WhiteWulfe

While it is cute, I voted no for the following reasons.... - There aren't that many ITX motherboards out there that are well built for overclocking (although Gigabyte is coming out with one this generation, the epic Asus Impact series is no more, replaced with the Strix which isn't built to quite the same lofty goal and standards) - SFX power supplies mean you're going to have to have a second power supply on the side if you want to do any kind of semi-serious 3D benching (they currently max out at what, 700-750 watts of power?) - Crossfire/SLI and ITX generally don't mix, and if you put a dual core card in, have fun with the previous point If it was a slightly smaller one that supported mATX and a full size power supply I'd consider it, but an ITX one that will be in the same price bracket as the original is something I wouldn't consider due to the power supply limitations and the lack of actual proper motherboard options in the ITX format.

Being able to sort by country would be a nice feature, as some of the vendors listed have different websites for different countries, like say, Newegg.... Where it's available on the US side, but not Canadian.

I have three weeks of vacation myself, and I'm just a delivery driver.... Then again, I also work for the second largest coffee company in North America, so that probably helps somewhat. Great to see such commitment to the streams and events, even if it's out of pocket for you!

Actually, since it was a cut die most reviews referred to it as a mid-range card right out of the gate, and in a reasonable amount of benchmarks it wound up swapping blows with the card it supposedly replaced, the 780 Ti... Except the 780 Ti and 980 were pretty much neck and neck on GM204's release. If it truly was high end, and actually replaced the 780 Ti one would expect it to have offered more than just a power consumption savings. It was a sizeable upgrade that replaced the 780, but not the Ti.

Because the 3770k belongs in Division 1 as it's an i7.... Division III is for i3 processors.

Extra GPU brackets would be awesome

.... .....I just said I was finally able to edit it. Wasn't able to when it was originally submitted, hence why I had created the thread in the first place. GPU Pi is identifying my processor as a 955 non-black edition for some reason. I can resubmit the datafile as a no-points submission if that helps.

It would be nice to know... I also didn't know about this thread On the plus side, the other bit about not being to edit it.... I was able to edit my 1B and 100M score afterwards so it's the correct processor. Still annoying that it registers as the incorrect processor, and then the server wouldn't let me manually correct it to a Black Edition.

Same. Competition webpage has been broken for 13 hours for me.

Don't know if anyone else has noticed it yet, but the oc-eports Country Cup 2016 website appears to be totally borked. If you pull it up, it shows no duration, no participants, and no submissions.... FireFox on the left, Chrome on the right, both are getting blanked out pages.

Since I can't flag my own submission, I noticed something about GPU PI 2.3.4.... Any particular reasons why the data file puts my Phenom II X4 955 BE as a non-BE? I've gone in and edited the submission so it's showing as a Black Edition, but is this a limitation of GPU Pi in and of itself, or? WhiteWulfe`s GPUPI for CPU - 1B score: 20min 19sec 331ms with a Phenom II X4 955 for my submission in question. EDIT: Actually, it won't let me edit it to a Black Edition, just winds up sitting at Apache Tomcat/7.0.59 - Error report and doesn't go back to my submission.

Massman created a dedicated thread for it http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=163160

I'd definitely have to say you're correct. My bad on that one, but my point on older hardware being allowed still stands. Stage 1 was ANY nvidia card, stage 2 was ANY igp that would run Firestrike, stage 3 was any processor, stage 4 was anything that could run XTU, and stage 5 you could run any gpu. So in essence, all five stages you could run older hardware, even if it might put you at a disadvantage compared to those who had newer gear. And if you lived in a smaller country, even if you did have older gear, if your team managed the 5/5 card requirement (using stage 4 as an example) you automatically scored higher than countries that only had 4 submissions, even if those four scored significantly higher.

