SCPC 2006: The winners

We’ve crowned Sweden’s fastest PCs, but who are the people behind the systems and what kind of hardware did they use to take home the title of the fastest PC of 2006, this is something we investigate in our article about the winners of SCPC2006.

December of 2006 the fifth annual Swedish Computer Performance Championship was held here at NordicHardware. With prizes worth more than ever before, over $9,000, and looking back at last year’s results our expectations were set high. SCPC2006 managed to more than well meet our expectations and the perhaps best of all was that we saw three completely different scenarios in all three categories. Now that the competition has ended and we’ve gone through all of the results and video verifications to validate the final top three we can now conclude the Swedish Performance Championship of 2006. A championship which introduced some new events turned out to offer some unexpected dramatics, especially the new main category Price/Performance. We will summarize the three categories and of course focus on our three Swedish overclocking champions and their winning systems.

We hope to offer you readers a better insight into what you need to create Sweden’s best performing PCs and who managed to do it this year. We start by taking a look at the 3DMark category and two-time champion Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin.

The 3DMark category was upgraded to Futuremark’s 3DMark06 and became a display of superiority by the two-time Swedish Champion Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin. Kinc didn’t submit the winning result until rather late in the competition but the world famous overclocker showed that you have to be a world class overclocker to be able to threaten him in the 3DMark category. This seems to have discouraged many of the other well known overclockers already before the competition began. But Kinc showed that despite he grabbed an early lead that he’s constantly working to improve his scores. The winning result ended up at amazing 23,734 points and was a new world record. The result only stood for a few hours since the American overclocker Kingpin took back his record the very same day, but performing these scores while filming it at the same time is certainly impressive. At the moment this is still the second best 3DMark06 score, which pretty much says it all.

This winning result was achieved with the very latest hardware (what else?) and the detailed specifications of Kinc’s system can be found below;

Kinc’s winning system- 23 734 3DMarks
Processor:	Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 @ 4920MHz
Processor cooling:	Liquid nitrogen (LN2), Mousepot Rev.3 -110°C
Graphics card(s) :	ASUS GeForce 8800GTX SLI @ 884/2200MHz
Graphics card cooling :	Overklokk Dual Evap Cascade, -80°C
Motherboard:	ASUS Striker Extreme
Memory:	Corsair Dominator PC8888

That hardware matters in SCPC2006 is quite obvious, but you also need someone to pilot the hardware and push it to the very limit and sometimes past it to reach the most extreme results. We’ve had a chat with Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin and tried to gather some more information about one of the world’s best overclockers and his view on computers and what overclocking looks like.

We start with a short biography before we move on to our interview with the Swedish champion of 3DMark06.

Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin – Biography
Birth name :	Kim Marcus Hultin
Nickname:	Kinc
Story behind the nickname:	It all started with a big cactus in Varberg which became like a person to us. We named it Mr Kaktus. We said hello to him every time we passed by. Later on, when I had to come up with a name for a company during my web design project I decided to with Kaktus Inc., which later was shortened to Kinc.
Age:	22
Zodiac:	Libra
Birth place :	Varberg
First overclocking experience:	It started with a P3 Coppermine 450MHz at 517MHz 24/7, but no serious overclocking attempts. It wasn’t until last year’s championship that the overclocking really started to speak to me.
Previous SCPC merits:	SCPC2004 – 2nd place SCPC2005 – 1st place
Previous 3DMark merits:	3DMark2001: 3 previous world record and first over 50,000 points. 3DMark03: 2 previous world records and first over 40,000 points. 3DMark05: 2 previous world records and the current world record. Is together with OPPainter the only one to hold the world record of all three 3DMark categories at the same time.

NordicHardware:
Congratulations! 2961 points was the margin to the runner up. Do you think this was too easy?

Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin:
Overclocking and benching is never easy. Anything can go wrong and this year was no exception. Ninety of 100 ended with no result and among the remaining 10 there was a few where everything worked.

NH:
You’ve gathered a second place from 2004 and two straight titles from 2005 and 2006 in the 3DMark category. Are you going for a third title next year?

Kinc:
If I’m still as active at the next championship, which I hope and certainly believe I will hopefully still have a decent shot. As you’ve perhaps noticed the interest in extreme benching of 3DMark has increased exponentially in Sweden the last two years so I’m not so sure I’ll win the next time.

