Massman

Yes, there is a limiter because otherwise it would be a too long list

What if you type "GeForce 6800 GT" ?

Photographer on site? Nice! Looking forward to see the pictures and videos. ... what did your wife cook, by the way?

That CPU was released in 2007, so not applicable for the Cup.

GT and Ultra have their own category. The category Mr.Scott linked you to is just for the 6800 AGP (the normal one).

Added to the development backlog!

Giving an equal amount of points in case of a tie would actually be motivational for people to try to get a tie instead of just giving up. Currently, it doesn't matter if you're third with a lower score or third with a tie to second, but when ties would get the same amount of points, it would be interesting to keep pushing for that tie. Maybe first place is so far out of reach that the record cannot be broken anyway. (ps: I don't think anyone aims for a tie and not for the record. For everyone, the first objective is to break the record, only in second instance to tie the existing one)

As I mentioned before in this thread, the Cup is the route we are taking and League will not be put back online. The evaluation of the Cup follows after minimum3 Cups and even if the Cup is not living upto the expectations it does not mean the League will be back. For more information on the why's, there is a lot of information in the opening post as well as spread across this now 400 post-counting forum thread.

Thanks for your opinion, George! When we do the first evaluation of the Cup and rankings, we will definitely take this post into consideration! I hope with you that we will see new upcoming pro's. Hopefuly much more than before :woot:.

'Sup George! Good to see you still haven't given up on bold You can still check out how well Andre, Nick or K|npg|n is doing here: http://hwbot.org/benchmarks. All the records are up there!

However is still considering to come and check out Computex this year - make sure to fly in a couple days before the tradeshow. Picked up more rumours about events and stuff ... it's going to be AWESOME!

Apoligies for the massive delay! Things ... well, you know. Thanks for the list too, makes it a bit easier The criterion is indeed release date, regardless of availability. I checked Wikipedia as main source, hence the mistake. I've added all three cards to the competition now. You really want those cards added to the competition? They are not really that competitive, quite frankly. Kentsfield was purposefuly left out in this stage as Conroe should be faster, but given that the QX6700 would be competitive as well it's a valid request. Added. No Celerons. The idea is to have the most high-end setups of the moment eligible for the competition. In case where we allow multiple architectures, it's because it's unclear what is the fastest architecture (AMD ... :-/).

Alrighty then, by super popular demand let's not allow the Titan then. Removing the 8 results from the competition. All complaints can be send to "allowtitaninteamcup@hwbot.org". Now, let's get back to benching!

Interesting discussion and feedback! Dennis is looking up information on how much scores are affected by this, which should also be interesting. Personally, I voted for option #2. I think that ranking by date is only relevant in a system that has an end, for example in a competition. The nature of the HWBoint rankings is that it does not have an end, but just a database of benchmark results with a specific hardware configuration. Points are a value given to a specific result with specific hardware; ie: 10 seconds SuperPI with a Phenom II X4 940 is worth X amount of points. It does not really matter whether that result was obtained today or two years ago - the obtained performance result with specific hardware is the same. I do understand the argument that it would be easier to obtain a certain score later in time as more knowledge surfaces, but at a certain point there is a knowledge saturation point. There is today not more information available about Athlon XP overclocking than there was three years ago. Additionally, someone that wants to score points with Athlon XP still has to do research; it's not something that you inherit from your parents or so. In an ideal world, this would be an easy question: rank by frequency (efficiency). But since it's really easy to lie about the used frequency, that option is simply not practically doable. So, we have to look for the best alternative. A system where you valued on the same basis as one was rewarded five years ago, namely "X result with Y hardware" sounds quite nice to me. That system does not favor age or youth, doesn't punish when others tie your score and rewards for reaching a better-than-not-tie result. 77 votes is not that much, though. Let's try out the new HWBOT Poll feature to see if we can have more opinions on the matter!

(in response to Dinos22's deleted post) Burnout? Not really. This is information on the time contraint complaint from earlier in the thread: You can always let a Cup slide and skip it, that's no problem. You'll see that there is a drop in the Overall Season Ranking, but that is normal. The major advantage is that people that would be interested in trying out the Pro OC will not be discouraged with a #1 that has been up there for over a year only because he can bench the best samples once and then do nothing for six months. "Why is he number one?" - "Well, he had a super good CPU five months ago and no one has been able to beat him" - "Oh, okay ..."

Sure, breaks are inevitable. Let's hope new blood can find the motivation, inspiration as well as the opportunity to pick up and enter where others need a break.

Any season consists of multiple rounds to make up the season ranking. Tennis has tournaments, football has matches, F1 has races. The "Pro OC Season" or "... Ranking" as it been called before consists of the cumulative performance in the last 3 cups. Tables with info on team and individual performance and their respective 'wins' in those competitions. It's kind of hard to make a season total before the first round has even finished.

