R5: Pro OC V2 - Pro OC Cup introduction

[K404]

No, Ronaldo. We both know that is not true.

 

If you want to rank well, you will use E8600 and GTX280, then you will use I7 920, then you will use Intel 980X, then you will buy 5870, then get GTX480. Then 990X and GTX580, then some 2600K, then 7970, then 3770K. The choices for the best scores have been very narrow.

 

People do not choose what hardware they bench, they choose to be competitive or not, if they can afford it.

 

 

Yes, someone can do well with 1x or 2x GPU... but there is every chance they will not be #1.... the same thing is happening now.

[rbuass]

No, Ronaldo. We both know that is not true.

 

If you want to rank well, you will use E8600 and GTX280, then you will use I7 920, then you will use Intel 980X, then you will buy 5870, then get GTX480. Then 990X and GTX580, then some 2600K, then 7970, then 3770K. The choices for the best scores have been very narrow.

 

People do not choose what hardware they bench, they choose to be competitive or not, if they can afford it.

 

 

Yes, someone can do well with 1x or 2x GPU... but there is every chance they will not be #1.... the same thing is happening now.

 

Hardware points not valid to Pro League.

To Pro league... only the highest level hardware will earn points...

Even the eras will change,... GTX 480... after GTX 580... after HD7970.... and now... Titan era

[K404]

Exactly That is my point... I was not thinking of hardware points, I was thinking about the last 5 years. The hardware required was so set-in-stone that I remember it very clearly, even now.

[Bobnova]

Don't forget that you'll need a frequency score, so AMD.

Now that Titans are here you'd need Titan and 7970 and GTX580.

Plus of course a stack of CPUs.

 

The number of pro league people that seem to believe themselves gods who can order things to happen is amazing. Also depressing.

Past glories do not make a person ruler of the now.

If Jim Clark came back from the grave do you think F1 would do exactly what he says? Hell no.

 

Really, the people are the top of the standings are the last people who should decide the rules. When that happens the rules almost always end up built specifically to suit those at the top.

 

What nobody seems to be willing to reply to, from anybody, is that the Pro League was not spreading OCing. It's job is (was) to spread OCing. Hence, it was a failure.

 

For my part I find the 7970/titan+supersuperbinned3770k scores equally impressive and depressing.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Bobnova

[Oj0]

I like point incentive, but it might be complicated to express the information in a single page if we do it on a weekly basis (ie: get points for being #1 in a certain week). Alternatives:

 

- add point bounties for various in-comp achievements such as "holeshot", "longest lead", "world record".

- multiple eliminations, speeding up towards the end. Eg: elimination 1 month before end, two weeks before end, one week before end then every day until there are only three teams left for the last day

 

For the elimination, we could do it on stage-basis rather than overall basis. Instead of the last in the overall ranking being eliminated from the entire competition, eliminate the last from each stage. If you're eliminated from one stage, you might still have the option to compete in the others. Eliminate, in this case, would mean "can no longer submit", so you would keep the points earned in the stage.

 

How about completely random ending times? Make it reasonable (i.e. not the same week it started), maybe between one month and three months after starting. Let nobody know these dates. Sandbagging = solved? I can already see it pissing people off that planned a big event and they already have the hardware prepped for a weekend, but I think with minimum stage times of one month they should've benched earlier?

[K404]

How about completely random ending times? Make it reasonable (i.e. not the same week it started), maybe between one month and three months after starting. Let nobody know these dates. Sandbagging = solved? I can already see it pissing people off that planned a big event and they already have the hardware prepped for a weekend, but I think with minimum stage times of one month they should've benched earlier?

 

I thought about something similar "The stage will end between this time and this time" maybe a 36 hour time window would be enough to keep people on edge..... but "the button" would have to be controlled by someone separate to HWB staff, or there will be claims of fix. Maybe even separate to HWB entirely

[Splave]

what about this, latest style graphics cards IE 600 series and 7900 series but not the top card end card. like 660ti 3dmark03 as stage.