Funny, there was a ton of old gear used last year. SC1 stage 3 lga 775, stage 4 was 80486, stage 5 was HM??, stage 6 used Clarkdale processors, stage 9 was AMD K6, and stage 10 used Via processors 6/10 stages required old gear SC2 stage 3 was 6600 GT, stage 4 was Kabini, stage 5 was Rage Fury, stage 7 was 775 igp, stage 8 was 9800gx2, stage 9 required a k6, stage 10 required an agp card. 7/10 stages required old gear SC3 stage 1 required Sandy Bridge, stage 2 required ddr2, stage 5 was Phenom II 3/5 stages required old gear SC4 stage 2 was 650i chipset 1/5 stages required old gear (edit)17/30 stages required old gear(end edit) Before you go running your mouth and trash talking, you might want to look at what was on the board last year, and why people are wondering about why the current setup is all gear from the past 3-4 years only, and why so many people are being left out when history had a nice and varied amount of hardware designed to try and bring a country together as a team. We had a rather nice variety of options on the board and some fairly nice participation was seen because of such. 2014's Country Cup at a quick glance appears to have been relatively modern hardware, but at the same time did offer two stages where older hardware could participate, even if it might not be as competitive. Could have sworn there was discussion rather recently about how to increase the amount of participation on HWBot (and OC e-sports as a platform for competition). Trying to force people into buying new gear just so they can compete pretty much makes them say "screw this, it's even more of a money pit than a season of solo2 Autocross/autoslalom is and is starting to gain on solo1 costs", doubly so when a lot of the time people also have to fork out a decent amount of money to even have a chance at being competitive (aka liquid nitrogen, which isn't always readily available in all countries, or reasonably priced, and some people can't even get dry ice at a reasonable price).

I'm really hoping that those stages aren't finalized.... That's a bit too much of a focus on just the past two generations of hardware. No love for LGA 775, 1366, and all the awkward ones like we had last year? EDIT: Also, last year had four SC's with a bunch of stages in and of themselves.

I'd be more worried about the instagram filter rig pic, but that's just me being silly.

Many thanks! If I remember correctly, they're Mount-It MI-751's, and the monitor there is a refurbished Dell2213H

Many thanks. Give it a few weeks and there should hopefully be a cooler full of dry ice to go with it all too, just in time for country cup. Duniek pot will eventually be replaced at some point next year with some sort of one piece cooling pot - probably a Kingpin F1 Extreme Dark simply because I like it and it's a well known performer... And I'll probably add in some sort of water cooling setup in order to make use of winters as well as the fact that such a setup could easily be moved out of the way with just a few thumbscrews when one goes subzero. We usually try to have various snacks around the place, and change it up here and there. The Jones candies were a nice surprise, I'll have to pick up some more, although we usually get our caffeine through coffee as one might expect by the two mugs that look surprisingly brand new.... Didn't want to ruin the "limited edition souvenirs" work gave us and pretty much nobody else... I actually have a few that aren't readily visible in that pic too, including a keychain celebrating our parent company's 30th anniversary too. Oh, and since somebody will probably eventually ask, the ceramic mug says.... Our Values We partner for mutual success We innovate with passion We play to win We brew a better world

I suppose I could also include a low light, kind of fuzzy pic of it actually in use too If you're wondering why that looks like a '70s or '80s design at the back there it's something my parents gave me a while back.... Their collection of 7" 45rpm records. Totally forgot it was there. Oh well, I haven't really found anything to put them in that looks nicer yet, since I typically deal with 12" cut at 45rpm (mmmmmm, hardstyle, gabber, and DnB tracks)

Agreed. If it had been left as "info coming soon" peeking wouldn't happen. On the flipside, since a lot of stages typically require acquiring gear, a lot of benchers actually like having at least a generic idea before hand

Is there going to be one? It isn't showing in the OC e-sports schedule, and traditionally it would be starting in a week. ...EDIT... For those looking for the wallpaper, Massman created a dedicated thread containing it: http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=163160 ...END EDIT...

With built in submissions this way, does this mean we won't have to do the screenshots if submitted this way?

Ohhhh, there's a reason why I used a picture from May.... *laughs nervously* Here's how that area looked before the tidying up, after my OpenBenchTable came in.... As for beating Ney's score, I now have the combined power of a window AND Northern Alberta winters, so I suppose I could use that as well as some dry ice to hopefully push tings a tad further

Same, they're rather useful to have! Most importantly, it keeps that fan there without me having to worry about it, and so hopefully it will keep the north bridge relatively cool on that board... At least until I pick up a set of Enzotech heatsinks to take care of that "problem" (which some time later will be replaced with either a Watercool north bridge cooler or even Kingpin Cooling's NB-2 if he's still making them - I want to beat Christian Ney's fsb record on this board, I'm only 0.05MHz behind him!!!!!!!)

The past week and a half or so has been a rather interesting one, thanks to a combination of weather as well as two of our delivery drivers being sick. Oh, and a short week too, because of Thanksgiving. Needless to say, it's made for a few interesting times at work. Oh, right, and because of that I spent all my free time trying to clear a few levels in various games, so pretty much neglected the whole "write up my full fledged opinions on the OpenBenchTable" thing. Regarding the nick and scratch... I think the biggest reason why I was so frustrated about it is such was pretty much the first thing I saw when I lifted it out of the packaging, since it's on the handle side. Once the bench table is set up it's only visible if you're looking for it, but having such be the second thing you see is probably what got me so wound up initially. Anyways, moving onto the bench itself. I'd post pictures of the packaging but others have already done that with an SLR camera, and I only have my phone combined with low lighting in our entire place, so I'll just skip ahead to what I used to be using While the ArmaFlex on top of a motherboard box is practical, at least for insulating things, it does bring about with it several problems for me. First and foremost, while it's stable "enough" for what I do, I'm not quite a fan of how things readily shift every time you have to push something down, even if it's just plugging in a fan. Secondly, it takes up a decent amount of space with no real options for cable management. And third, it was just plainly an eye sore in my living room in comparison. Originally I had planned on picking up something from Dimastech, specifically the EasyXL (or an Easy v3.0 with a Hard 2.5), but after looking further into things decided that three main things ruled them out - poor availability, they're insanely large, and arguably the most important their lack of customer service. CaseLab's BH7 was also a contender, especially given the absolutely wonderful berry colour. What, were you expecting me to say black or orange? It's the wrong shade of orange for me Anyways, as gorgeous as their Bullet lineup is, and even with Jim's assurance that it would be able to handle the weight of full cooling pots without issue due to how they're designed, one big thing changed my mind as to the solution I was going to go with - teaser shots of the new OpenBenchTable were released. When the original prototype came out for the OpenBenchTable, I liked the thoughts and ideas behind it, but didn't see it as a contender. In fact, in some areas I was fairly vocal about what I saw as the prototype's shortcomings, with my biggest complaint having centered around the acrylic pieces holding all the hardware inside. Thankfully, the OpenBenchTable team listened to a lot of advice and opinions of benchers that were a lot more sensible about things than I was and pretty much all of the concerns I previously had have been rectified with the production version. So, just how do things look and feel now that I've picked up the OpenBenchTable? Well, to state it in a short manner, despite not having actually benched on it just yet (something about not having a monitor over there anymore, which will be fixed this week), I'm quite happy with it. After a short while (10-15 minutes, I didn't really time myself because I was having too much fun looking at various different things) I had it all put together. Picking it up to move it around brought one thing immediately to mind - this table is LIGHT, like barely noticeable when being carried around. While light in weight, it's still strong and durable. Yup, I tried somewhat to try and flex it, and didn't get all that far with such... Before installing all of my main hardware onto the table, I wanted to check on something that a number of people have inquired about - just how stable is the OpenBenchTable? Well, without any hardware on it, including the power supply, it seems it wouldn't be that hard to tip IF you gave a good enough bump. However, once you install the power supply underneath the OpenBenchTable casual attempts to tip it using a similar amount of force as before the power supply resulted in somewhat sore fingers for a moment because it didn't budge at all. I didn't hit it with a sledgehammer, but at the same time my biggest worry is just bumping things - I won't be benching in a construction zone! Anyways, while I've written a lot and even rambled somewhat, just what are my thoughts on the OpenBenchTable in the end? In short, I find it a rather versatile benching setup that has enough space for most setups, having the ability to put an ITX, mATX, and ATX motherboards as well as a power supply and two hard drives. It's rather simple to put together, and once you've done such once or twice I wouldn't doubt it if one could get it sorted out in two minutes or less. It's strength lies in the fact that it can easily be used as a portable setup as well as a sexy semi-permanent setup in one's living room that won't stick out like the motherboard box setup sure did. Do I have any issues with it? Arguably there's the lack of a power and reset button, or even space to put them, but at the same time most people who are benching have a habit of using boards with power and reset buttons built onto the motherboard, so it isn't really an actual issue in the long run. Also.... What hardware am I running on it right now? Motherboard: Asus P5E (with a Rampage Formula bios) CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8500 CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Friio Advanced with Cougar fans RAM: OCZ Reaper DDR2 1200MHz Solid State: Kingston 64GB SSDNow Power supply: Corsair GS700 (will be replaced with an EVGA 1000 watt G2 at some point) Video Card: EVGA 9500 GT Shiny screen thingy in a PCI slot is a bios code reader.