It’s rare that we see a review system that doesn’t pack an overclocked punch, but the launch of AMD’s Bulldozer-powered FX processors saw the firm use gallons of liquid nitrogen to break the world record for the highest frequency computer processor – previously held by a Celeron – and run its new FX-8150 at a ridiculous 8.429GHz.

That potent fluid is the preserve of the world’s most skilled overclockers and, before its record-breaking attempt, AMD held a test run in front of a small London audience – one of the first times, in fact, that the firm’s overclocking guru Sami Makinen had pushed Bulldozer to its limits.

While Makinen didn’t hit the same heights he managed during the Guinness-monitored attempt, he still took the new chip to a staggering 8GHz clock speed. He tried for 8.2GHz, but the sample he was using begun to crash.

Take a look at our pictures to see exactly what’s involved with extreme overclocking, from putty around the CPU to canisters of potent LN2 – and check out that temperature, too: a chilly -180°C.

Lining up the systems on our test benches, though, proved just how spectacular these PCs are: SSDs, water-cooling and touchscreen fan controllers on the inside; triple monitors, adjustable mice and £400 speakers on the outside.

As well as benchmarking, I’ve spent plenty of time in the Labs taking pictures of these stunning computers. To get the full low-down on which system takes the Ultimate PC crown, you’ll have to wait until Thursday when PC Pro issue 204 hits the shelves. Until then, take a look at these pictures, try not to drool, and pick out which you’d buy if you had several thousand pounds to spare.

Over 50 people have run it on their PCs so far, and posted the results. Bless the reader, known only as ‘N’ in his post, who ran it on his Atom netbook and achieved a blistering 1,935 seconds’ render time. That’s a mere 26 times slower than the Core i7 980X.

But now Intel has weighed in to the fight, and not surprisingly, it’s winning, thanks to a monster PC overclocked to nearly 5GHz.

That mass of components and pipes and things in the photo is a PC system buried deep in the heart of Intel’s very own UK labs, and it’s the property of one Steve Anderson, an Intel virtualisation engineer. Intel’s Alistair Kemp fills us in:

“Well here at Intel we could not resist the challenge, particularly when in our IT department we have overclocking nut Steve ‘DaFridgie’ Anderson. We gave him the challenge of beating 60 secs but restricted him to only a single-socket setup. Last night he ran it on his rig. Result: 50 seconds to complete.”

Hmmm. 50 seconds. That’s quite fast.

The rig itself uses phase-change cooling: in other words it’s attached to a chuffing great freezer, which I believe is the big box on the right of the photo. That yellow meter with the readout is showing the temperature of its output: yes, that’s minus 40 degrees celcius.

I asked Steve to send over some more details of his rig (which Alistair says is his “pride and joy”). He responded with this:

“The system is built as follows:
Chassis – Dimastech test rig
Processor – Intel Core I7 980x retail CPU
Memory – Corsair Dominator GT memory ( 2250 CAS 8 ) running at 2046 at CAS 7
Motherboard – EVGA Classified X4 E762 motherbaord
Power supply – 2 x Corsair 950w Single Rail Power supply (1 for system, the other for graphics card) automatically switched
Graphics card – 1 x EVGA GTX480
CPU cooling – Asetek Lightspeed refrigerated cooling system with a running temperature range of -40 to -32oC at 18oC ambient temperature
Storage – Seagate 160GB Sata drive (16mb cache)

Construction – Custom built for performance, not for looks! “

Well, quite. He has some interesting thoughts on the finer points of the smallpt test and the best way to get maximum performance from it too:

“The smallpt benchmark is a nice one to run, simple and very effective at loading up processors and checking for stability at speed. For the run illustrated by the screenshot [see the screenshot above] I set pretty much the same settings as I use for processor-intensive 3D benchmarks. This benchmark is sensitive to both memory performance as well as QPI speed and these were both adjusted up to the limits of stability at this processor temperature. Intel i7-980x processors do like the cold but also need some extra voltage to drive to extreme frequencies, hence the 1.63v CPU core voltage.”

But it doesn’t, of course, end at a mere 5GHz. No, no, no. They want to cool it down just a tad more. Well over a hundred degrees more, actually:

“I would expect that as we cool the processor further down to extreme cold temperatures (-180C) with Liquid nitrogen cooling, we would see stable runs on this benchmark in the 5.7-6.0ghz range.
We’ll be doing some extreme overclocking around the end of august and I’ll add this benchmark to the list to see if we can provide an even more impressive result.”