[K404]

I suggested something like that not so long ago Midrange is where the big sales are: midrange is where we should impress people

[Oj0]

I see HWBOT more as F1 than a Sunday afternoon race, that seems link of like F1 races with mainstream cars

[dinos22]

Yes, maybe Pro OC cup goes well and ppl bench through teams for it.

I semi-aggree with this - time will show us (as always).

So, put me to XOC League too - I'm not sponsored.... Thanks and keep on...

 

opa

[Massman]

what about this, latest style graphics cards IE 600 series and 7900 series but not the top card end card. like 660ti 3dmark03 as stage.

 

1 of the 5 stages could be that, I guess, but most of it should be top-end stuff. Or maybe make it 2x GPU mainstream.

 

Also, we'll have to go for AMD for those ones as Nvidia doesn't really give out cold bioses for those cards. Or maybe a stage where both are allowed ... putting some pressure to actually get those bioses out, haha.

[Massman]

The only way to grow up, is to update benchmarks.

3DMArk01, 03, 05, 06 AM3, Wprime.... blablabla... go to separate (something like "old scholl benchs" or so on).

 

Ah... and please... don't forget... we will miss lots of Vantage's, 3DMark06's and 3DXXXX scores that is not in Pro Cup.

 

[rbuass]

 

 

The proposal to have gaming benchmarks... I believe is really good.

And will update how it works here.

Next days we will have an overclocking event, together gaming community, and will do a presentation of gaming benchmarks... lets cross our fingers to have good public.

But it don't mean we can not keep the benchs.

Edited March 13, 2013 by rbuass

[Splave]

Only problem with gaming benchmarks is the games will be $50 and the game maker will care not about cheating and patching the benchmark because the extra development time will cost them extra

Sf3d mentioned low clock challenges. That will never work IMO

[Massman]

The proposal to have gaming benchmarks... I believe is really good.

And will update how it works here.

Next days we will have an overclocking event, together gaming community, and will do a presentation of gaming benchmarks... lets cross our fingers to have good public.

But it don't mean we can not keep the benchs.

 

You're arguing on both sides of the fence, stating you "want new benchmarks" and "miss the old records". Fyi, the "Crysis LN2 overclocking" was tried before at Assembly Summer 2010. We played Crysis one-vs-one with liquid nitrogen cooled systems and in total there was 0 more interest than running a 3DMark benchmark over and over again. In fact, the 4-Way SLI cooled system was drawing more crowd than an LN2 cooled gaming machine.

 

When people say all this extreme overclocking does not mean anything for real life, they are refering to the liquid nitrogen, not the benchmark application you're running.

[Yamunsa]

When people say all this extreme overclocking does not mean anything for real life, they are refering to the liquid nitrogen, not the benchmark application you're running.

 

dangerous thought - make the pros bench on air or water to appeal to realworld users.

 

i think your picking holes for the sake of it now. in the 12 odd pages of arguments i'm still waiting for the nugget of truth as to what thinking /changes will make a pro comp more attractive to new members or to current hwbot participants...

 

has anyone actually done any true market research to see what the desired audience wants to see?

[Massman]

Anyway, last night and this morning I took the liberty of re-reading the thread from the absolute beginning as well as going over a bunch of F1OC related discussion threads. I specifically searched for suggestions/ideas in the Pro OC thread and from the sometimes a bit harsh comments, this is the selection of actual suggestions I found. They are listed as I found them (went over the thread multiple times actually, so maybe not in order of date):

 

• Add an additional "Pro OC List" to the ranking page, listing all the Pro OC members and records (by Slamms)
  
• Include current-gen mainstream hardware to spark mainstream audience interest (by Splave)
  
• Have stages end at a random time (within 36h) to reduce sandbagging (by 0jo, K404)
  
• Bonus points as incentive for people to submit scores quicker and not sandbag (by K404, Knopflerbruce)
  
• Easy up the season schedule by going from a 4-Cup structure to a 3-Cup structure with one month break in between (by Dinos22)
  