NH:
What made you start overclocking?

Kinc:
Just like most people it all started with the fact that I wanted to get the most from my system, ”free” performance is hard to say no to. When I then found out about SCPC2004 and that there were nice prizes to collect I decided to take the next step.

NH:
Do you have any special preparations?

Kinc:
I make sure to stay updated and in touch with the latest hardware. The most obvious is of course to have access to the best hardware and cooling you can find.

NH:
What is the toughest about this category?

Kinc:
I can imagine that it’s hard to find the motivations to participate in this category as it costs a lot in the form of hardware and cooling than it’s worth winning. But I’ve been lucky this championship being sponsored by several companies with hardware. But a mousepot rev3 for the CPU still has its price and you shouldn’t forget about the two cascades. Something I feel is a bit hard is the overall approach as you have film and keep track of the processor temperature at the same time, it simply adds an extra element.

NH:
What’s the most fun about participating in the Swedish Computer Performance Championship?

Kinc:
Personally I think it’s always more fun to do what you like most in competition style, but above all you get to show that ”little” Sweden is at the top when it comes to PC performance.

NH:
Is there anyone you would like to thank or anything you would like to add?

Kinc:
There are many I would like to thank. First of all the people behind NordicHardware for arranging this and pushing the performance scene in Sweden forward with both the SCPC but above all the general interest among the staff which is clearly seen in the news reporting and the articles. I want to thank Micke and Anders at ASUS, Thomas at Intel, Corsair, Silverstone and AGA for their help with hardware liquid nitrogen. And then we also have the numerous people which share this interest and speak with on MSN and have a nice time with at events like DreamHack, thank you! I believe and hope you all know who you are 🙂 Last but not least I want to thank Crotale, Overklokk and everyone else I’ve benched together with, it’s a lot more fun sharing the experience with someone.

We finish with a few quick questions which might interest our readers and show them who our new overclocking champions are and their relationship to computers.

NH: What is your first overclocking memory?
Kinc: Pentium 3 450MHz and Riva TNT 2.

NH: Which is your best overclocking memory?
Kinc: DreamHack Winter 2005.

NH: What kind of hardware do you use with your everyday computers?
Kinc: I have a machine I play World of Warcraft with; Intel QX6700 (prize), Asus P5W DH, Corsair Dominator 2x1GB (prize), XFX+ASUS 8800GTX SLI, 2x36GB Raptor and a DELL 24”. For office work I have a laptop and an HTPC for other entertainment than WoW 🙂

NH: Do you overclock your 24/7 computer?
Kinc: No.

NH: Do you have any special kind of hardware you remember, any favorite during the years that have passed?

NH: Do you play PC game? In case you do, any favorite?
Kinc: RPG and adventures on consoles is kind of my soft spot. For example Final Fantasy, Xenosaga and Resident Evil. PC games … well than I have to say World of Warcraft even if it doesn’t feel like a game anymore 😉

We want to congratulate Marcus Hultin, which now hold three top three spots in the 3DMark category during the last three championships, for winning the title of this year’s edition of the Swedish Computer Performance Championship: 3DMark06.

Just like the 3DMark category Percentual Overclocking is one of the two original categories and when the championship of 2006 ended Robert ”crotale” Kihlberg held the number on spot, a man who is close to synonymous with SCPC and the percentual overclocking category. Robert managed to win his third title, an achievement no one has done before and the fact that Robert back in 2003 took home the bronze shows that there is certainly a lot of experience of overclocking. During SCPC2006 Robert took some time before he decided whether he should participate or not, but after that his younger brother Fredric ”crusader” Kihlberg took home the Leadership prize of percentual overclocking with only a week to go there was simply no return. The Kihlberg brothers were untouchable in the SCPC 2006 and not even Fredric managed to stop Robert from winning his third title in a row. Even Robert didn’t manage to break his own world record at 203% from last year he once again managed to push a 1.4GHz Celeron Mobile processor to more than 200%. The clock frequency stopped at mighty 4.2GHz and the percentual overclock finally stopped at 201%.S

Robert will go into the story books for grabbing his third championship title in a row and the system that made it possible was as follows;

Crotale’s winning system- 201% overclock
Processor:	Celeron Mobile 1400 SL6M4 (vid4 mod) @ 4219MHz
Processor info:	301MHz FSB, ~1.95V
Processor cooling:	Liquid nitrogen (LN2), Chefnr1 CPU tube -185°C
Graphics card :	GeForce Ti4600
Motherboard:	Abit IC7-G (vcore, ovp, vchip, vid)
Memory:	Mushkin PC3500
Power supply :	OCZ 520W

Hardware is far from everything though, you need both a strong mind and skills to perform overclocking results like those Robert has submitted during SCPC2006 and it’s time to hear what a three-fold champion has to say about his new title.

