mickulty

"everything"

Are we looking at the same competition page?

Any plans to put the restriction to DDR1-4 in the rules for the stage rather than requiring people to delve into a forum thread to find out what is and isn't allowed? I was pretty damn close to buying rdram myself because there's no indication whatsoever on the competition pages that there'd be any problem with it as long as it's 423/478 rather than 603.

I could maybe make 12th/13th but I'm kinda lukewarm on it so don't schedule it on my account.

What benchmark? Did you change anything? There are a few things that can cause a big drop: -Something running in the background that wasn't there before (antivirus scan, windows updates, having other programs open) -Graphics card or CPU is warmer and thermal throttles -Nvidia drivers - at least on the older (500 series) cards I've used - have a weird "safe mode" where after a crash the card runs at lower clocks regardless of what you set, until you reboot

Well deserved after so long trying to make it work!

Nice! And I bet your chip, unlike mine, still works afterwards

Do the LEDs do olive green for better superpi scores?

I'll be honest, my initial reaction when I heard about this was pretty bad. But it's easy to forget that hwbot isn't made of money, I think it's pretty clear the only way this wildcard contest in the form it's in can even exist is with an entry fee. The alternative would be requiring the winner to cover flights+accommodation in order to claim their prize which would probably make it pretty unattractive to anyone not european. I reckon the main reason people have reacted badly is that whereas for the other events you're buying an LN2 supply and live OCTV tickets, if you don't place in this competition you've got precisely nothing for your €50. In the future it might be sensible to try and make sure every entrant gets something for their entry fee - an extreme example might be to source hardware that's in some way special (eg oc vbios from a gpu manufacturer, ln2 prebinned from caseking, EVC from elmor) and have a much higher entry fee but one which buys you some of the hardware as well. Or just make everyone exclusive t-shirts

You can run it without paying but you have to submit online to get a score and you can't skip the demo.

Good god. Massively well done!

Not sure if that applies to old hardware like semprons and phenoms though?

Lol. Think there's an outside chance you have a bugged score.

Didn't it originally say HD 6000 and 5000? If anything Terascale 2 only rather than 2+3 is the (unintended) change after 2-ish months The 69xx cards weren't originally excluded.

I've posted some hints and tips for the current AMD Rookie Rumble on /r/overclocking, so I figure it's only fair I should share them here as well. Keep in mind I'm still pretty new at this so this definitely won't be a comprehensive list of tweaks, rather some general pointers for anyone considering entering, and maybe even some Intel users considering buying AMD kit to diversify their benching PiFast Pifast is a singlethreaded benchmark so core count doesn't really matter beyond 2 cores. The FX series seem to do the best but Phenoms are pretty strongly competitive. Works on 7 but runs best on Windows XP and benefits from well-tuned ram with nice tight latency timings. Cinebench R11.5 Scores are divided per core, so although CB11.5 scales extremely well with cores the per-core performance on a Phenom II chip is as good if not better as an FX - for example a Phenom 965 BE at 4GHz beats an FX-8350 at 5GHz in per core score. Your best bet is a Phenom II X4 or even X2. Good memory bandwidth also helps. HWBOT Prime Scores are divided per core. Prime is multithreaded but not very well, so the best option by a country mile is a (single-core) Sempron 140 or 145. These can score 1200+ easily which is a better per core score than the just over 8200 an FX-8350 at 7.6GHz on liquid nitrogen gets. The gap between XP and 7 is pretty close so I'd actually say try it on both because I'm not sure what gives the best score on 64-bit hardware. Set javaw.exe to the highest possible priority in task manager for a better score, it may also benefit from being run twice but with the most recent java versions the first score will be the best you get so don't neglect to save it. The cheapest/simplest setup that can put in a strong showing is a cheapish AM3 or AM3+ board with a Phenom X2. In fact given the current level of participation you'd have a decent chance of winning with such a setup, although a sempron is definitely an advantage for hwbot prime.

You finally got that validation done, huh? Grats

These are interesting ideas for overclocking as an esport, but for me personally if I had to pick between OC-esports and the more relaxed side of hwbot (chasing cups, chasing acheivements, and chasing 2 hardware points) I'd pick the latter. Now, with that said, the stuff being described sounds like it'd be really good for creating a more 'exciting' form of overclocking, raising the profile and helping to get people involved. Maybe the thing to do is have separate rankings, like hardware masters, for anything that comes of this suggestion rather than upending hwbot as it stands?