• Reduce amount of benchmarks to 3 and limit Cup time to 2 months (by SF3D)
  
• Increase amount of eliminations, eg: after one month only top20, after another two weeks only top 10, last week top 5 (by SF3D)
  
• Add cash prizes as incentive for overclockers to participate (by Xtreme Addict)
  
• Add gaming benchmarks to make overclocking more relevant to gamers (by Rbuass)
  

 

The points in bold I think are great ideas and can actually be implemented with a very limited amount of effort. The prizes are a work-in-progress, but obviously it's not easy to find hard cash for new ideas like this (even with overclockers working for vendors). The Pro OC List could be implemented on the same page as the Pro OC Ranking (season standings based on the Cup results), under the Team and Member ranking and be regarded as something like a "free trade / player" list. The list should be alphabetical to prevent people from using it as a ranking (or "league"). The one month break between Cups is a really easy feature to implement ... just have to kick off the second Cup one month later.

 

The other options were discussed as well, but will actually require development time to implement. Some ideas are good, some a bit less good, I think.

 

//edit: remove the XOL part not to confuse people with "an idea" and "to be implemented asap".

Edited March 13, 2013 by Massman

[slamms]

I think, that improvements will be good. I can be inside in Pro OC Cup, but not ready fully complete all tasks.

[zeropluszero]

has anyone actually done any true market research to see what the desired audience wants to see?

Hell, ask on OCAU, i wonder if the thread would get more than 10 comments per hundred views "oh, those overclocking guys again, boring, back to youtube"

 

yes please

maybe it would be a good/ballsy move to completely disallow the latest hardware in the XOL. In that case, we would have:

- Enthusiast League: ambient cooling only + all hardware allowed (good for new comers with big PCs and people that never intend to run nitrogen)

- Xtreme Overclockers League: liquid nitrogen + limited to all except last-gen hardware (avoids sponsored hardware to make a difference in the rankings ánd less of a requirement to buy the binned chips as an amateur) (note1)

- Pro OC (seasonal with cups): high-end, latest greatest only (becomes main focus for the extreme high-end)

Note1: Perhaps, as exception, allow latest generation hardware for benchmarks they are not awarded points for directly. For example, i7 3770K can be used for 3DMarks but not for SuperPI. Used = "generate points", of course, as you will always be allowed to submit those results.

no thank you.

sure i like being in the XOC league, because i feel i can look at the rankings and say, "i am the same level as these other guys*", but i dont want to be forced into the Pro OC just to bench latest gen for points.

perhaps something more along the lines of "if you have a hardware sponsorship, then you go Pro OC"

*i realise that some XOC members are hardware sponsored, but surely they're a minority in the XOC league?

[phil]

- Xtreme Overclockers League: liquid nitrogen + limited to all except last-gen hardware (avoids sponsored hardware to make a difference in the rankings ánd less of a requirement to buy the binned chips as an amateur) (note1)

 

Man now you are really playing with fire

[phil]

*i realise that some XOC members are hardware sponsored, but surely they're a minority in the XOC league?

 

But still not fair for the others and something has to be done.

[der8auer]

I'm one of the "semi-supported" guys Massman talking about. I'm getting support by Gigabyte and sometimes by ASUS. So far I got 6 Mainboards within 6 years of extreme overclocking. An average of 1 board per year. Compared to what I pay for LN2, CPUs and GPUs that's just drop in the bucket.

To compare me with guys like Vince is just a bad joke. He has full access to 3770Ks and Titans as much as he wants. So I should compete with him? no thank you

 

About the XOC League:

The argument that you need sponsored or highly binned CPUs actually doesnt count here. You can easily get into top ten without using latest gen hardware.

 

You can use a Sandy Bridge setup which is quite cheap by now and use older cards like 8600 GT or 8800 GT which give maximum points. ´

Another approach is to bench old CPUs like E8500, E6600, Q6600 or whatever. Get cheap CPUs at ebay and bin them -> bam 50 points per benchmark and you'll be top 20 or top 10 if you're willing to spend enough time for it.