Once again we start off with a short biography before we move on to our interview with the three-fold champion of Percentual overclocking.

Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg – Biography
Birth name :	Robert Gustav Kihlberg
Nickname:	crotale
Story behind the nickname:	Had this nickname for years now and it simply spawned from rearranging some letters. Recently I’ve noticed this is the name of a snake in some language and a French military missile system.
Age:	24
Zodiac:	Taurus
Birth place :	Katrineholm
First overclocking experience:	PII 300 to 338MHz. Ran defrag and corrupted the whole harddrive.
Previous SCPC merits:	SCPC2003 – 3rd SCPC2004 – 1st SCPC2005 – 1st
Previous Percentual Overclocking merits:	Celeron 333 @ 600MHz P4 1.6 @ 3300MHz (SCPC2003) Celeron Mobile 1400 @ 3755 (SCPC2004) Celeron D 325J @ 5253MHz Pentium M 1600 @ 3100MHz P4 660 @ 6006MHz Extreme Edition 955 @ 6600MHz Celeron Mobile 1400 @ 4243 (SCPC2005) Core 2 Duo X6800 @ 5050MHz Core 2 Quad QX6700 @ 4760MHz

NordicHardware
Congratulations for winning and a yet again incredible result! To get right to it – How do you feel?

Robert ”Crotale” Kihlberg:
Thank you, I’m really excited! You make up this worst case scenario as the competition progress, thankfully it’s all over now.

NH:
This year was special to you, you’re the only one who has won three championships, in the same category, three years in a row, how do you do it?

Crotale:
The foundation was made two years back when I did some frenetic testing of various motherboards and cooling methods together with data sheet studies. The year after that I moved from dry ice to liquid nitrogen. This year offered mainly some fine-tuning of the ”capture” technology.

NH:
Did you encounter any problems during the competition? Or did everything go as planned?

Crotale:

I assumed everything would be pretty much
plug ’n’ play, which turned out to be completely inaccurate. It took quite some time and about 20 liters of nitrogen before we found a good combination of voltage and cooling to get those last 10 percent, the processor I used this year was not as good as last year’s though.

NH:
Did you ever think your result was threatened?

Crotale:
I thought it would be a lot tighter at the top as the hardware was so well known by now, and when it didn’t really work for me to begin with I started to get a little worried. When the processor finally went from 190% to 200% I could once again relax.

NH:
What is the toughest about this category?

Crotale:
Those who have participated knows that it’s pretty all or nothing in this category. I realized I had underestimated several of the problems that appeared, and even though the final result only takes a few seconds to achieve, the preparations are long and hard.

NH:
Is there anyone you would like to thank or anything you would like to add?

Crotale:
I want to thank Fredric for helping me and a big thanks to Johan Ljunggren at Wik & Wall in Linköping for the liquid nitrogen. I also want to thank a number of people spread across the Swedish overclocking forums for their encouraging words, you know who you are.

We finish with a few quick questions which might interest our readers and show them who our new overclocking champions are and their relationship to computers.

NH: What is your first overclocking memory?

Crotale:
That would have to be a P2 300 which was overclocked with a measly 38MHz, but still managed to corrupt Windows. Other than that it would have to be a Celeron 333, to about 600MHz with an air-cooled peltier, the first successful overclock.

NH: Which is your best overclocking memory?

Crotale: Aside from SCPC, there are two things that come to mind. The first was to reach 40,000 in 3DMark2001 with a Dothan 1.6GHz and a Radeon X800XTPE. The second was going below 20 seconds with a Pentium 955EE at 6.6GHz.

NH: What kind of hardware do you use with your everyday computers?