So, if anyone else out there is thinking of beating 50 seconds, you’d better do it before the end of August. Unless you happen to have a handy liquid-nitrogen cooler knocking around in the back of your garage, of course.

Anyone?

Last week I finally put together a specification I was happy with and ordered my components, and it was soon time to start building. A somewhat slap-dash assembly proved that the rig worked, and yesterday my three replacement case fans turned up.

Fitting those wasn’t easy – the two fans at the front of the machine were surrounded by small, bevelled metallic edges, so removing them from the chassis was a combination of brute force and pure luck which left my fingers covered in small cuts. Once installed, though, the three fans worked like a dream, and the noise pumping out of the Warrior 250 – which is the machine’s current name, incidentally – was halved.

The successful fan installation meant that I could press my cable management kit into service, and liberal use of cable ties and sticky pads resulted in a chassis that many a professional PC builder would be proud of: power cables are tied to free drive bays, smaller cables are lashed to the bottom of the chassis and some spare wire is even tucked away behind the motherboard, out of sight.

After my earlier overclocking misadventures – my initial 20% overclock saw the PC fail to even get to the motherboard loading screen – I restricted my ambitions to an initial 5%. This worked fine, so I upped the overclock to 10%, which gave me a clock speed of 2.75GHz – enough for now, although I haven’t yet delved into the more advanced options available in the BIOS. Still, a 10% performance boost isn’t to be sniffed at, especially when trying to run more demanding applications.

I’m intending to dive into the more hardcore performance options tomorrow to see if I can extract more performance out of my plucky Pentium Dual Core.

In the mean-time, Warrior 250 has the naming crown – but late contenders are always welcome, so post them in the comments below.

Every machine that we review has two things in common, though: none of them cost £250, and not one of them has suffered the indignity of being thrown together by my unsubtle and leaden hands.

Nevertheless, I’ve been asked to put together a serviceable and usable PC for £250. It didn’t initially sound too challenging, but the more I explored the challenge the more I discovered that huge corners would have to be cut and I’d have to be extremely canny with my purchasing.

However, I do also think that I have an instant advantage over some of my colleagues. For one, I don’t have to include a profit margin in my rig’s spec-list and, for another, I can indulge in some enthusiastic overclocking. I can also seek out parts from big-name manufacturers rather than relying on the lesser-quality, proprietary components that may be used elsewhere. To that end, I spent some time seeking out some of the cheap parts that I’d need for my PC, and came up with several possibilities:

· The processor would be an Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200, costing £57.60

· An Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT is a budget card, and would set me back £44.72

· 2GB of RAM at £16.43

· A 250GB hard disk that I’d found for £31.99

· A 17in monitor for £65.23

After a busy morning’s surfing, my shopping list already totalled £215.97, and I hadn’t factored in a case, keyboard, mouse, optical drive or even a motherboard. It looks as if my ambitions are going to have to be severely reigned in if I’m going to cram everything into this machine.

However, a bit more time on some of the big shopping websites reveal that there are some bargains to be had. I’ve managed to find an Intel Celeron E1200 processor for £36.91 – it may not be a Pentium Dual Core, but it’s still dual core and still very, very overclockable. I’ve paired this with a £32 ABIT motherboard, but I’m still furiously searching for plenty else to install into this super-cheap machine.

And that, dear reader, is where you come in: at the moment, my vision for this PC is as wide and open as the Windows XP default wallpaper, and as malleable as putty. I’m open to any suggestions as to how I can make this rig the best on offer come the end of the £250 challenge – so whether you envisage it being a budget gaming beast or a tiny, silent media centre, please let me know what’s on your mind.

I’m also open to suggestions as to where I can find the multitude of components that I need for this machine – so the cheaper and more reliable the supplier the better. With emphasis on the cheaper, of course, given the stringent budget that’s been laid down by our supreme Editor.

So, if you have any comments or suggestions regarding my machine – any tips on component choices, where to buy them or any building advice – then I’m happy to hear them. I’m looking forward to reading your feedback and proving that you can build a PC on a £250 budget – and get a better rig that can be found anywhere else.

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