Silicon Power, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions today unveils the new generation of Xpower DDR3 Overclocking series memory module. Built in a special-made metallic heat sink, the new Xpower DDR3 is able to provide a better cooling solution and increase the heat dissipation area, maintaining a powerful speed and stability to meet the needs of overclocking enthusiasts and hardcore gamers.

Silicon Power new Xpower DDR3 Overclocking series are available in various duel channel kits in DDR3-1600, 1866, 2133, and 2400 MHz variants, reaching the high capacity from 8 GB (4 GBx2) to 16 GB (8 GBx2). Compatible with Intel Core Gen 3 and the latest Z77 platform, Xpower Overclocking series can maximize the transfer speed, unleashing the extreme system performance to the next level.

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and leading manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today releases a new version of ZOTAC FireStorm, a user-friendly overclocking utility with advanced features that enable enthusiasts to finely tweak and tune their ZOTAC GeForce series graphics card to extract every ounce of performance available.

"We wanted to create an overclocking utility that novices and enthusiasts can use to tweak and tune their ZOTAC GeForce series graphics cards. ZOTAC FireStorm is the result and enables users to adjust the GPU and memory clock speeds, voltage and fan speeds," says Carsten Berger, senior director, ZOTAC International. "Enthusiasts with the latest ZOTAC GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card can take advantage of display overclocking too."DOWNLOAD: ZOTAC FireStorm v2.0.0

While digging through documentation for the latest version of AMD Display Library (ADL), we discovered evidence that AMD is working on a real GPU dynamic overclocking technology akin to NVIDIA's GPU Boost. Such a technology could manipulate GPU (and possibly memory) clock speeds, and voltages across multiple power states, taking into account processing load and temperatures. ADL allows third-party applications low-level interactions with AMD display drivers. Current generation Radeon graphics cards use Overdrive 5 and the feature-set it comes with, and so the new technology, along with Overdrive 6 could feature on upcoming generations of AMD GPUs.

Listed under Overdrive 6 capabilities, AMD documented three new definitions, one which indicates that a GPU's core/engine clock can be changed within a range (ADL_OD6_CAPABILITY_SCLK_CUSTOMIZATION), one that its memory clock can be changed within range (ADL_OD6_CAPABILITY_MCLK_CUSTOMIZATION), and one that monitors its activity/load (ADL_OD6_CAPABILITY_GPU_ACTIVITY_MONITOR). The three are ingredients of a dynamic OC technology in the works.

With Intel's 2011-launched Core "Sandy Bridge" processors, Intel CPU overclocking as we know it changed. No longer could you overclock the CPU by stepping up BClk (base clock), a frequency that processors use to time various components, including the effective clock speed, and in some cases, memory, and uncore. Sandy Bridge left consumers with only one effective way of overclocking, stepping up an unlocked BClk multiplier, a feature only available with a handful expensive models.

According to a Hardcoreware report, when Intel took up the "one BClk to rule them all" approach with Sandy Bridge, it may have overlooked the possibility of the integrated GPU waking other components up from lower power states to use the L3 cache, affecting the chip's overall energy efficiency, which carried on to successive Core "Ivy Bridge" silicon. "Haswell" may present Intel with an opportunity to split core and uncore from sharing the same base clock, and as such it could be possible to crank up CPU clock speeds using BClk, without destabilizing the uncore. The author admits this is speculation on his part, but quite likely.Source: Hardcoreware

Gaming PC maker Origin PC added AMD FX "Vishera" processors as options to its entire fleet of gaming desktops. The company is presenting these options as: FX-6300 (3.50 GHz, six-core), FX-8320 (3.50 GHz, eight-core), FX-8350 (4.00 GHz, eight-core). The two eight-core models are further offered with "ORIGIN PC Professional Overclocking" (factory-overclocking).

