TaPaKaH

not speaking seriously: come to think of it - those who pay $500 for pro version get better results ... because they have the chance to tweak their OS better by removing networking components and submit later

again , we're not discussing VISTA over here - everyone has it's own opinion on it! looking at the thinking of those who've voted "FOR" hwbointing that bench I've noticed more of "I can afford it -> I vote for" rather than "Paying $$$ for being able to bench is OK -> I vote for"

we're not talking about hardware requirements here , it just the question of whether or not should the community accept the principal of "non-free" benchmark...

Let's then make a new "benchmark" category at hwbot : everyone goes to their bank ask the lady to print their bank balance take a pic submit and compare Benchmarks that need you to pay money are simply a "NO!!!!!!" because they put everyone in unfair conditions. If it continues - then they'll prompt you to throw 25c coin if you want to continue benching (just like in an arcade game machine)

but we need similar conditions to all the cards and some just won't run that high settings

Suicide runs (no stability tests) 'd be pointless as most of the modern cards have separate 2D and 3D clocks - so you can set 2000/2000 for 3D mode on whatever card you own - run GPUz in 2D mode - GPUz 'll read 2000/2000 - you have #1 spot stupid if we're talking about "benchable" rankings - best way to combine GPU/MEM clocks without separating the categories is a bench that is 100% GFX dependant Sadly, 01 nature isn't such anymore - with 9800GX2 cards you have a heavy CPU bottleneck there