Patch

Very nice! That's what I call fun benching.

Nice work bro!

Great job Splave!

GPU -150. And yes, constantly battling OCP.

Nice Spliggity!

That's a work of beauty!

Backups! Nice one.

K404 mentioned the only real valid reason for splitting: to let people bench ES chips without people griping. Problem is that this pro league will need to be formed in one of 2 general ways. 1) Competition/qualifying based on points or some other metric. This won't fix the problem AT ALL. Contrary to common belief, a whole bunch of "sponsored" folks won't make the cut and will continue to muck up the "amateur" ranks. 2) Assemble the ranks by "invitation" or designation only - based on someone's perception of skill or by manufacturer support level. Sort of like a lot of "open" manufacturer sponsored competitions are run now. This method is just stupid.

Minority "no" voter here. It may seem like it's time for a pro league, but it's not. There's no prize money to speak of in this sport. Where's the advantage to the overclocker to be in a "pro" league compared to the current system? Where's the advantage to the manufacturer as opposed to the current system? At this point, the whole idea is reactionary to complaints about the hwbot point and glory system not being fair to the average guy. But if you think there's angst and bickering now about manufacturer support, you're all in for a big surprise when you start actually trying to draw lines to define it and separate overclockers based on it. The prevailing "we all know a pro when we see it" definition I'm seeing described isn't going to fly at all. As a non-sponsored guy what do I have to gain from splitting the league? Not a thing. As it stands, I have the opportunity to compete with team mates, friends, and the whole world. I'm free to obtain, mod, and kill whatever hardware I can in pursuit of a score and some glory. Being relegated to an amateur league carries no tangible or psychological benefit.

ES or no ES, a separate league would suck. Unless I'm invited. Give me binned CPU's and GPU's along with NVIDIA/ATI provided mod instructions and special BIOS versions. Then see how a bumbling overclocking idiot does against the overclockers some of you assume have untouchable skills. Manufacturers would never send me anything, though........ My services don't come cheap.

There are many places to share and enjoy cutting edge extreme overclocking accomplishments. To my knowledge, hwbot is the only place that AWARDS POINTS for a completely open world wide competition to compare against each other. Not everyone who overclocks posts and competes here. Some of the most skilled don't. I like submitting here to compare myself against others and compete. It's fun. All the much vaunted "skill" talk I hear is nothing more than practice that turns into experience, coupled with access to hardware and a willingness to kill it. And life ain't fair. A completely fair world would simply mean holding back high achievers in favor of the apathetic, less competent, or lazy. If hwbot continues to accept ES, that's fine. I'll keep trying to obtain whatever hardware necessary to push the limits. That's just part of the game. If Intel truly cared, they'd just ask for them back and prosecute if not delivered. But if you're asking whether it SHOULD accept ES, I still say no. By using them we are either stealing or using someone else's (Intel's) hardware. From Intel: Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Supes says it right there. In the last year I've purchased gobs of retails and a few ES's from ebay. The best chips I've gotten have been lucky retails from a retailer. Every second hand chip has been a complete or relative dud, despite the advertised claims. It's a myth that good ES's are available to anyone. Any ES on ebay has already been binned and rejected by someone else. And, you're not even supposed to buy em anyway. Officially, ES chips are the property of the manufacturer. If they are going to be allowed on the bot, then Intel should open an account and get the points whenever a bench is submitted with one. But hey, as long as they're accepted I'll keep trying to get em.

Nice score Jor!

Nice score ROM!

Nice job! Love it when hard work pays off.

Great GPU core! Nice run.

Incredible! Nice work Dent.

Sweet score!

You have magic fingers Alibabar. This is a seriously efficient score.

Beautiful CPU Hiwa. Crazy clockin'

Awesome score brotha!

Such pretty numbers...nice work man

Sweet run, sweet clocking and sweet card!

Sweet run!

My vote is yes, but the suggested point bonus is too high. Motivation is multi-factorial. I have enough years under my belt to indulge in a little self-honesty and admit that points are a strong motivating factor. Why? Because it's a competition. Whether you're competing with yourself, some friends, or a global community, competition gets the blood pumping through your veins. Makes you feel alive and makes the sun shine brighter. I'm new to this world and nobody in my traditional social network knows what overclocking is. Sure, I like to overclock for the pure joy of it. In fact, I spent last night giddy as a school girl tinkering with a Prescott that OC'd like a dog - but it had an unusually forgiving coldboot temp that made it a blast nonetheless. But I also like to compete with you guys. I want to beat your scores. I don't even mind when you later beat mine, because it's even more fun to try to regain a place I once occupied. I bought a second 5970 that's been sitting untouched in my garage for the last week because I haven't felt enough competitive drive to quadfire it. Maybe I'm shallow, but under the current system I plan to just sell them both rather than hardmodding and freezing them. Not because it wouldn't be fun, but because to do it right will take 30-40 hours of my life - and one or both cards will end up dead. Even so, there would be elation and satisfaction - but not $1500 worth. Especially since I will have almost as much fun, elation, and satisfaction by doing the exact same thing with the pair of 7600 GT's I got on ebay for $30. For 10 times the points. I don't have anyone feeding me hardware. I buy it, mod it, and kill it based on the anticipated pleasure of doing so. Cutting edge multi-gpu benching is no longer worth the money. The current system really only makes it worth it to the guys getting hardware deals - or the insanely wealthy.