Massman

1) Retail launches can differ region to region 2) Some products are not available in one region ("are never out") 3) Some products are out, but limited edition (10, 100, 1000 pieces) 4) Vendors can always fake releases if it really comes down to it In the end, the biggest loser of the whole story is that one person who was so happy to receive a rare product from a friend who works in a HW company. Whether it's a friend of TiN who was happy to open the package with the Untouchable in it, or the friend of Shamino who received a Dreadnough 790i mainboard, or the friend of Hicookie who received a fully modified mainboard. Besides, none of those HW ever dominated the leagues. It's a non-issue really ...

Wow. Okay. I think there's a different problem than just retail availability. That's a problem with the fundamental interpretation of what the Leagues at HWBOT represent. They're not supposed to be "serious" leagues, but rather for fun and to give people some structure within they can enjoy overclocking. Not a platform to make a living from overclocking. They're not designed for that. The opposite in fact.

Yeey, another thread. What I wrote two years back is still valid:

Fixed

Yes. It's done

Heh, it's been a long time since a vote here has been so one-sided .

Hey all, Just wanted to give you guys a heads up regarding the development time available for Q1 2012. We basically spend entire November and December using up all we had left in our buffer on full-time hwbot development. So, during Q1 we're pretty much focused on creating a buffer again, which means we have a lot less development time. Practically, that means during Q1 we'll be working mostly behind-the-scene and only address critical issues regarding HWBOT functionality (major bugs). It gives us the time to properly plan projects for the other quarters and, as mentioned before, refuel the financial buffer. At the start of Q2, we'll have a look at the available funding and re-evaluate priorities. Things are looking good thanks to our partners, so I'm hoping to go full throttle again soon . Thanks for your understanding!

S_A_V documented it before

Well, you can change the drive letter on the fly apparently. So, just hook up 2 SSDs to your rig in addition to your massive storage config and change benched drive from the 2 SSDs to your massive storage after XP startup finished. No problem staying under 220MB/s

This idea came up in another thread recently and I noticed some people were for it and some against, so figured it might be interesting to have a poll on this. Background With the 7970 being so powerful, its release had quite an effect on the rankings. The old-gend GTX580 used to be king of the hill, but even a stock-cooled 7970 can beat those scores now. The main issue is that availability isn't optimal around the globe and it sort of gives an unfair advantage to those who can buy one straight away at launch and those who don't. Idea As a buffer to this effect of new hardware releases, we could install a 'grace period' during which submissions with the new technology doesn't affect the user rankings. This means that for a certain period of time, having access to the latest greatest before the rest of the world would not benefit you instantly in the rankings. How it works (example) So, let's assume the following for the upcoming GTX 780: - official media launch: April 1st - official retail launch: April 15th The Grace Period for new releases could, for instance, be: - pro oc league: 0 days - overclockers league: 14 days - enthusiast league: 21 days In which case, points acquired from GTX 780 submissions would contribute to your personal total: - pro oc league: April 1st - overclockers league: April 30th - enthusiast league: May 5th Applicable hardware As far as I'm concerned it's only necessary to use this grace period for big new releases and not really necessary to apply it to every single piece of hardware (ie: low-end GTS 750). The main effect is on the global rankings, not the hardware rankings. FYI - these would be the hardware that had grace periods over the last couple of years: - X79 platform - Sandy Bridge platform - Bulldozer (lol) - GTX 580 - GTX 480

It's not that I don't understand WHY you're suggesting it, I'm just trying to point out that the overhead of implementing this outweighs the benefits. I'm not saying it's a bad idea .

Do you remember who took that picture?

I don't want to remove it because it's old. I want to keep it because it's (to some) a lot of fun. I'm just trying to say that Knopflerbruce's suggestion is, for me, not a good solution because it's a lot of work and the code only applies to one specific benchmark. If we'd have to do recalculations for a lot of benchmarks, it might be worth investing time in the development. But since it's just for this one subtest of a 7-year old benchmark, the benefit from Knopflerbruce's idea does not outweigh the work needed to make it work. I don't see why "keeping the cap" isn't just as viable an option as recalculating it to 220MB/s. Sure, it's a bit of extra work, but if you're prepared well enough, you won't have any issues under LN2.

Yes, it is worse, because it requires us to maintain code that is only present to fix one subtest on one ancient benchmark. It sounds really simple, but coding-wise there's a lot of work involved. It's not just three lines of code. The 220MB cap was a good solution, because it only required to write a check if startup was over 220. If yes => no good, if no => good. That's quite different from having to check the value, recalculate the score and override the result database. If it would be applied for all benchmarks, it would be worth spending time on. But it's just for one 7-year old benchmark. And it's just one of the solutions that isn't perfect either. People learned to live with the cap, so why change it again.

If we can make something cool to follow and nice to play without using percentages, I prefer it over a complicated system. KISS-principle applies here.

Could we perhaps agree on: + make system pictures mandatory for everyone. Top scores should show storage subsystem, but we will not block scores -just- because the storage subsystem is not in it. Blocking scores because a lack of picture verification is only necessary when the score is suspicious.

Good question, let's vote about it.

What's the bright side? :-/

It's a really, really dirty workaround for a very specific issue. In my opinion, if you need that kind of dirty workarounds, it's basically because the bench cannot be used anymore, at which point we should just drop it and move to a newer version. I'd prefer a different solution, to be honest ...

I like the idea of giving points in within rounds. Good idea. Fwiw, you'll never fully get rid of sandbagging. Sandbagging is basically holding on to your best score until the very last moment. You can do this for any given time period. If your competition runs for 1 week, a sandbagger will submit on the last day at 23h50. If your competition runs for 1 hour, a sandbagger will submit at 55 minutes. All you can do is make it more bearable (like with nascar points or qualification periods).

I'm so misunderstood ... //edit: forgot sad face.

This is not a pr0n site.

Did it work?

Yah, not gonna accept. Don't have the chip

Good Guy Peter