Futuremark Announces New MSI/AMD Lightning VGA Overclocking Contest

Grand prize includes $1000 in cash, other prizes awarded in multiple categories by MSI, Enermax, GlacialTech, and Thermaltake

SARATOGA, CA – Feb 25, 2010 – Futuremark® Corporation today announced its first ever VGA overclocking contest for PC overclockers everywhere. Utilizing the current single chip record holder for VGA performance, the ATI R5870 graphic card, contestants worldwide will compete in two segments for prizes. This 4 week competition runs from Feb 25th to Mar 25th 2010.

Segment one, The R5870 Lightning Challenge, awards the top three 3DMark Vantage scorers using a single MSI R5870 Lightning VGA card in any system configuration. Segment two, The Precision Challenge, is a brand new precision based challenge where contestants using an ATI 4000 and 5000 series VGA card, compete to score a perfect pre-defined 3DMark number. Starting with 10,000 3DMarks as the target for the first week, each week will provide a new number to aim for.

For more information please visit:
http://www.futuremark.com/community/competitions/msilightning/

The grand prize in the R5870 Lightning Challenge is $1000 USD in cash. Additional prizes in the R5870 Lightning Challenge include MSI Big Bang Fuzion and Big Bang Trinergy motherboards. The Precision Challenge awards each week the first contestant to that week's target score an MSI R5870 Lightning graphics card. Additional prizes for second and third place include Thermaltake cases, Enermax Apollish fans and Enermax Gold MODU87 600 Watt power supplies. There is no limit to number of user score submissions. Weekly luck draw random winners awarded MSI R5770 Hawk VGA card and GlacialTech cooling products just for entering.

"The MSI VGA overclocking contest is very exciting for us," said Jukka Makinen, CEO of Futuremark, "Futuremark is now the place to go to for benchmark contests that bring the whole world to one place to compete."

"We’re delighted to be partnering with Futuremark to support MSI/AMD overclockers everywhere with our first ever ATI VGA overclocking competition," said Jason Lee, MSI's VGA Marketing Manager.

3DMark Vantage is a benchmark program from Futuremark that measures the 3D gaming performance capabilities of PCs. 3DMark software has been downloaded more than 45 million times. The 3DMark Vantage edition is currently the world’s most popular benchmark and can be downloaded for free from the Futuremark website. http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/

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About Futuremark® Corporation

Futuremark® Corporation is the leading provider of performance analysis software and services for PCs and smartphones. Futuremark® is known around the world for its benchmark products, including 3DMark® (with more than 45 million copies distributed worldwide), PCMark®, SPMark™ and VGMark™ and value-added services powered by the ORB, an online database of over 30 million real life benchmarking results. Futuremark maintains offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland. For more information, please visit http://www.futuremark.com/

© 2010 Futuremark® Corporation. Peacekeeper™, 3DMark®, PCMark®, SPMark™ and VGMark™ trademarks and logos, Futuremark character names and distinctive likenesses, are the exclusive property of Futuremark Corporation.

Company Contacts

North America:
Oliver Baltuch
President, Futuremark Inc.
Phone: +1 408 517 0910 (PST)
Email: ollie@futuremark.com

Europe and ROW:
Jukka Mäkinen
Vice President, PC Products and Services
Phone: +358 20 759 8250 (GMT +2)
Email: jukka@futuremark.com