Crotale: Abit AW9D-Max, Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB Corsair PC6400, NVIDIA 7900GT.

NH: Do you overclock your 24/7 computer?

Crotale: Yes, but I use water-cooling to keep it stable at ~3.6GHz.

NH: Do you have any special kind of hardware you remember, any favorite during the years that have passed?

Crotale: An early favorite is PIII 700E which ran just fine as a workstation at 1050MHz, but then we’re back to the Dothan processor that was a very pleasant acquaintance.

NH: Do you play PC game? In case you do, any favorite?

Crotale: I play some EVE-Online when I get the time between studies.

We want to congratulate Robert Kihlberg which has made it into the history books with his three consequent titles in Percentual Overclocking.

Our third category Price/Performance has only been around for a year and last time we introduced it to test and see if it could complement our other two main categories. Both we and the participants of Price/Performance learned a lot during SCPC2005 and we therefore decided to offer the category another shot in 2006. With a better looking set of prices and the same timetable as the two main categories it turned out that we would not regret our decision. Price/Performance is basically all about getting as much performance as possible from a computer within a certain budget. To measure the performance we had three different benchmarks which required an overall well performing system; 3DMark, Percentual Overclocking and SuperPi. The results of the individual subcategories give you points which are then added up and we finally get a winner. This may seem pretty easy, but when checked the scores on the night of the 29th of December the scores were so even we had to wait with announcing a winner. A few days later after having to disqualify one person we had a final list of results, the problem was that both the first and second placed were shared and we had two people on third. This meant that we had to turn to the individual prices and see which one had the cheapest system. The systems had to cost at most 8000 SEK, but those who spent the least wins. The final score is as follows;

First: Jon ”elmor” Sandström, 50 points, 7872 SEK
Second: Marcus ”Marquzz” Ellby, 50 points, 7892 SEK
Third: Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin, 48 points, 7919 SEK
Fourth: Peter ”Incido” Nilsson, 48 points, 7981 SEK

SCPC 2006 ended with Jon ”elmor” Sandström winning Price/Performance with the same points and a 20 SEK (!!) margin to Marcus ”Marquzz” Ellby. Perhaps a bit disappointing for Marcus but, Jon is far from new to the competition. During SCPC2005 he came second in Price/Performance and during SCPC2006 also managed to finish second in the main category 3DMark06. A worthy winner and a championship finish like no other.

The system Jon used looks as follows;

elmor’s winning system – 50 points, 7872 SEK
Processor:	Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Processor cooling:	Scythe Ninja + Delta 120mm
Graphics card :	ASUS GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
Graphics card cooling :	Stock cooling
Motherboard:	Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 rev 2.0
Memory:	Corsair XMS2 PC6400 CL5 512MB
Subcategories:
3DMark06:	11,021 Points
Percentual Overclocking:	103.75%
SuperPi:	15.609 SEK

Before we move on to the interview we take a look at the person behind the alias ”elmor.”

Jon ”elmor” Sandström – Biography
Birth name:	Jon Nils Anders Sandström
Nickname:	elmor
Story behind the nickname:	I actually don’t remember how I came up with elmor, I think I was just playing around with names and there it was.
Age:	17
Zodiac:	Aries
Birth place :	Borås
First overclocking experience:	Barton 2500+ @ 3200+ with a simple change of the multiplier
Previous SCPC merits:	SCPC2005 – 2nd (Price/Performance)
Previous overclocking merits:	3DMark2001 Best ranked air-cooled single-card 8800GTX Best ranked air-cooled single-card X1950XTX 3DMark06 Third best air-cooled 8800GTX SLI Best ranked air-cooled single-card 8800GTX

NordicHardware:
After a sensationally even finish between you and overclocker profile Marcus Ellby you managed to win with a margin of 20 SEK, we have to ask you how it feels to claim your first championship title?

Jon ”elmor” Sandström:
It feels really good considering how even the competition was, not until the clock finally struck midnight I knew that I had won.

NH:
What did you think your chances of winning were before the competition?

elmor:
I knew I had parts for a top 3 even if the graphics card was one of the worst.

NH:
What do you think was the decisive factor?

elmor:
My motherboard, no doubt, which gave me the top spot in the % category. As Marcus also found out, I had a pretty good budget margin.

