Futurelooks has been involved with many different LAN parties, tech shows, and gaming events all over including Infernalan. This past weekend, I attended this event to get a little game time in and thank the Intel family that selflessly work their butts off for several days to make an event like this a success. These are the same folks that also set up PAX Prime in Seattle every year for charity. Their dedication is simply inspiring.
Infernalan: 550 Attendees Strong!
As usual, it was a great 3 day event with attendance well over the 550 between the BYOC and table top console areas. In fact, they opened up more BYOC seating to accommodate an extra 40 people or so. But Saturday night just before midnight, it didn’t seem like Intel’s halls could handle another person. Attendees and specially invited guests were there to experience the Haswell Intel 4th Generation launch party. I think a lot of us thought it was going to be a limited fan fare event. We were wrong. And, those that left early or didn’t show up will be kicking themselves.
After midnight Saturday, the Intel team from Hillsboro, Oregon and Dupont, WA opened the doors to the Fieldhouse which doubles as their gym park inside a massive warehouse where attendees were able to experience Haswell as well as enjoy some fun activities including raffles. Several CyberPowerPC, Maingear, and Digital Storm Haswell powered gaming systems were raffled off including about 50 Intel Extreme and K-Series Haswell processors. (Yes, if you left early, you missed out!)
We also got a little hands-on with the Core i7-4770K and overclocked it to about 5GHz with 1.32 volts. (Don’t tell anyone.) the Core i7-3770K couldn’t pull that off without a lot more voltage and high end cooling. It’s looking good so far.
Three different groups of elite HD Haswell gaming systems were provided totaling two Maingear, ten CyberPowerPC, and ten Digital Storm machines for attendees to experience epic gaming from three system building giants. And, were these machines sweet! There was everything from racing games to shooter games. We found NVIDIA GTX 7xx graphics in everything. The gaming keyboard, mice, and headsets were provided by Razer.
A catering service was on hand to feed the hundreds who played the gaming systems, tried their skills at miniature golf, or continued the carnage in the main BYOC hall. High rollers enjoyed the mock Las Vegas style poker tables set up for some card counting, dice throwing fun. These tables stayed packed till Intel closed the event down. It makes you wonder if one day these tables will become all touch screens.
An excellent DJ spun some of the best original club style mixes while everyone got their games on. He did a great job of keeping the atmosphere going. During one of his sets, I tried my luck at putting a hole in one to win an awesome Intel – Star Trek laptop bag. I won two bags after betting the Intel staffer that I could make the putt with my eyes closed!
Lenovo All-in-One Touchscreen Desktops
I have to say this was the best Infernalan and launch party yet. Hundreds of prizes were raffled off, everyone got to play great game titles on elite gaming systems, and there was something to do for everyone. It was all kind of sad to see it come to an end. It will be hard to top this one. The bottom line – THIS – is what it’s all about!
Special thanks to Ratika, Laurie, Sophia, and Gary plus all the other great Infernalan and Hilsboro staff for the fun time. You’ll find a ton of pictures from the weekend in the gallery below. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for our Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell review and Z87 motherboard round up from Futurelooks coming up really soon.