[3Dmark 2008 'Vantage' - to add or not to add]

exactly!

$20 buys you possibility to run the Advanced setting and submit online.

$500 buys you all settings and ability to save results.

 

so if your bench machine is NOT online (let's say... at a large OC contest) you are out of luck;)

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

[3Dmark 2008 'Vantage' - to add or not to add]

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"

[3Dmark 2008 'Vantage' - to add or not to add]

Same story for 3DMark06 when it was released, same story for 3DMark05 when it was released ...

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...

[3Dmark 2008 'Vantage' - to add or not to add]

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)

[GPU-Z Frequency HOF ?]

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

[GPU-Z Frequency HOF ?]

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