NH:
For how long have you been an active overclocker?

elmor:
I’ve been overclocking for about two years now.

NH:
What is the toughest about this category?

elmor:
Well I did participate in two categories but to focus on the Price/Performance part; the hardest element was to choose the right hardware, both model and then getting a hold of good samples of them.

NH:
What were the hardest, scoring results in any specific category or building a balanced computer that can succeed in all subcategories?

elmor:
In Price/Performance you need to win more than just one subcategory, so the hardest part was to build a balanced computer.

NH:
What’s the best thing about overclocking?

elmor:
The feeling after having failed a number of sessions with some benchmark, and then finally succeeding is hard to beat. It’s the excitement that makes you keep pushing. Then we have the nice relationships with others doing the same.

NH:
Is there anyone you would like to thank or anything you would like to add?

elmor:
I would like to thank Marcus ”Kinc” Hultin and Hans ”gubben” Westman, without them I would not be doing this to this extent today. I also have to thank Marcus ”Marquzz” Ellby and Peter ”Incido” Nilsson for a really exciting competition.

We finish with a few quick questions which might interest our readers and show them who our new overclocking champions are and their relationship to computers.

NH: What is your first overclocking memory?

elmor: It was an Athlon XP 2500+ that was overclocked to a 3200+ by changing the multiplier.

NH: Which is your best overclocking memory?

elmor: It has to be DreamHack Winter 2006, the first time at DreamHack and we got to use Techsweden’s booth together with Norwegian overclocker Stoolman. I had a really good time down there even if there are no results to show for it.

NH: What kind of hardware do you use with your everyday computers?

elmor: I change computer more often than I change clothes, but at the moment I’m using an Acer Travelmate 8000.

NH: Do you overclock your 24/7 computer?

elmor: No, I got the wrong chipset in my laptop to be able to overclock it. It’s undervolted though.

NH: Do you have any special kind of hardware you remember, any favorite during the years that have passed?

elmor: DFI’s Lanparty NF4 series, a more complete overclocking board doesn’t exist.

NH: Do you play PC game? In case you do, any favorite?

elmor: I play Warcraft 3 with my friends, otherwise not.

We once again congratulate Jon Sandström to his title and conclude that Sweden has a new overclocking profile to watch out for.

The time has come to put yet another Swedish Performance Championship behind us and SCPC2006 is certainly one of the most exciting we’ve ever experienced. We celebrated five years with record prizes and we made some changes to the competition; 3DMark06 was used in the 3DMark category while Price/Performance was given a more official position. The road to the final crowning of three new Swedish Champions hasn’t easy though as we actually had to postpone the preliminary results, simply because the Price/Performance category was so even. In the end, we have to consider this a pretty pleasant problem which added some extra tension to the competition. When the excitement had settled and we were done verifying the results together with our sponsor Futuremark, we were able to crown three new Overclocking Champions and they are certainly worthy of it.

Marcus Hultin isn’t just a local name but has also become a world famous overclocker as he set one world record after another. Just as planned he managed to claim his second title in a row in the 3DMark category and we’re excited to see if anyone will be able to threaten Marcus in the future. Jon Sandström which was able to claim the second place of the 3DMark category certainly have the skills, which he showed when he brought home the Price/Performance category with margin of only 20 SEK (that’s $3). After having a chat with Jon there is certainly no doubt that we will see more of ”elmor” in the future.

Last but not least we have the overclocking guru Robert Kihlberg which become historic by claiming his third consecutive championship title and doing so with a scoring the world’s second result over 200% (he was also the first to go over 200%). Robert is certainly one of the really great Swedish overclockers and just like Marcus, Robert is known all around the globe for his world class overclocking skills.

Overclocking is starting to become all the more accepted and we certainly hope that Sweden will stay at the top segment of the community, perhaps we should start calling a sport? There is certainly no doubt that we have some of the world’s best overclockers and we will be following their escapades here at NordicHardware with reports and competitions.

Before we finish and look forward to a nice hardware 2007 we want to congratulate our three Swedish Champions and all the winners of SCPC 2006. Last but not least we want to thank our sponsors which made SCPC2006 possible and perhaps the best so far. Thanks goes out to Intel, XFX, ASUS, Corsair, AMD, Shuttle, SilverStone, ABIT, Antec and Futuremark.