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» MEDIA (8) Who needs a frost brewed liner? Reeeeal men of genius!!! Overclocking with a beer can (dry) Ice, Ice, baby... Don't try this at home kids.

Ok, first off--if there's a definition of Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 technology, it's being able to survive what I just did to their Ma790FXT-UD5.

Secondly, if writing and creativity still have anything to do with this contest, I hope I score some bonus points here.

Here goes: like most people in this contest, I didn't have access to high end cooling gear, nor did I feel the need to purchase it for sake of this contest alone. After seeing Deux's impressive clocks, I set out to push the envelope with some good ol' basement engineering.

First I decided I'd try to put some dry ice on my heatsink to cool it down more than usual. Well, that didn't really get me any farther than I got before so I started to think how I could use the dry ice I bought more efficiently. That's when I had the brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea to make my own ghetto fabulous dry ice pot, which I'd also fill with acetone (...common lacquer thinner I had laying around...) to get some low temps.

So how did I make a dry ice pot, you're asking? With nothing more than a beer can, a tin can, a utility knife, and some "welder" adhesive...oh, and a coozie of course. I made the thing Sunday night and let the adhesive dry over night. Proud of my work, I tested it out. It seemed to work beautifully and got really cold. Then I let it sit on my counter for about 2 hours. When I attended to it again, the lacquer thinner had eaten through the adhesive and it was leaking.

Not to be discouraged, I bolstered the seam with some plumber's grease and set about my business. As you can see from the pictures, I had the thing working pretty good and I was seeing sub-zero temps.

Then I went for the big clocks. I got to windows a couple of times north of 4 Ghz but nothing was stable. As I was fine tuning the settings in the bios I looked at my homemade "pot" and saw it was running low on liquid and dry ice. So I added some more. Well, apparently I dropped too big of a piece of dry ice in because it started to boil over, sending acetone running across the surface of my motherboard and eating holes throught the styrofoam cooler lid I wisely placed the thing on (see pictures).

As you can imagine, seeing a caustic liquid running across a beautiful motherboard with live electricity running through it is a bit unnerving. And then, sure enough, it shut off.

I killed the power and began to clean up, anxious to see if it was fried or not. I fitted it back on to a motherboard tray and replaced my air cooler.

To Gigabyte's credit, it fired right up and I managed to push it a bit farther than I previously had.

So here it is folks, the results you've all been waiting for:
AMD X3 720 BE @ 3.94 Ghz
Gigabyte UD5P 790FX
2x2 GB OCZ AMD Edition DDR3 1600 7-7-7-24
Radeon 4770
WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Corsair 650W PSU
Coolermaster Hyper TX2

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=736790

[Cue "real men of genius" music] So here's to you mister 'make a dry ice pot out of a beer can so you overclock your AMD processor.' When 3.94 Gigaherz just isn't enough, you push the envelope. [Background singers] "And spill acetone all over the place! Your basement now smells like a paaaaaaint booth!!" Grab a (dry) ice cold _____ ______ and revel in your nerd-dom...

...real men of genius...

4 GHz validation: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=736687
(not prime stable)