Three more overclocking event/gig/stuff plans I was made aware of in the past two days. Looks like Computex is going to be LN2 fumes everywhere

Well, that will leave you with a graphics card, a processor and a very great "no food"-diet

Incorrect. We gave up the HWBOT submissions before the competition ended, after a miserable ending of one of the stages where no one knew a team had submit the score by email. To avoid confusion, only one submissions system had to be used - email. Personally, I continued submitting my results to F1OC. HWBOT dropping the option to submit for F1OC is not the reason why F1OC failed. Lack of communication and poor transparency was. I'm very happy that you finally found 47 people that care about the Pro OC League, even though very few of the peope I see in that list previously communicated or talked about the League and a couple even said in public (and private) that they don't care about the League. As said, this is very useful information to be used in the first real evaluation of the Pro OC Cup. I think Splave's meme is a very good tool to understand this chart. 47 people have accepted a system where they will forever be defeated and never come out on top. Honestly speaking, I think that's a very sad evolution as it means that people have given up on trying to be number one. If we talk about the "great olden days" with KP, Hipro, Macci at the top but where "everyone had a chance to compete" is because at least people had the ambition to be number one. People had the ambition and desire to beat the top guys. In the league, there's just acceptance. And that is the death of overclocking!

I certainly must have the wrong idea about Team.AU and its support for the Cup. Perhaps I was fooled and mislead by the tirades and phrases written down in this thread as well as some of the somewhat interesting actions outside the realms of this forum. Maybe my paranoid nature has me put question marks to statements that do not deserve such punctuation. Regarding the time constraint issue, I understand your point of view to the fullest. In fact, that problem was considered and taken into the equation. One of the benefits of the League is that you can always suddenly become competitive with the right hardware and cooling, even if that's once every six months. Honestly speaking, though, I genuinly believe that the Cup format would actually be more beneficial for time-constraint individuals and, in your case, teams. Consider the following effort requirements: - Pro OC League: 15 results per quarter per person => 5 results per person per month - F1OC: 2 (well, just one as we later found otu) submissions per month per two people => 1 result per person per month - Pro OC Cup: 5 submissions per quarter per five people => 0.333 results per person per month (- League + Cup: 20 results per quarter per five people => 1.333 results per person per month) Compared to the previous F1OC, the actual effort requirement per person (split over a team of five people) is one result per three months. This is significantly lower than the effort requirement for both the League and the F1OC. Agreed, it would require some management to have everyone do their part of the work, but in terms of the ability to be competitive the workload is actually lower. I would assume, and that's partially based on the experience I have benching together with Leeghoofd, that you can find someone in Australia that can do work pretesting hardware for example. Someone who does have a lot of time, is enthusiastic, but just doesn't have the level of skill or experience needed to put out the final top result, which someone else could help out with once every three months. I've looked up the activity of the Team.AU account over time and the last time there were less than five results submitted in a quarter was Q1 2009. Ever since, you're putting out at least five results a quarter. The last time you didn't get 20 submissions per year (4x 5 stages) was 2006. Also, I believe that the reward for the little amount of time spent for the Cup would be higher for time constraint teams (although that might be just my opinion). Now, the effort you put into benching just that one weekend fades away as people catch up with the results and after a while you're far off the ranking you got before. Having a permanent mark of "this is where I got in that quarterly competition" (just like at MOA or GOOC) does not fade away. Of course, this is a new concept and I certainly do not have the answers to all the problems in specific regions. I'm sure some aspects of Cup are more complicated in the different regions and more easy in others. I do think that for most problems there is a practical solution, although that solution might require a new approach to the hobby and (hopefuly) a lot of new, young blood getting involved.

