GIGABYTE's Latest Overclocking Competition Focuses On Hitting Targets, Not Breaking Records

One of the biggest downfalls of overclocking competitions is that they're usually very exclusive. Not everyone can afford hardware that's effectively going to be slaughtered, and it's impossible to compete with champions who are handed over gear from companies like Intel without much hesitation. It's for this reason that GIGABYTE's just-announced "Target OC" competition strikes me as being really freaking cool.

Instead of asking people to break records, GIGABYTE's asking people to come as close to certain targets as possible, and lower-end hardware is definitely welcomed here. Take for example the 3DMark 05 test; here, your goal is to come as close to OPPAINTER's world record score of 30,257, established seven-years-ago. With today's hardware, that score won't be a serious challenge to reach, but it will be a challenge to fine-tune your gear enough to hit that score right on the money, or at least come as close as possible to it.

In all, this competition has five stages:

• Stage 1: XTU - Target score: 159 marks
• Stage 2: HWBOT Prime - Target score: 2967.55 pps
• Stage 3: 3DMark 05 - Target score: 30257 marks
• Stage 4: Super Pi 32M - Target score: 20min 27sec 570ms
• Stage 5: Catzilla 720p - Target score: 1938 marks

To keep the competition as fair as possible, GIGABYTE is once again relying on the HWBOT scorekeeping service.

Unlike some competitions, which requires someone to do well in each stage and try to have the best aggregate score, the winner of each stage here will be awarded $400 USD. And, just for participating, you have a chance of being randomly drawn to receive a Z97 or X99 motherboard.

I really, really hope we see mroe competitions like this. World records are great, but competitions that almost anyone can join in on can't be beat.