seem very conservative to you, 9-10-9-x at DDR3-2000 at 1.65V. How far can these DIMMs overclock ? Will they hit anything noteworthy ? DDR3-2000 at CAS 7 ? DDR3-2300 at relatively good timings and low voltage ?

Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite drink and read the review now!

The past Saturday me and my benching partner Chris "Crio" Christopoulos were invited to bench on the stage at an internet cafe in Athens called "BattleNet".
I had little to no time to prepare the hardware for the event ( mostly because most of the hardware arrived at my place at the very last second, thanks for the support though Intel, Gigabyte, Antec, A-data ) so I prepared just the motherboard/CPU ( eVGA X58 SLI Classified E760 and an Intel Core i7 980X E.S., Q4EG B1 Stepping ) and the GeForce GTX 480 graphics card for LN2 ( Liquid Nitrogen ) cooling.
Unfortunately the CPU wasn't what I'd call a decent chip, so we were kinda limited to 3D Mark03 ( which is mostly VGA dependent ) and a few attempts of completing 3D Mark06 & 3D Mark Vantage at 5.4GHz-ish.

I have to finish several reviews, so there won't be an "article" covering this event ( for the time being at least ), but we do have some photos from the event to show you



Also make sure you subscribe ( "like" ) to our FaceBook page here to find out what we're working on and any events/contests taking place or coming up shortly!

Stay tuned, there's a memory review coming up shortly!

Hello folks,
Today we have a new overclocking-related article for you ( and the manufacturers, please read this one carefully ) to read.
We're going to discuss what happened in some overclocking contests that took place online & locally/globally the last few months, check their details, what went okay and what went terribly wrong.
And then we're going to give you guys in charge a few suggestions on how to better organize an overclocking event / competition.

Grab a cup of coffee or a refresher and read the article now!

A few days earlier my very sensitive ears received a weak signal from far away that the new Quad-Core processors from AMD can be unlocked to fully fledged Six-Cores. Just a while ago a little birdie showed me two pictures with the well-known CPU-z utility showing an AMD Phenom II x4 960T processor with 6 cores/threads active on an Asus M4A89GTD-Pro/USB3 motherboard with the "Core Unlock" feature enabled & 4 cores/threads with the Core Unlock feature disabled. Don't ask me for more details, I really, honestly do not know, that colorful birdie flew away in the blink of an eye. Click on the thumbnail to view the full screenshot

It's been a while since I last updated the site with new content, I bet most of you can't remember when I published my last review ( heck even I can't remember ).
But things have changed, and I will be updating the site with new & hot reviews from now on starting with this one.

Today I'm putting Intel's newest Dual-Core mainstream processor to the test, the very affordable Core i3 540 ( 133$ ) takes a seat on my Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 LGA1156 motherboard and the benchmarking & overclocking fun begins!
On the other side of the ring we have a tough opponent, the Intel Core i7 950 Quad-Core processor for the LGA1366 platform.
We compare the two CPU's at their stock clock frequencies, on a clock-per-clock basis ( handicapped the i7 950 by disabling 2 of its cores to match the Core i3 540's core & thread count ) and at their maximum stable overclock on air.
How will the Core i3 540 fare against the Core i7 950 ?

So, grab a cup of coffee or a beer and read the review now!

I just got a message from MSI regarding a new contest organized by them.
MSI is giving away a GeForce GTX 480, and you can enter the competition by answering 5 simple questions!

So what are you waiting for ? Go to http://www.msi.eu/fermi/ and enter the contest now!

Yes, BenchZone will feature new interesting reviews, articles, and news soon.
Sorry for keeping you waiting.

Attention!

Now that I have your attention, listen up folks:

It's your time to react.
A good friend of mine, Alex a.k.a. EnJoY from XtremeSystems just launched his new website called TechReaction, a portal that hosts a numerous amount of highly skilled & "famous" people for their break-throughs and quality work on various sections of our everyday interaction with our favorite hobby, the PCs and overclocking.
What will you find on TechReaction ?
Hardware reviews, news, articles, guides and blogs ( of all kinds ) from overclockers, cooling specialists, system builders & administrators, gamers, such as Dino a.k.a. dinos22 from Team AU, Jody a.k.a. 3oh6 from 3oh6.com, Gautam a.k.a. Gautam from XtremeSystems, Ryan a.k.a. TheGoatEater from XtremeSystems, Bill a.k.a. BenchZowner from BenchZone.com, Simon a.k.a. 64NOMIS from AMD, Brian a.k.a. Chew* from XtremeSystems, RW Keeton a.k.a. CyberDruid from waterputer.com, Scott a.k.a. nikhsub1 the "crazy watercooling guy" from XtremeSystems, etc.
There's also a growing community in the forums waiting for your ideas, opinion and questions.

Last but not least, the folks at AMD provided some cool Phenom II processors for a site launch give-away, visit TechReaction now, meet with wonderful & friendly people, chat about your favorite hobby and get a chance to win one of those fabulous AMD Phenom II processors.

For more information about the AMD Phenom II give-away visit this page