• AMD FX 8350 Octa-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo), 8MB Cache
• AMD FX 8320 Octa-Core 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Turbo), 8MB Cache
• AMD FX 6300 Hex-Core 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo), 8MB Cache
• Overclocked AMD FX 8320 Octa-Core 3.8-4.4GHz , 8MB Cache with ORIGIN PC Professional Overclocking
• Overclocked AMD FX 8350 Octa-Core 4.2-4.8GHz, 8MB Cache with ORIGIN PC Professional Overclocking

Apparently, AMD wasn't exaggerating with its 6.50 GHz over LN2 claim for its A10-5800K APU. Overclocker GASBK_TW achieved 7317.74 MHz clock-speed for the A10-5800K, with a base clock of 118.03 MHz, multiplier of 62x, and a staggering 1.956V core voltage. The APU was cooled by liquid nitrogen. Other key components include Biostar Hi-Fi A85X motherboard, 4 GB of G.Skill DDR3-1600 MHz memory, and discrete Radeon HD 7700 series GPU. The CPUID validation can be found here.Source: PC Games Hardware

ASUS released a VGA BIOS update for its GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II series graphics cards that enhances performance and overclocking. To begin with, the new BIOS increases GPU Boost frequency, so the card provides higher performance at stock speeds. The BIOS also increases the power limit, resulting in greater overclocking headroom. ASUS released the BIOS all three of its GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II series, as BIOS image files and an executable that updates BIOS from within Windows. Find the new BIOS specific to your model in the download section of its corresponding product pages.DOWNLOAD: BIOS Update for ASUS GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II Series

MSI, the most popular overclocking brand is excited to introduce an all-new standard for overclocking stability. MSI's OC Certified standard is the new baseline for overclocking mainboards. the new MSI Z77 MPOWER, which is OC Certified, is submitted to a Military Class stress-test for overclocking. Where other motherboard manufacturers only test for a limited duration, MSI Z77 MPOWER is submitted to a 24 hour OC stress-test. Only mainboards surviving 24 hours of Prime95 while heavily overclocked. The conditions of the OC Certified test are rigorous high temperature, no airflow testing.

Point of View the leading European manufacturer of an exclusive range NVIDIA based 3D processor boards, advanced netbooks as well as fancy 7″ and 10″ Tegra tablet computers and additional enthusiast PC products, announces today that it is first to market with a 6-pin/8-pin GeForce GTX 680 3D processor board exceeding 1150 MHz.

The POV/TGT GeForce GTX 680 “BEAST/Backplate” features a significantly enhanced version of POV/TGT’s award winning proprietary High-Performance/Wide-Bandwidth hardware design running at a base clock of 1162 MHz, and at an average boost clock of 1228 MHz. The POV/TGT GeForce GTX 680 “BEAST/Backplate” also benefits from an advanced power management for Auto-Overclocking up to around 1280 MHz. A very efficient combination of Triple Fan Cooling and a TGT cooling backplate guarantees utmost stability and cooling efficiency even beyond TGT’s official specifications.

The fierce MSI MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) 2012 EMEA Qualifier competition has ended successfully on June 14; European overclocking experts from a total of 16 countries competed in the event and have broken world records for 3DMark11 and 3DMark03 eight consecutive times. The top five scores of the winners of EMEA Qualifier competition are Xtreme Addict (Poland), T0lsty (Ukraine), ryba (PurePC.pl) (Poland), Aristidis (Greece) and Smoke (Russian Federation); the winners will team up and advance to the MOA 2012 World Overclocking Finals, and head to Taiwan to compete in the world-class "Steel World" competition.

During this skirmish, the competitors' first choice MSI HD 7970 Lightning graphics card ranked number 1 for both 3DMark11 and 3DMark03; the Polish contestant Xtreme Addict's 3DMark11 P score: 16055 marks and the Ukraine contestant T0lsty's 3DMark03 score: 214000 marks won the competition's first place for each single graphics card event respectively,. Which just goes to show that the contestants are completely fired up to march towards the worldwide Grand Final! After the EMEA Qualifier, another shot at 3DMark11 P score of 16259 marks resulted in a new WR by Polish overclocker: ryba (PurePC.pl).

During the week of Computex 2012, five overclocking records have been achieved with G.SKILL high performance DDR3 memory by several renowned extreme overclockers.Read on for details of the five records.

Round 3 of the MSI MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) qualifiers starts on June 15 and allows the top overclockers in the Asia-Pacific region to battle it out for a ticket to Taiwan. During the qualifiers, which have seen many new records so far, the overclocking experts from the Asia-Pacific region compete for eight tickets to the MOA 2012 grand finals to become the master of the "Steel World" competition!

