Overclockers Australia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Overclockers Australia, usually abbreviated as OCAU, is an Australian PC hardware enthusiast community.
Started in 1999 by James "Agg" Rolfe, the site revolves primarily around a news page which is updated daily, a set of well-established forums which cover a range of computing and non-computing topics, the PC database, distributed computing efforts, reviews, and more recently, podcasts.
Contents |
[edit] News page
The news page on OCAU is updated every day with online reviews and articles relating to PC hardware, gadgets, legislation and various science and general current affairs topics. New OCAU articles (such as reviews), notable additions to the PC Database and significant discussions from the forum are also displayed on the news page. Updates are written by Agg or members of his Newsmonkey team.
[edit] Distributed computing
Many of the members of OCAU are involved with Folding@home and currently the OCAU team is rated second in the world. The OCAU community is in fierce competition with a fellow technology community HardOCP who are currently ranked first. HardOCP are the current holders of "The Relic Trophy", a duck trophy (which only exists in image form) and often the subject of discussions between opposing team members.
As of April 2006, members of both OCAU and HardOCP, particularly the major folders for each team, have been pairing up to compete who can output the most work units. This competition, dubbed "Spank A Roo" by HardOCP users, is generally known just to be some friendly competition for the cause.
[edit] Podcast
As of April 2006, OCAU has produced a weekly podcast which discusses technology in a very relaxed manner.
The podcast is hosted by Agg and Sciby, often featuring interviews with other OCAU members who take their interest in computers/modding/overclocking to professional levels. The podcasts generally contain a rundown of interesting tech news, a look into any interesting developments in games, software and hardware, an interview, some audience participation and a healthy amount of commentary from both hosts.
[edit] Discussion forums
The forums have been in their current state since around June 2001. Although the forums started out solely tech-based, over time they have expanded into what they are today. The forums are divided into several categories. Generally considered the most active area of the site, the forums have over 74,000 members and counting.
- General Topics
- Newbie Lounge
- Overclocking and Hardware
- Troubleshooting Help
- Specific Hardware Topics
- Modding
- Worklogs and PCDB Entry Discussion
- PC Audio
- Extreme Cooling
- SMP and Clustering
- Networking and Internet
- Video Cards
- Storage, Backup
- Memory
- Portable and Small Form Factor
- Modding
- Manufacturer-specific Forums
- Intel Hardware
- AMD Hardware
- VIA Hardware
- Apple Hardware & Software
- Software Topics
- Windows Operating Systems
- Other Operating Systems
- Graphics and Programming
- Games
- General Software
- Other Topics
- Motoring
- Technical
- Worklogs
- OCAU:Drive News
- Marketplace
- Geek Food
- Geek Recipes
- Geek Grog
- Current Events
- Career, Education and Finance
- TV, Movies, Music & Books
- Sport, Fitness and Health
- Journals
- Major Sporting Events
- Photography
- Tech Talk
- Critique Corner
- Marketplace
- Audio Visual
- Mobile Phones
- Game Consoles
- Pets & Animals
- Other Toys
- Electronics
- Science
- Motoring
- OCAU Community
- Site Discussion
- News
- Team OCAU - Distributed Computing
- The Pub
- The Pool Room
- TEST FORUM
- Shop & Swap
- There are several trading forums that are available for viewing only by those who have been members for 90 days or more.
- The Sponsor Specials and What/Where Should I Buy forums are available to all members.
[edit] PC database
OCAU's PC database (or PCDB) is a place where people can showcase their PC hardware and casemods, via specs listings and/or photo galleries. It has grown to one of the largest modified computer galleries on the Internet.
Users can vote for their favourite entries by various criteria. For example, following are links to PCDB entries (with pictures), sorted by:
Notable entries include:
[edit] History
OCAU was founded in mid-1999 by James "Agg" Rolfe. It was originally hosted on ISP provided web space but has evolved to new requirements to cope with the increasing amount of traffic to the site. After OCAU had outgrown their ISP provided web space, OCAU was served for a period of time from overclocked Celerons, then Pentium 3's, with webhosting provided to OCAU free of charge by Ausgamers. It is currently hosted on two servers, one being a dual Opteron.
The site has become the full-time occupation of Agg, involving maintenance and administration of the forums, creation of content such as reviews and daily news, as well as liaison with the site's sponsors.
[edit] Other notable features
OCAU has its own wiki, running on Mediawiki, which is the same software Wikipedia runs on. The articles on the wiki range from guides on computer upgrades to reviews and all the users of OCAU are encouraged to add and edit the wiki.
The site also has two sister sites, specifically, OCAU:Drive and the OCAU Motorcycle Club. OCAU:Drive forum is housed within the main community's forum, while the OCAU Motorcycle Club has a separate forum requiring a separate membership.
Forum members all have the privilege to buy and sell second hand goods through the trading forums. These forums can only be seen after 3 months of membership.
