xMec takes gold with two Radeon HD 4870 graphics cards in 3DMark 2005

Judging by today's results, it looks like a retro day for us. Italian enthusiast xMec has taken first place in the Crossfire dual-card category using two Radeon HD 4870s in 3DMark 2005:

⤢ ВІДКРИТИ

⤢ ВІДКРИТИ

Surprisingly, the Core i7-8700K processor, overclocked to an impressive 7000 MHz, was largely responsible for such a high score.

There's a simple explanation for this, which I've covered before, but it bears repeating:

Outdated benchmarks like 3DMark 2005 can only effectively utilize a single core/thread in graphics tests and up to six cores/threads in the CPU test. This means that for 3DMark 2005, even a Core i9-9900K isn't as appealing as a Core i7-8700K, like the one used in this record.

Judging by the Device-ID, the Italian overclocker used reference design graphics cards, albeit manufactured by ASUS. Furthermore, the cards weren't heavily overclocked. GPU clock speeds were 800 MHz (+6.67% above nominal), and video memory ran at 4000 MHz (+11.11% above nominal). This isn't surprising, and I've already explained the reasons why.

Of the components xMec used to achieve his record, we only know the Core i7-8700K processor, overclocked to 7000 MHz, an ASUS ROG Maximus XI Apex motherboard, and 16 GB (two 8GB sticks) of G.SKILL Trident Z RAM.

Source: Record page on HWBot