After several weeks of preparation, we are finally here : the 2014 MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) is about to begin. Just like the past six years, the grand finale of this global competition is held in Taipei, on the island of Taiwan. All the Overclocking TV team has arrived on site to ensure as usual live from the event, which lasts for two days.

MSI MOA 2014 – Competitors

After a three month period of regional selections, a total of 19 overclockers were qualified for the finals. Like the past two years, MSI has decided to compose the teams of one single person rather than two. Here are the overclockers from around the world that will compete:

• bboyjezz : Indonesia
• bob(nz) : New Zealand
  DFORDOG : China
• dRweEz : South Africa
• Gunslinger : USA
• Mikecdm : USA
• Moose83 : Germany
• Nacho_arroyo : Argentina
• oc_windforce : South Korea
• Perica_barii : Monténégro
• Rbuass : Brazil
• SniperOZ : Australia
• steponz : USA
• T0lsty : Ukraine
• Vivi : South Africa
• Wizerty : France
• Xtreme_Addict : Poland
• Zzolio : Denmark

Five continents are represented with 15 nationalities coming from everywhere around the globe.

MSI MOA 2014 – Hardware

Time to get serious : the hardware used during the competition bring by MSI. The Motherboard, a Z97 MPOWER, operates the eponymous chipset Intel launched a few months ago (Intel Haswell Refresh processors).

• Motherboard: MSI Z97 MPOWER
• Graphics Card: MSI GTX 780 Ti LIGHTNING MOA Edition
• CPU: Intel ® Core ™ i7-4790K
• Memory: G.Skill F3-2600C 10D-8GTX
• SSD: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB
• Power supply: Cooler Master V1200 Platinum
• Keyboard & Mouse: Steel Series Apex RAW / Steel Series Kinzu v2
• LED Monitor: ViewSonic VX2370SMH-LED Monitor
• Bench Table: DimasTech® Bench / Test Table V1.0 Mini Graphite Black

This material is devoted to the first part of the competition, the Classic Battle. The second part, the No Limits Battle, is a bit more “free” on the choice of components, it just has to be MSI products. For the graphics card, there is a choice between AMD Radeon R9 700 and GTX 900 from Nvidia. Z97, X99 and X79 chipsets are tolerated for the motherboard. All Pentium Haswell (Refresh included) and Ivy Bridge series are accepted.

We have to mention that some components will be provided by MSI:

• Motherboard: MSI X99S MPOWER
• Graphics Card: MSI GTX 980
• CPU: Intel ® Core ™ i7-5960X
• PSU: Cooler Master V1200
• Memory: G-Skill Trident X 2600 C10

Regarding memory, storage and power, it’s all up to the overclockers.

MSI MOA 2014 – Rules

Classic Battle

Competitors have two hours to reach the best score on each of the three benchmarks. Points are determined by the performance increase compared to the base score, set by MSI. Here are the benchmarks and base scores:

• Super PI 32M: 35%
  Base score: 7 min 53 s.294
• CineBench R15: 30%
  Base score: 841 pts
• 3D Mark Fire Strike: 35%
  Base score: 10,719 pts

No Limits Battle

Overclockers can try to set records in fifteen benchmarks during the No Limits Battle. There is three different categories:

Legacy:

• Super PI 32M
• PiFast
• 3D Mark03
• 3D Mark 05
• AquarMark 3

2D:

• Prime
• HWBot
• XTU
• Cinebench R11.5
• Cinebench R15
• Wprime 1024M

3D:

• Fire Strike
• 3D Mark 11 – P
• Heaven DX11
• 3DMark Vantage
• Catzilla 720P

You can find the detailed rules by following this link. Overclockers that manages to establish more records by category win the prizes.

MSI MOA 2014 – Prizes

The cash prize of this MOA 2014 is quite comfortable : $ 16,000. Plus every competitor goes home with the hardware of the Classic Battle, as well as the motherboard and graphics card from the No Limits. Pretty cool!

Classic:

• 1st Place: $ 3,000
• 2nd Place: $ 2,000
• 3rd place: $ 1 500
• 4th Place: $ 1,000

No Limits:

• 1st Place: $ 2 500
• 2nd Place: $ 2,000
• 3rd place: $ 1 500
• 4th Place: $ 1,000
• 5th place: $ 500

Livestream

We will be streaming live on the two days of competition. Follow this link for the detailed Stream schedule.