Of course I am willing to listen, that should be no surprise to anyone. There is an entire set of features and changes that were because of community input. Just to give an example, the two rev4 updates addressing world record points and few points for low competitive categories. But, you also have to understand that it's impossible to always follow everyone's opinion and sometimes we have to make a decision that is widely unpopular, but for the good of overclocking on the long-term. It's very easy to please people with only the short-term in mind, but that will not be good for overclocking. To be 100% clear: I don't have the slightest doubt about my integrity regarding trying to do my best for the community and for overclocking. As much as I enjoy a good chuckle reading all the "he is a sell-out" and "a dictator", I know it's not true. Whether you believe that or not is up to you. The Pro OC Cup has been "in development" since January 2011 and has been discussed with a lot of people, including Team.AU members amongst many others, over the course of two years. As for why the League has to be removed and why the Cup should be the only ranking up, I already answered in the thread in post #199. In case you don't want to read through the entire post, let me re-iterate in bullet points. - Given #1: the overclocking eco-system is broken; close to zero overclockers get the chance to get decent enough hardware support to even get close to compete with the top overclockers. - Given #2: the Pro OC League is the top league in overclocking, but generates no interest from either the participants, overclockers or spectators. Up until the removal of the league, participants didn't care about it ("who care pro oc"), didn't write about it, potential new overclockers didn't want to join it and spectators couldn't give a damn who's the current #1. It's the same sponsored people, the same hardware, the same benchmarks over and over again. Great scores, but nothing new. With a broken eco-system where overclockers with potential are not inspired to take the hobby to the next level and the top league which no one cares about (*), it's clear that something has to change in order to try to repair the eco-system. The idea of a Cup or F1OC has been suggested many times by many people. In the opening post, there is more explanation on why Cup/F1OC is possibly a better solution and the whole reasoning behind it. I'm not the first nor the only person to say that. So, - Given #3: a cup/F1OC style competitive overclocking is a good idea to try to improve the eco-system. There are a couple of options on how to do organise this Cup. Ever since F1OC (back in 2009 I think), overclockers have been discussing how to organise this event. With or without vendor teams, live or not live, teams or no teams, concurrent stages or not, and so on. A lot of the ideas are great in theory, but fail to pass the reality tests of development feasibility ("can this be done with the available budgets"), marketing interests ("are the people with the money willing to get involved"), community follow-through ("is this encouraging new people to try to compete") or spectator interest ("is this different enough to gauge outsider interest"). So, in an attempt to actually try and do something about the current situation (instead of just whining about the lack of interest and "death of overclocking"), we go for the idea of the Cup. The reason why we opted to replace the League with the Cup are: 1) HWBOT Investment: if we (HWBOT staff including Frederik, Dennis and myself) spend human resources and development time/cost on a project, we need do not have the option to do it half-half. Either we go for it 100% or we don't go for it at all. Spending time (and money) on developing a competition framework for a Cup means we will put all focus on that cup. Why would we spend time and resources on a Cup, if eventually people will just talk about how they find the League more relevant anyway? 2) Simplicity: the keyword to explaining an activity is simplicity. The League format is understandible for the inner circle of extreme overclocking, but quite complex for outsiders (including industry people). Having a League and a Cup combined complicates the competition format even further as now you have to explain the point algoritm (including why only global scores count, why certain benchmarks gets more points and so on) as well as the competitions (why are they there, how to compete, what's the effect). Consider your personal situation: how many have been able to explain why they are #7, #8 or #13? 3) Hardware Resource: one of the biggest complaints of the Pro OC League is that the resources required to compete as an individual are too high. Adding a cup into the mix, selecting different benchmarks and challenges, also adds more hardware requirements. With a League and Cup you don't only need the hardware to do all those 15 benchmarks (we know how much people already complain about the $$ necessary to compete), you also need to gear up for seasonal competitions. With just a cup, it's at most five different configurations (which can be spread over five different people). 4) Coding Complexity: maintaining the code for just a Cup instead of the combination of a League and a Cup is just simpler. Instead of two sets of algoritms, we only have to maintain, update and improve a single algoritm. 5) Teams versus individuals: in line with points three and four, there is an additional layer of complexity when creating a Cup featuring teams (to address the resource problem) and a League featuring individuals. We would have to come up with a solution to "translate" the team's performance in the Cup to the individual's performance in the league and vice versa. With just one algoritm (Cup), it's a lot easier than with two separate algoritms (League + Cup) 6) Double Balance Complaint: where we now have to deal with complaints of balancing the HWBoint algoritm and what parameters affect how much points a certain result gets, we would (again) increase the complexity of the League+Cup by introducing even more balancing parameters. Just the simple question of how important the weight of the Cup is in relation to the League is a difficult question to answer. After all, adding more benchmarks that can have global points will skew the system in favor of the League. In addition, we would have more discussion on what benchmarks should be in the cup, what hardware, and so on. Essentially, the discussion about the Cup added to the League/Cup weight debate added to the League benchmarks discussion. 7) No Beginning, No End: ... and after all that, we'd still be stuck with a system where there's never an end nor beginning, where 90% doesn't even get within 500pts of the leader and all the existing problems we have with the league. 8) Time management: to be competitive in a League+Cup format, you need to compete in fifteen benchmarks as well as a competition. If you're complaining that five benchmarks in three months is too much, think about how much time it would take to also check for fifteen other results. This can be fixed by adjusting weight between League and Cup, but then we're back at problem number six. I can't remember all the arguments brought up, but these seven should cover most of the major problems. In the end, there's a choice to make a change that is a half-ass job or put all the weight behind it and make the jump. In this case, it's the jump. As said before, this is not something that was done overnight and the League+Cup idea was genuinly taken into consideration, because it definitely has positive aspects as well! The transition would be a lot smoother or everyone getting an easy rank would be two of them. But in the end, the benefits did not outweigh the disbenefits. And, yes, that is of course a decision that has to be made. HWBOT does not run for free and every investment we make has to be accounted for. The decision was made, the development has been done and the evaluation will follow. But not after seven days. Now, you guys can either continue to complain (just like what happened with F1OC) or say "what they heck" and give it your best shot (just like what Dinos22 said to everyone who didn't like the idea or concept of the F1OC, back in the day). The League was dead in every way possible, so the Cup might as well be tried out. Over time, we can always see if there can be additional parameters like a record bonus or so. Dinner time.

We always listen and take community feedback into consideration. Always. Every single suggestion was discussed and evaluated. We don't always follow the opinion, though. That's true. The analogy I made with Sacha35 was true as well. In fact, I remember some of you being angry he was pissing on the F1OC contest so much instead of just giving it a shot, see how it goes and then improve in the second season. It's ironic that you now take the position of Sacha35. Or logic. Or human.

This vote will provide very useful information to take into consideration when having an evaluation after three Cups!

Well, I guess, I'm at least inspiring people to party ...