ATI breaks 1GHz GPU speed barrier

It seems that an independent group of Finnish overclockers have made a bit of history today by overclocking a GPU past the 1GHz mark. The record was set on ATI's recently-announced Radeon X1800 XT video card.

Crazy Finnish overclockers Sampsa Kurri and Ville Suvanto managed to achieve a core clock speed of 1003MHz and a memory speed of 1881MHz effective, over 940MHz DDR with maximum system stability and no visual artefacts.

They achieved the record speeds using a custom-built liquid nitrogen cooling system. "We're just warming up," joked Kurri. "But we believe that the Radeon X1800 XT has even more over-clocking headroom, and in the coming weeks we expect to achieve higher clock speeds and even greater performance levels."

Let's just put this in to perspective here. They've taken a Radeon X1800 XT, which is clocked at 625/1500MHz by default, added a custom liquid nitrogen cooling solution, and overclocked it to buggery. Well, 1003/1881MHz in reality, but not too far off buggery.

Here's a picture of the insane clocks they achieved:

Discuss this madness in the mad house - there couldn't be a better place for it, right?