I'm just gonna skip all the stuff that re-iterates the current system as an argument for its persistence. I'm not clear what you think is trying to 'undermine' the high end, unless you mean 'make it so people aren't forced to buy it'. I'd definitely rather not see a situation where no-one has a reason to bother benching titans, any more than I want to see a continuation of a situation where no-one has a reason to bother benching 380s. I dunno about forcing high-end scores but something making sure people have to be reasonably versatile to do really well would be good to see - maybe top 5 2D, top 5 3D and top 5 either rather than top 15? It is a bit silly when people can hit the top of rookie league just off the back of having a good 6700k. I wouldn't want to see WR points gone, it's awesome to see the ridiculously high scores people like Slinky and DJ post and I don't expect them to participate purely for motivational speeches any more than I expect noobs to. They do make it possible to 'buy' points to a certain extent but it's not something I've noticed in rookie or novice leagues (I'd be surprised if someone was willing to buy a ridiculous multi-titan/xeon setup but not play with sub-zero and go apprentice or extreme) so I don't think it's really a problem for newcomers - and once people have got properly into benching they can start picking up older hardware for good hw points, pick the accessible globals, and generally find ways around it. Probably also helps that not everything scales with cores? That'd be sensible. Hopefully it'd also mean something can definitely be tried without people howling bloody murder over the prospect of any change.

I did kinda wonder how long it'd take for someone to mention that I've only been on hwbot for just over 3 months. My response is simple - I didn't start this thread. If I have a reasoned - I like to think well-reasoned - suggestion to add when it's other people who have been here plenty long enough to be allowed an opinion who think change is needed, then I'm not just gonna sit on it. I also like to think that I'm in a reasonably good position to offer a perspective on what would be good for engagement having been through the entire noob progression from 0.1 points with a radeon 9200 to #1 rookie league very recently. Believe me, I do keep it fun For me it's cups and achievement hunting - got the achievement for 50 gold cups a couple of days ago, next on the menu is 1000 points contributed to the team. It's also fun to run the odd benchmark that not many others are silly enough to run on that configuration. But there's a big difference between 2 points for reference clock on an Asus IMISR-VM out of an OEM mini pc that cost £10 and 2 points for your $250 graphics card. If someone with a typical gaming pc build comes and posts on /r/overclocking asking for advice on how to do better on hwbot I want to be telling them about the value of a clean OS, tightening ram timings and if/how they can safely get higher clocks - not telling them they need a different GPU or giving them a motivational speech about benching for fun. OC-esports do help and team /r/overclocking did gain a couple of members after I asked on their generic help/'look at my oc' posts if they'd be interested in helping us out with the team cup, but they don't change the fact that the way 3D globals work is rather silly especially next to 2D globals. And as ever, if points are worthless then who cares if the way 3D globals are categorised changes, right?

Derp... only have myself to blame. Glad I submitted my intermediate scores, guess I'll have to rebench. On the plus side I've been playing with that ram a bit and at DDR3-2133 it can do CL9 with 1.8V so I fully intend to expect this score. And, y'know, not foul up...

That's only for your own submissions for us mere mortals.

Quotes are from K404s earier comment but I ended up with quite a long comment addressing arguments I've seen all over the thread, having seen the post elsewhere about email notifications I've removed the link back to the comment I'm quoting. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here - I would assume it's not that you want ranked overclocking to be F1/NBA levels of expensive and inaccessible? If you're thinking people should just put up the current system and work around it maybe you should check the subforum title, it's not like anyone is going on strike here, it's a suggestion that a fair number of people think could improve hwbot. WR points are the ones that are without conditions. Global points are not without conditions, on the 2D side they're split by cores and it works pretty well (i5s get a bit screwed but as far as I can tell there isn't a good solution to that). Wprime 1024M, for example, has global points for 31 different categories depending on the class of hardware being used as determined by number of CPU cores! How can you possibly look at that and say "nope, global means global, titan should compete against a 710"? It's absurd and I'm honestly flabbergasted that anyone is defending the current situation. It's not about trying to make a midrange card beat a titan, in fact as I said earlier I think it'd be good to see any changes come alongside an expansion of 3D WR points to keep cards like the Titan XP relevant. It might also be sensible to delay any changes until the next hardware cycle to avoid screwing over anyone who's bought a titan this time around. It's about trying to make 3D globals as inclusive as 2D globals are. The target here is something as close as possible to the system that already exists and is working just fine on the 2D side. Something I should probably add is, I don't think it's likely I'd benefit personally from any of these changes (at least in terms of points, if they mean we get better oc-focused midrange kit that'd be awesome). As much as I love working with GPUs 15 good subs with 1C and 3C CPUs, maybe 2C as well, seem much more achievable than a bunch of 3D globals. The group I do think it would benefit are new members who are just finding out about competitive overclocking and want to have a go at something with their i5 4460+R9 380 gaming rig. Unlike certain other rather vitriolic individuals (and btw, I have yet to bench XTU at all, I certainly didn't come here through it) I think it'd be great to get more people interested and involved. OC-esports is a big part of that and is really helpful but it's still a problem when however much work someone has put in, however much they've learnt and applied, however well they've modded their card, the hwboints engine just tells them "lol, nice score, here's your two hardware points". For a lot of people that's gonna be pretty demotivating. I happened to already have a huge (by non-ocer standards, it wasn't measured in kg) collection of old hardware for no good reason so for me it was more like "wow, 0.4 points, if I keep this up then with all the hardware points from the hundreds of subs I plan to make I'll be top of rookie league within a couple of months!" (I hadn't figured out how the rankings actually worked at the time, but still). I am the exception, most people with potential won't find themselves in that position. An expansion of oc-esports could help a lot but I gather it's not easy to set up and run competitions so it'd be nice if there was a solution that didn't involve constant extra pressure on staff who already work extremely hard. To be honest at the end of the day the current system for 3D globals is clearly indefensible - we can tell this because none of the people who have come here to defend it have given any reason why it's better than the alternatives suggested. There hasn't been a single argument put forward that would be applicable if the question was whether we should move from a ROP-based system to a per-card system (well, ok, one - ROPs are bit technical. But I'm confident a single explanatory page with a table could overcome that). It's all been "that's just the way it is", "points shouldn't matter anyway" (ok, so let's get rid of them?), "yeah but OC-Esports" (oc-esports does soften the blow of an imperfect system but doesn't make it less imperfect) and the like. And a few people have pointed out that there would be imperfect quirks like the Fury X for an ROP-based system and the 980Ti being with 980s in an MSRP-based system, both of which are true and a better alternative would be nice if possible but it's a bit like refusing to stop drowning because the seat in the life raft is a bit damp.