The annual overclocking competition MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) 2012 held by the world's leading mainboard and graphics card manufacturer MSI, has held regional qualifier competitions since April to select powerhouse overclockers to compete in the annual worldwide Grand Final. After the Americas regional qualifier and the EMEA regional qualifier have successfully ended, the Asia-Pacific regional qualifier battle is about to begin; the competition will go on from June 15 to July 12, overclockers can participate in the competition with any model of MSI mainboard and graphics card, but is limited to a single CPU and GPU.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced its latest overclocking competition in conjunction with HWBOT.org, the GIGABYTE ‘High on Ivy Contest’.

Calling all HWBot members! From June 1st to June 30th, GIGABYTE invites you to push your unlocked Ivy Bridge processors as high as you possibly can, with a chance to win a next-generation GIGABYTE motherboard. The rules are simple; take any GIGABYTE Z77 board and aim for the highest scores possible across four unrelenting stages.

G.SKILL International Co. Ltd., the world’s leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and superior solid-state storage, has teamed up with ASUS, MSI, EVGA and GIGABYTE and will be hosting an industry-first, “G.SKILL World-Class Overclocking Invitational” with G.SKILL’s extreme performance DDR3 memory at the Computex 2012.

G.SKILL invited up to 8 professional overclockers from across the world, including legendary overclockers from the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Australia and Japan. Collaborating with 4 industry leading motherboard brands, G.SKILL aims to smash all overclocking world records by using ultra high performance motherboards, VGA and the fastest DDR3 memory, the “TridentX”.

Team Group Inc., one of the leading memory manufacturers in the world, continues to make breakthroughs in over-clocking memory modules. Not only the new Team Vulcan series is making its entrance into the increasingly diversified and complete over-clocking product line, but also new 8GB memory modules are rolling out as a member of Xtreem, Dark and Vulcan series. The high clock speed and low timing design improves system operation performance dramatically, making it the perfect choice for players looking for extreme performance.

The first round of the annual MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) 2012 Americas Qualifier, held by the world-renowned mainboard and graphics card manufacturer MSI, ended successfully on May 10. There were overclocking experts from eight countries in the America region who competed in this event; the top three winners were Splave from the U.S., Rbuass and gnidaol from Brazil. The winners will advance into the World Final and are free to pick any member for their team to battle for the master position of the MSI Master Overclocking Arena Grand Final! For complete coverage and results of the event, please visit the MOA 2012 Americas Qualifier website.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, the leading graphics card manufacturer, has unleashed the GeForce GTX 670 graphics card. It taps into the powerful Kepler architecture to deliver faster, smoother, richer gaming. It’s more than state-of-the-art technology and features. It’s truly game-changing performance.

Following with GeForce GTX 680 JetStream, JetStream 風– that introduces innovative custom cooling and optimized overclocked capabilities to deliver the ultimate gaming experience, now continuing to represent the exciting new series is the Palit GeForce GTX 670 JetStream, which offers incredible overclocked performance, low noise emission, as well as a powerful cooling design for efficient heat dissipation.

Today leading international mainboard and graphics card maker MSI officially announces the new GeForce GTX 670 graphics card featuring the latest 28nm GeForce GTX 670 GPU and 2GB GDDR5 memory; supports PCI Express 3.0 standard to provide better performance and power efficiency than previous generation. The GeForce GTX 670 graphics card features NVIDIA’s GPU Boost technology which allows the core clock to be automatically adjusted on the fly for optimal in-game performance.

When used with the MSI Afterburner overclocking utility, the power limit and clock offset can be adjusted as well for better overclocking capability; GPU overvoltage function to boost overclocking potential up to 22%! A single card is able to also support NVIDIA 3DVision Surround technology for up to four monitors to give gamers the best in-game experience.

Following the release of its new extreme DDR3 lineup, TridentX, G.SKILL is thrilled to host an extreme overclocking contest at HWBOT, the widely recognized authority in the field of overclocking. The G.SKILL CUP OC competition will start May 1st and run until May 30th and consists of three different stages with 14 G.SKILL Memory kits offered to the winners. For more detail, please refer to the event page.

