The arrival of DirectX 11 and Win 7 couldn't prevent Gigabyte from throwing the first online graphics card OC competition and mustering the last drops of juice from DX10 cards. The competition is appropriately named "Beat Me If You Dare" and it offers a cash purse of US$9000 as well as hardware goodies for the best overclockers.

Round one concentrates on the GTX 260 and is due to expire on 0:00 1st November, Taipei time. Users are encouraged to submit their GTX 260 results and see whether they're the ones to take the cake. Round One rules say that users can use any brand of graphics card for each round and there are no hardware limitations.

Round two will feature another test subject, the GTX 275, and the prizes will be awarded based on 3DMark Vantage performance and the fps score in Resident Evil 5.

The winner of each round will receive US$1,500 in cash, the runner-up will recieve Gigabyte's GTX 295 whereas the third ranked competitor will receive Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA GTX 285.

Furthermore, Gigabyte dares anyone to beat their benchmark results, and the company will double the prize for the users who do. Furthermore, there will be a lucky draw among all the contestants where one user will receive Gigabyte's excellent gaming mouse, which we've reviewed here.

You can find out more here (website), here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).