Couple of hours ago, Overclockaholics HWBot team took #1 US spot away from XtremeSystems and captured the top ten spot globally. Given that this was one of first US #1 spot changes since HWBot, akin of Billboard chart for overclockers came to life, we thought it was a good time to interview teams’ founder, Kalae a.k.a. Kal-El from Hawaii.
BSN*: First of all, Congratulations on your achievement it is by far not a small one. How does it finally feel to be #1 in the US and #10 Globally?
Kalae: I’m pretty damned proud of the entire Overclockaholics Community and our OC Alliance Team. We started as a hole in the wall about a year ago, now we’re ranked as a top ten overclocking team in the world and #1 in the United States with just 35 members.
BSN*: Why did you start OCA?
Kalae: OCA pretty much started with a handful of members, just good friends with serious like-minded addictions to overclocking. Hence, the name Overclockaholics. Seeing that the larger boards were lacking much of that true ONE community feel, we decided that we needed a spam/troll free environment to share our achievements and knowledge while pushing each other further. Keeping a tight lid on membership we try to filter out the jackfruits from the forum registrars. What we’ve ended up with is a truly wonderful fellowship of good people.
BSN*: How old is the team that you’ve built?
Kalae: Overclockaholics 1st Birthday is coming up, February 26 🙂 Jeeze that was quick!
BSN*: Well congrats, you’re just few weeks older than us, since our first Birthday is coming on March 23. Given today’s date, we take this is a good birthday cake for you guys.
BSN*: What is OCA’s main focus other than just overclocking?
Kalae: Relationships and a true sense of Community. Bringing out the best that human nature has to offer and cultivating it into something special.
BSN*: What do you feel led to your team’s success?
Kalae: I can say without a doubt, the primary factor in our success has been the Overclockaholics Community. No one could have asked for a better bunch of people in one community. Everyone is always positive and supportive of one another, very welcoming to new members and constantly sharing their kindness and good spirit. Pair all of that with a Overclocking Compulsive Disorder and you’ve got yourself a lasting team that plays well with others. Eventually this resulted in the birthing of a hybrid team consisting of 8 new members we like to call the “SubzeroSyndicate” [Previously members of Team NBOC]. After spending some time getting to know our community, it just made sense. Since then, we’ve fought the good fight to dominate the rankings over at HWbot.
BSN*: Having overtaken the only other American overclocking team which is significantly larger than yours, what do you predict your team will do next?
Kalae: Overclock 😉
BSN*: Is there any direction that you as a team would like to take extreme overclocking?
Kalae: We want to “Foster the Fever” and really drive others and ourselves to be the best overclockers possible while retaining that great sense of “Community”.
BSN*: Do you have any sponsors or companies you’d like to thank?
Kalae: Sponsors????? Whats that? We don’t have any official sponsors really. Nobody that I know of gets free rides on the hardware express. Unofficially, we’ve had great support from Vince at KinpingCooling.com, Shamino and EVGA, some of our boys are getting developing support from Gigabyte but beyond that we’re WYSIWG. Things are looking up tho, the word is getting out there about our talented and driven overclockers.
Dimastech recently showed some support by sponsoring our “Vantage” contest. Things are looking up for us and I really wanna give our guys every opportunity to succeed. I really have to say thanks to the HWbot crew for all their efforts into creating and maintaining a common venue for Overclockahics around the world.
BSN*: What is your favorite type of overclocking?
Kalae: All of it, I love it all, but theres nothing better than pouring LN2 into an F1 pot and seeing -196C on the temp reader.
BSN*: What is your daily setup and what is your favorite bench?
Kalae: My daily setup consists of an EVGA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 @ 4.2GHz water cooled, two SLI’d EVGA GeForce 8800 Ultras, six ripping fast Western Digital Raptors in RAID 0 on an Areca 1230 PCIe RAID Card, ASUS Xonar D2X Sound card – all powered by a SilverStone Zeus 1200W power supply.
My favorite bench? HWbot!
BSN*: Now, the question that has to be on everyone’s minds – just how hard is it to be a Hawaiian overclocker?
Kalae: Its pretty hard to find support way out here in the Pacific. There aren’t very many extreme overclockers, if any currently, that I know of. I guess it balances out tho because I live in the most beautiful place on the planet.
BSN*: Seeing as you’ve moved up 13 ranks in only the last month. what would you attribute your fast movement up the ranks to?
Kalae: The closer we came to achieving our Team Goal of being #1 in the U.S.
the harder we pushed to be “The Team”.
BSN*: Did your team’s size contribute at all to its ability to move along so quickly? Did it hinder you at all?
BSN*: Relatively, we’re a small team of enthusiasts. Most of the top teams out there have 200+ members aside from a few like Team PURE. We’ve only got 35 guys but I’ll tell yah, every single one of them push like mad with
what they have. From the top of the chain to the bottom, guys and our one gal are punishing their hardware to the extreme. Its unbelievable the level of committment from everyone. One of the cool things is the varying level of experience on the team. We have it all and yet not one member thinks themselves more valuable than the lowest scoring member.
BSN*: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Kalae: Yah, thank you Anshel and BSN* for taking the time out to recognize our achievements and for supporting the Overclocking Community. We look forward to a future of contendership in the top five arena as a Team and thrusting our individual overclockers into the prestigious World’s Top Ten Overclocker’s League Champion’s list.
That concludes our short little interview of the new #1 US team’s leader on HWBot. We thank Kalae for spending the little free time between his Serve and Protect and Freeze and Overclock duties to talk with us.
Original Author: Anshel Sag
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