On 24th October, The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown has drawn to a climactic close, with the winners announced after the event concluded on Friday in Hong Kong. Following weeks of intense competition across seven countries, Rinie Bin Ramli, freelance blogger from Malaysia has been announced as the inaugural champion of champions. Kunlasub Wattanaphon, reporter from sanook.com, Thailand, and John Nieves, Tech Editor from Gadgets Magazine, Philippines were announced as second and third overall winners, respectively. The finalists went head-to-head in several games from Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS): EA SPORTS™ FIFA 2008, Need for Speed™ Pro Street and Crysis®.

Rinie Bin Ramli, freelance blogger from Malaysia flew home with a Dell® XPS 730 high-performance gaming PC - featuring the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX9650 processor - and five EA game titles as the ultimate prize. Kunlasub Wattanaphon, reporter from sanook.com, Thailand was awarded with a Creative GigaWorks® S750 multimedia speaker system - designed to heighten gaming experience, and three EA game titles, while John Nieves, Tech Editor from Gadgets Magazine, Philippines was awarded with a range of EA game titles. All winners were also presented with a range of EA merchandise.

The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown drew out the best of the best from Asia’s gaming media and amateur gamers. Representatives from seven countries – India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – competed head-to-head for a chance to fly to Hong Kong to compete in the finals. The Showdown was an exciting event that united countries across the region, with the passion and fun of gaming as its focus.

Hosted at the EA Experience centre at The Peak - the only EA-branded venue in the world - the location added a high-tech, futuristic touch to the proceedings. Competitors were truly immersed in the three different PC gaming genres, leveraging the unrivalled performance of the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processors.

“The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown gave us the chance to witness the amazing skills and camaraderie of the best media and amateur gamers across the region, in games that showcased a level of detail and life-like experience made possible through the use of Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processors,” said Tim Bailey, Director of Platform Marketing, Intel Asia Pacific.

“The positive feedback received from competitors in the country heats and the finals here in Hong Kong are testament to the success of the tournament – and the fun that was had by all who participated,” Bailey concluded.

“We are extremely pleased to be a partner of Intel in this high profile competition. The sheer scale of the event is a reflection of the popularity of PC gaming in Asia and Intel certainly ups the ante with their technology” said Jon Niermann, President of EA Asia Pacific. “Witnessing the excitement of competitors from the different countries in competing across three of our biggest titles truly underscored the success of the tournament and showcased what PC gaming is all about.”

“These EA games running on Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processors were incredibly smooth! Using my home PC it will take a few minutes to even launch the intro but these Intel PCs only took seconds. The performance and graphics improvement in Crysis is particularly strong. We can set the maximum settings and there were no lags at all. I enjoyed the game play very much and I strongly recommend the running of PC games on Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processors,” said Rinie Bin Ramli, freelance blogger from Malaysia and Asia Champion of Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown.

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Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown kicked off in Thailand last week. The gaming showdown was a highlight for the annual i-Café Summit 2008 held in Sofitel Central Hotel, Bangkok. The event was hosted by Khun Accharas Ouysinprasert, Country Manager of Thailand and Khun Prateep Terathanon, Channel Platform Manager.

The eight contestants were from Gsquare, HWM, Sanook Game, Future Gamer (FG), EGC, OS, and Sanook IT. After rounds of competition the winner was Kunlasab Wattanaphon from Sanook Game. He will have to wait to be ranked against the winners from the other in-country tournaments to compete for a seat in the HK final.

Kunlasap, the winner of the Thailand game, said, “I’m glad that Intel organized this gaming event for the media. I’d like to see Intel organizing more gaming competition for media in the future using other games that can show the performance of the processor. This is a great way for gaming media to have hands-on experience with the actual extreme gaming PC using Intel processors. I have to admit that Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor has a lot better performance that I expected. All the three EA games that I played run smoothly with great graphic display. The spec of the PC that we used at the competition is truly an extreme gaming PC.”

Phontree Kawinwat, the contestant from G2, said, “The Core 2 Extreme-based PC that we used is truly a PC for extreme gaming which requires high performance CPUs. I’d love to play other games using these PCs.’

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The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown was held in Malaysia on 15 September 2008. The gaming showdown took place in FTZ Asia Net café at Subang Jaya and was hosted by Norhizam Kadir, Marketing Manager of Intel Malaysia. There were nine contestants in total from publications including Games Axis, PC gamer, PC.com, CHIP and Lowyat.net. There was intense competition playing the three different genres of PC games from Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) – EA Sports™ FIFA 2008, Need for Speed™ Pro Street and Crysis™. In the end, Rinie Ramli - an avid gamer from Lowyat.net - was announced as the winner.

“This event should be a yearly affair, and should be on a bigger scale!” said Rinie. “Gaming on Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme is really great. Totally no lag and I totally enjoyed it. Simply speechless! I’ve always been a fan of Intel!”

Lim Kuan Keat, editor of Games Axis, said: “It’s a very good event where media and avid gamers gather together for a friendly showdown. We should have this on an annual basis. However Intel must let us know much earlier - so we can practice!”

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The Philippines held their Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown competition on 19 September, 2008. The event took place in the state-of-the-art Villman Gaming Café at the SM Megamall Cyberzone. Jerome Matti, Marketing Manager of Intel Philippines, played host at the event. 12 contestants from seven publications competed - Business Mirror / Agence France Press, Inquirer.net, Playground, GAME!, Gadgets, T3 and PC World. John Nieves from Gadgets magazine was the Philippines winner.

“Comparing the performance of the new Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme to its

predecessors, I'd have to say it’s very exciting how good the graphics are now, and how fast the game is really running,” said John. “The second generation games like Crysis run really fast. Crysis and other second generation games really push the processors, and the Core 2 Extreme just delivers."

Second place winner Lance Tan-Ong from Game! magazine said: “Compared to the previous versions [of the Intel® Core™ 2 processors], this one I can seriously say is designed for gaming, and can give every gamer a new perspective on how games should be and how they should look like. If it looks good, it most certainly would feel good. The new processor kept its promise on everything it's able to do, giving a very wonderful gaming experience. Buy it, try it, I guarantee you, it will feel very wonderful. You'll do your computer a favor. Share the love, spread the word."

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The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown was held in Korea on 24 September, 2008. The event took place at Yongsan Intel e-stadium and was hosted by Helena Park, PR Manager of Intel Korea. There were six contestants in total from publications including This is Game, Gamedonga, Onplayer, PCBee and I Love PCBang. Kim Dong-Hyun from Gamedonga was the winner of the event.

“I am very glad to win the competition. All the competing players were very good and I guess I was just lucky,” said Kim. “Once again, I want to thank Intel for an exciting event. This gaming competition was also an opportunity

to experience Intel’s Core2Extreme’s performance. Without a doubt, it has demonstrated high performance in complex gaming environments.” Park Sang-Bum, from This is Game, said: “I was so close to coming first! However, I had a great time playing with my colleagues.

I don’t usually play games on my home PC because it lacks in performance. Through this event, I was able to feel the outstanding stability and performance of the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme PC.”

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The Intel® Asia PC Gaming Showdown was held in Singapore on 25 September. The event took place in The Geek Terminal, and was hosted by Elvin Ong, Regional Mobility PR Manager of Intel. Seven competitors participated, including media and bloggers from VR-Zone, Sheylara, OnTheRedDot, ClickToKill, MHisham, and Zopim. Chester Chen from VR-Zone was the winner of the Singapore event.

“I’m quite surprised I won, because I was simply having so much fun! I think the event is a great way to get people together,” said Chester. “Gaming is usually quite solitary and this environment promoted the social aspect of it. The system performed very well and was quite stylish as well.”

Shawn from gaming blog Sheylara said: “I think the games were a good mix of genres. It was my first time using Core2Extreme machines and I think the games ran really well – all the actions, movements, and graphics were pretty impressive.”

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All competitors thoroughly enjoyed playing the games from Electronic Arts. With only a two point gap between the top three gamers when playing the last game, Crysis, it was a nail-biting finish. The winner of the Vietnam tournament was Dinh Nguyen Duc Minh, representing gaming forum VOZ.

“I’m glad to have participated in this gaming event for the media. I’ve had a chance to play the Electronic Arts games on other PCs in the past, but I have to admit that the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor has significantly better performance that I expected. All the three EA games that I played ran smoothly with great graphics,” said Dinh Nguyen Duc Minh.

“I’d like to see Intel organizing more gaming competitions for media in the future using other games that can demonstrate the performance of the processor. This is a great way for gaming media to have a hands-on experience with the actual extreme gaming PC using Intel processors.”

Bui Le Duy, from PC World Vietnam Magazine, said, “The Core 2 Extreme-based PC that we used is truly a PC for extreme gaming. The Core 2 Extreme is worthy to be named ‘the best processor for gamers.’”

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