G.Skill unveiled its newest line of memory for extreme overclocking, the Trident X. Its launch is timed to follow that of Intel's Core "Ivy Bridge" processor family, and is optimized for 7-series chipset motherboards (due to their support of latest Intel XMP 1.3 specification). Pictured below is what Trident X series modules look like: a black PCB with a slightly long black metal heatsink, which has a detachable crown heatsink (red). One can notice a slot for heat pipes in the juncture between the crown heatsink and the module's main heatsink.

Aesthetically, the Trident X series modules don a black+red color scheme, which goes well with the black+red motherboard in the background (in the press-shot). Pictured below are the DDR3-2400 MHz (PC3-19200) modules in dual-channel configuration. The XMP profile runs the module at its 2400 MHz DDR (1200 MHz real) speed, with timings of 10-12-12-31T, and DRAM voltage of 1.65V. The modules will be available in various other speed/timing configurations, and in densities of 4 GB and 8 GB, making up for 8 GB and 16 GB dual-channel kits, for the new "Ivy Bridge" platform; 16 GB and 32 GB quad-channel kits for the Sandy Bridge-E platform. The older Sandy Bridge LGA1155 platform might not be 100% compatible, since it lacks XMP 1.3 support. G.Skill Trident X will be formally announced on May 4.

Source: Hermitage Akihabara

Leading international graphics card maker MSI today officially announced the new GTX 680 Twin Frozr /OC graphics card equipped with the latest NVIDIA 28nm GeForce GTX 680 GPU, 2GB video memory and PCI Express Gen3 support. The new GTX 680 Twin Frozr /OC sports the popular Twin Frozr III thermal design, featuring dual 80mm Propeller Blade fans, a nickel-plated copper base heat sink and SuperPipe technology. MSI’s GTX 680 Twin Frozr /OC has 22°C lower temperatures and runs 10.2dB quieter than the reference design, providing the perfect balance of low-noise and great cooling capabilities.

In addition the GTX 680 Twin Frozr /OC also supports MSI’s Afterburner overclocking utility, which enables you to tweak power and clock settings to get even more performance out of your graphics card. Both NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround and 4 display out from a single card are supported ensuring that gamers can enjoy the best entertainment and multitasking experience possible.

Celebrating its 5th anniversary, MSI’s Master Overclocking Arena (MOA) joins the most stable Military Class III components with record-breaking overclocking performance. Themed "Steel World", MSI has forged the first evolution starting with the American Regional Qualifiers on the world-class overclocking community website HWBOT.org on April 13, 2012.

The American Regional Qualifiers this year consist of three stages: 3DMark11, 3DMark03 and SuperPI 32M. Each with a different point scheme. There will be no model limitation on MSI mainboards and graphics cards, however entries are limited to single CPU and GPU setups. A cut-off elimination will be applied on May 4th (75% of the contest period) after which the qualifiers will continue with only the best 15 overall participants.

Leading international graphics card and mainboard maker MSI today announced the release of the MSI R7970 Lightning, the new heir to the throne of Lightning graphics cards. Equipped with AMD's 28 nm Radeon HD 7970 GPU, the MSI R7970 Lightning features an all-new Unlocked Digital Power Architecture that incorporates an Unlocked BIOS, Digital PWM Controller, and Enhanced Power Design to boost overclocking potential to new heights and make overclocking easier than ever.

In an industry first, the proprietary "GPU Reactor" power supply module reduces power supply noise and also boosts overclocking stability as well. To keep this beast cool, the MSI R7970 Lightning utilizes the latest Twin Frozr IV Thermal Design equipped with Dust Removal Technology. The dual 10 cm fans with Propeller Blade Technology generate massive airflow for fast heat dissipation while remaining whisper silent. The two form-in-one heat sinks improve cooling for memory and the power supply module as well ensure structural integrity.

ORIGIN PC starts off 2012 with three major announcements. The award-winning GENESIS desktop has been overclocked to a record 5.7GHz with the exclusive new ORIGIN PC Phase Change cooling system. The Phase Change cooling system will be available in late Q1. ORIGIN PC launches free U.S. based lifetime 24/7 technical support on all desktops and laptops starting today. The award winning EON17-S and EON15-S laptops both receive an upgrade with the new exclusive ORIGIN PC design.

If you thought the overclocking and benchmark feats we reported on a few days ago here and here were impressive, wait until you see what four cards can do. Overclocking champion Shamino over at Kingpin Cooling has set four 3DMark and one Unigene benchmark record: