TheKarmakazi

and Gomeler FTW! +1 Also getting 70% to agree on much of anything would be difficult. I would think a 2:1 (66/33) vote would be more accurate?

Perfectly stated... you beat me to it Tim

+1 to that. Cant even compete in 06 without a $1000 QX

I was sad to see no_name quit the bot, hopefully he will come back. He is hands down one of the best benchers in the world. No_name you should not give in so easily! Im sure its annoying to be accused of these things, but you were the person who was innocent... just ignore these things and keep breaking WR's. It is understandable why someone could've thought you were sharing, no need to take it personal!

Well its a good thing your not a PR manager then . I dont ask for free hardware, what do you think im daft? I do legitmate review that get published on my website and local magazine. All I was saying is its not just as easy as that, since there are many respectable review sites all looking for review samples. Ive gotten tons of freebies from cold calling companies and offering to do review for new products... so unless your approach is any better (im waiting to hear it) then please.... Also I'm not some hardware wh0re who give a 5 * or 10/10 rating just for getting some gear. Which is another reason its not that easy if your an honest reviewer, because you reivew a product bad and your chances of getting something else from a company goes down...

Not as easy as you may think to get sponsored in the U.S. Ive talked to many companies about doing reviews for hardware (Intel, Apacer, STT, etc etc etc) and get stonewalled many times (review site isnt big enough, they already have all samples sent out, every other excuse you could think of). I think you Germans get the mushkin love though dont you? And you got the cool LN2 delivery truck guy!

I agree with tiborr somewhat... the heavy sponsorship of those at the top makes it very hard to compete for someone with a normal situation (cant spend 10K+ per year on hardware and no sponsors). The popularity of OC'ing is a double edged sword though. More people OC'ing means hardware manufacturers pay much more attention to our market segment. We get mobos with all the tweaked out options we ask for, etc! But... A certain few lucky people seem to get all the sponsorships... Nothing against those people since most have worked very hard to get where they are! But it would be nice if companies sponsored some less well known names, since the big shots will always get their hardware. Im not saying start giving out 4870x2's to everyone, but maybe just spread the love a little. Would make competition a little more interesting at least (not to mention I might actually receive something lol). I would love to get just 1 motherboard for testing/review purposes in a year... there are many who receive 1 per month! In addition to RAM, CPUs, GFX Cards, etc. But oh well, life's not fair, and the only way to change something is to go out and do something about it right? Many companies are open to sending out review samples if you have an avenue to publish a review (blog, review site, forums, etc). So maybe try that? Work is involved, but it can pay off with free hardware!

Well said Praz... All the people moaning about having to buy Vista obviously havent read this thread. You can use Vista for an indefinate amount of time (legally) with no activation, or serial entered. All it requires is a reinstall every 4 months... something most of us do more frequently anyways... (on bench machines at least)

And your logic is totally flawed lol. All the yes votes vs. All the no votes is logical. Then if Yes wins you break it down between what 3 options got the most votes. Voting yes for Extreme only, yes for Performance only, or yes for both is a "yes" vote no matter how you look at it. As I said before, you bench laptops why do you care?

You bench laptops, so why do you care?

Because Vista is the ONLY OS that supports Quadfire/TriSli. For 3dmark03, many people already run vista for this very reason. wPrime is also very bias toward using Vista, it shaves many seconds off. Same with PCMark05, Vista will yield considerably higher scores. Not to mention if you want to fully use your DX10 Graphics Card for current games, you need Vista also. You dont have to purchase Vista to use it. Its perfectly legal to install Vista without entering a key. This gives you 30 days to "try" the full version of Vista, and can be extended to 90 days (legally) by typing a simple command in dos prompt. Then if you reinstall Vista you can start this whole process over again. Any good bencher starts a session with a clean OS anyways. So the whole "buy Vista" argument against this is moot. Its just not an issue. Valid point about buying the bench software, but not about Vista. Well I would imagine the people using hwbot ARE the most elite computer users around... right? Not to mention I would be considered an XP user (main OS) myself. BUT I also run Vista too. I'm sure if your statistics measured how many people use XP as main OS but still run Vista sometimes, the 18% would be much higher. I would estimate that 90% of people on hwbot could afford a $20 purchase. We spend $100's on a single component regularly... You obviously have a strong dislike for Vista OS itself, but please realize this isn't about if you like the OS. Its about a new 3d bench software that allows people to finally score their DX10 Graphics Cards on a DX10 benchmark. Illustrating better the performance for current games utilizing this tech. Also the above statement I made about QuadFire/Tri Sli only being Vista compatible. These setups are also not fully used in any other 3d benchmark except 3DMark03 (which is super old and doesn't indicate current performance). Roll on in 2 years? Then you could argue "But we have to buy Windows 7, to use this bench." It will never end... I am not flaming in any way, I am just playing devil's advocate.

OK thanks for clarifying that for me! I think I was mixing up the old rules for CPU-Z before validation was required. IIRC you couldnt use a photo which makes sense for CPU-Z.

I have noticed in the past days many results being submitted, not as an actual valid screenshot, but a photograph of the screen. As I understood things, I thought photographs were not considered valid, since the system could well be frozen. Some of these results are even top20 HOF scores... Please clarify for me, thanks!

taken care of

I love little birdies!!

i think either T_M or pro should get an interview, they both benched there way up very quickly. lots of dedication and skill. not to mention both are good guys, always willing to help ppl.

keep at it guys and great work! (maybe i4 will catch up and have some fun too)

Hipro has to make an appearance too, and im sure it will rock the charts

Great job to both pro and SF3D. Ive been watching the back and forth for a while. Always fun to have a good competition! Everyone push it to the limits!

very nice

+1 to getting points now that they fixed the main issues

all I meant is that your logic is generally very sound

maybe some basic rules could be established for this category also... i.e. DDR1 no looser timings than 4-4-4-x.... DDR2 no looser than 5-5-5-x.... DDR3 no looser than 7-7-7-x Or something along those lines. Im not an expert memory tweaker so the fine points should be fleshed out by those who know whats up.

So I take it by the lack of responses this discussion is finished and PCMark Vantage will not be receiving points?

i dont see anything wrong with what wprime does. its using 100% of the cpu what more could you ask? if it didnt use 100% of the cpu then what? 95%? 5%? Random %? Looking at your logic I dont think you understand what your asking. Not to mention acting like an @$$ to everyone certainly wont further your ideas, I can guarantee you that much. Lighten up buddy p.s. u dont want to argue with jmke, he will win lol