I agree that the 980Ti ending up categorised alongside the 980 would be bad. ROP count would suffer less from this issue You're 100% right about the top still being ruled as much by dollars as dewars but you'd have new low-midrange categories that should hopefully get a lot of participation and would be somewhat insulated. Hopefully they'd be less CPU dependent in some benchmarks too since the GPUs would be slower. This is an argument that I've seen put forward in a lot of places, starting in 'why we need amd' blog posts and moving into intel and nvidia fanboys on reddit upset about 6950x/titan prices ranting at AMD for allowing it to happen rather than blaming the company actually setting the prices despite the fact that they have no intention to actually consider an AMD product. The thing is, it's a duopoly. AMD started the overpricing shenanigans with original Athlon FX and it's a pattern that's been followed on and off since. I guess arguably Asus started it on GPUs with ares/mars? But anyway, back in the days of 'small chip' with the 4870 and 5870 prices were reasonable enough even though amd weren't at all competitive for the high end, more recently with the 600 and 7000 series amd were if anything slightly ahead (in the market, say what you will about unreleased big kepler but that's not the point) but prices climbed noticeably. To be fair there's also an element of silicon just getting more expensive. So, overall, the distortion isn't AMD's fault and AMD having faster products won't magically bring the high end and therefore globals down to $200-300.

What superpi scores did it get? Memory timings?

The difference between the current hardware #1 and #2 is globals, FYI. The same could be said of globals based on CPU cores, surely? I think maybe it's WR points you're thinking of that aren't divided by any aspect of hardware specs. I'm not sure the "you're just bitter you can't buy a fair chance" attitude is especially helpful. The cheapest 980Ti on ebay.com that doesn't use the reference PCB is $400 but even if it was only $350 to compete that's still a lot for just the cost of entry. Of course points matter - if they don't why are you defending the status quo, surely you shouldn't care? A big part of the issue is right now if you're not loaded but like 3D you have to choose between a lot of old hardware (fun) or putting everything into only stuff that gets globals (points). That's not a great tradeoff for people to have to make, and surely if it can be made so you don't have to sacrifice fun to do well on points that's worthwhile? No, I don't - see above. My recent GPU purchases are a 4850, 570, 6450, 8800 ultra, 2900 pro, 2600 XT, pair of 4890s, 6800 gt, GTX 275, Radeon 7000, Radeon 9250 and a 9800 GT. Together they add up to the same price as a 4GB RX 480. I could have just got the RX 480 instead of all that, but then I'd have only had one piece of hardware to play with and I'd have been scared of breaking it. This way I have 13 different cards to play with. If there was no better way I'd agree. This thread isn't here to whine and complain, though. This thread is here to try and find a better way. And if we can find one - IMO we have - then the idea that the status quo is 'just the way it is' is the worst reason imaginable not to go for it because if we had the proposed system already it'd be equally applicable against a move to the system you're defending. If you have any constructive feedback on the issues - whether SPs should be involved, cost vs ROPs, how best to futureproof any grouping system, or for that matter any arguments in favour of the current system that are based on its merits and not its position as the current system - I'd be really interested to hear it