 

Just 3 examples:

 

TaPaKaH, SteveRo or knopflerbruce. Non of them has a 3770K submission in the global or hardware points and still they are ranked in top 20 and even top 10.

 

So everybody who is complaining about latest and binned is either a very bad overclocker or just has absolutely no clue how you earn points on the bot.

 

XOC is the most flexible league here. You can bench whatever you want and can make it to top ten. Whether it's PCMark05, wPrime with big server setups, old GPUs, old CPUs or latest hardware.

 

Taking away the latest hardware for XOC is a very bad idea.

 

Who are the people complaining? Just curious.

Edited March 13, 2013 by der8auer

[jjjc]

Oh god, ruining the Pro League isn't enough so now we're going to attack XOC? Taking out current gen hardware for XOC just defeats me entirely. I'm not sponsored or supported in the slightest, I have had one low end mainboard given to me once, that is it and I still bin and bench the latest gen of hardware. It hits the wallet and it hits it hard, but this is benching for me. I used to get my kicks out of benching old 775 and AM3 but I have moved on now and like to see where I can stand in global rankings as well as hardware rankings, I see no reason for that to not count towards my league standing.

 

Benching the latest hardware isn't even the only way to rank high in XOC (Not that I am ranked high myself, life has kept me from regularly benching for a little while), you can bench old hardware all you like in popular categories and soar into the top 50 and even higher on that alone. There should be no single 'style' of benching taken out because the other thinks its unfair, I don't even know where this argument has come from now. Sure, there are people in the XOC getting support, but that should be no reason to eliminate an entire platform for the majority who aren't. This will just push even more people into limbo and alienate more of the community that once supported hwbot. That will be a very bad move imo.

[Massman]

I'll remove the part about XOC later, before it spirals out of control.

 

I'm just saying that the discussion about sponsorship definition will have to be done within the XOC at some point. No change is even close to being planned or even considered! XOL is functioning pretty well imho!

[K404]

I don't think removing latest-gen hardware from XOC will change much. Thinking about the hardware points: there are more big scores for 3D than 2D. Plus, we see very little movement in old-school CPU golds (the 50-point ones anyway)

 

Also: Now that 3770K has filled the rankings, I am going to stick my neck out a bit and say there is no chance of a 2600K taking any 50-point gold medals in 3D. Not even a 6GHz one. Even with an 8800GT- a 6-year-old card, the benches scale well enough with Ivy to make Sandy useless for gold....and useless for good global scores. I imagine that would push people more towards hardware scores, because that's where they will get more points.

 

IMO, the problem with the XOL is that people "don't know" when they should move. I think there is a gray area and that lets people stay.

 

 

 

Here are some suggestions- people should NOT be in the XOL if they:

 

*have been given latest-gen GPUs for free by a shop or vendor (even if on loan)

 

*have close enough ties to a shop that they can go and bin their CPU stock free free or almost free (I know, has been discussed before)

 

*Are using latest-gen ES from any source

 

*Have went to an event at a vendor office or HQ. I think this one is important. If someone has been flown out to Cali or Taiwan, for a small gathering behind closed doors, you are NOT "just like the rest of us."

 

*Appeared at GOOC or MOA FINALS?

 

*receive an amount of free/sponsored RELEVANT hardware that you "just know" gives you an advantage.

 

 

But.... we usually see a move to the Pro league as permanent. What about "cause and effect?" If someone (e.g.) goes to Asus HQ in Taiwan and gets scores, they move (out of XOL league) for 6 months, then they can move back if they are not so close to the company any more.

 

 

 

What about no multi-CPU systems and no 4-way GPU in XOL league?

 

What about a points-related "guide" if someone has more (Global + WR points) than hardware points, they move?

 

 

Thing is: what would happen to these people? Force scores to "no-points," Forced into Limbo, or forced to Pro OC cup?

Edited March 13, 2013 by K404