The Tiger Direct Build Your Own PC for Charity Race pits 30 of the world’s top technology media outlets in a race to see who is the fastest PC builder. While the event is for fun and all the PCs goes to charity, all the racers take this event very seriously. We’re racing for pride and bragging rights!
The event last for four hours but the race itself last only 30 minutes (the first 3.5 hours is all drinking, eating and partying). Most of the PC components are already installed. You just need to add the DVD drive, floppy drive, hard drive, video card, sound card, wireless card and the cables. The first one to put everything together and log into the network wins.
The prize for winning the race is $10,000 for first, $2,500 for second and $1,000 for third. The money doesn’t go to the racer. It is donated, along with the PC, to the charity of the winner’s choice. My PC will be donated to the BC Women’s Hospital. I’m sure all the doctors and nurses will be fighting over that 28″ monitor. The total value of each PC is $3,500. Tiger Direct has raised over $1 million for various charities since starting this event 11 years ago.
The above times are the unofficial results. Stephen Fung finished his PC ahead of everyone else. However, upon inspection it was discovered that he forgot to plug in the power to his DVD drive. That mistake moved him to second place and moved Will Smith of Maximum PC magazine to first place. Third place forgot to plug in the power to his floppy drive. That moved me to 3rd place. However, upon inspection of my PC, they discovered that I also forgot to hook power to my floppy drive, so I stay at 4th place.
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