Due to the early issues with the Windows 7 OS, which even lead to a few teams having to ghost their two SSDs SLAMMS decided to extend the Cinebench R15 stage with an extra hour; this was kindly applauded by all the present OCers, otherwise it would have been a very short stage one.

Cinebench R15 from Maxon is highly reliant on CPU clocks, though the memory bandwidth and the processor Uncore increase the efficiency of the score. Tweaking wise some teams used the minimize or were setting Real time to boost the score that little more. Other Teams weren't aware of the former or just forgot to apply them. These small errors are typical when benching under time pressure.

The amount of submissions at start of each stage is always low or maybe even call it slow. Teams are always more like submitting placeholder scores instead of directly cranking it hard. This can be explained by the fact that some overclockers were not acquainted at all with the X99 platform and the DDR4 memory, so the learning curve was high and also explains why most teams didn't even bother to push the memory and its timings hard. It was nice to see the processor binning payed off as several teams were battling it out near the 5.25Ghz region. A few teams could set some scores at around 5.375Mhz. The German Panzer team of Dancop and Benchbros set the bar with a whopping 2155 points. In the final stages being passed with a mere 5 points by the Pentium qualifiers John_White and the Maedhros from France with a CPU running their  setup at similar clock speeds. Team Caseking was struggling hard and were even closing the rankings till about half an hour before the end of the Cinebench stage. However overclockers are not quitters, thus the persistence of muscle man 8pack and skinny Der8auer allowed them to slowly but steadily climb up the ladder. Finally they dropped the bomb and were the only ones being able to clock their i7-5960X at 5500MHz and finish in first spot with a score of 2188 points.

Time to unplug the stock video card with the LN2 ready one and start benching Futuremark's 3DMark11. Being one of the shout casters  it was getting nearly impossible to precisely follow up as this time everybody was aware of the max frequency of their processor and scores were upped on a more rapid pace. Again some teams still ignoring the memory tuning, though this could mean the difference between top spot or below. Everybody was hoping to see the GTX980 GPU clocks way above 2000MHz and idem ditto for the GPU memory soaring at 2100MHz or beyond.

Again it has to be mentioned the great work and planning by the Russian ASUS crew. The Stage 2 scores were tight, at first teams barely breaching 24000 points, than after they got used to the card slowly working their way near the 25000 marks and further. Some teams were plagued by efficiency problems, the GPU memory capping out or in worst case scenario for Team 1 on of their cards was dead after the volt modding. Time again is a critical factor and at a certain moment you just have to focus on setting a score, meaning you have to rely on running safer clocks. The team of Extreme Addict and Giorgioprimo were battling it out with Team#2 till French OC guru Wizerty and his Kazakhstan Team mate Terraraptor submitted their 26228 score. The 2nd score by Team#7 was at 26128 and 3rd spot was consolidated by Team#2 The German Panzers.

For the Firestrike and Firestrike Extreme stages it was again a very close race to the finish. With teams battling out till the very last minute it kept the winner of this Overclocking undecided till the end. Firestrike turned out in favor of the home team of Smoke and _12_ In 2nd spot Team#7 again with XA and Giorgioprimo, just trailing with a mere 81 points was Team#2 with Dancop and Benchbros. The Firestrike Extreme stage would be the decider as it was neck to neck between Team#2, Team#3 and Team#7. The winners of Stage 1 had so many issues to get their single card running properly, they already accepted the fact that the only thing they could do was to consolidate somewhere mid field. The Greeks still being limited by performance issues were also having a very bad day. Bye bye 5K prize money Firekiller.GR! There is always some luck involved in overclocking, no matter the preparation if the gods of hardware turn against you there's not that much you can do. The level of these competitions is way too high to just be able to make up for the loss in MHz with good efficiency.

Below the winning score by Team Russia for the Firestrike Benchmark

The score for Stage 4 aka the Firestrike Extreme round, would become the determining score for those who wanted to go home accompanied by a 5000 dollar check yes or no. When not taking into account any submission for stage 4, the leading teams would have been on a tie with all of them having exactly 73 points. This being Team#2 German Panzers, Team#3 with Wizerty & Terraraptor and Team#7 with XA and Giorgioprimo.

The Russians were still on a winning streak as they kept on dominating Stage 4 till the final quarter of the submission time. Team#2 and 7 surpassed them and were battling it out by continuously beating each other's scores. What a thrill ride this AOOC 2014 would turn into. In fact it was tense till the last seconds as Team 7 was ready for that final blow and launched the benchmark a few seconds before the end. Once the benchmark is running it is allowed to complete it,  even if the official time of the stage has been reached. Too bad for XA and his Italian Team mate the benchmark crashed halfway. Team#2 grabbed the win in Stage 4 and their consistent runs during the three other stages allowed them to take home the grand prize of 5000 dollars in cash. Well done, hard work and a lot of preparation paid off!

This is the final score and it proved to be the golden one to win the competition!