R5: Pro OC V2 - Pro OC Cup introduction

[der8auer]

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

 

Lie http://hwbot.org/submission/2266474_der8auer_3dmark03_geforce_8800_gts_512_mb_71773_marks

 

Why ban 4-Way SLI CF scores from XOC? How many are there even? 5? That will change nothing.

 

ES are already banned from XOC so that's fine.

 

I don't even see what and why you want to change in the XOC league. Apart from the old Pro-OC-League it's possible for everybody to get into top 10 without high-end hardware. You can buy a crap 6,3 GHz 3770K and use it for all the cards and you will be fine. No highly binned hardware needed.

OC will always be about money. If you can't afford the latest CPU and GPU - well that's life. You can't expect to be first without invensting money. It's just impossible.

 

I bought 2 x 3770Ks myself and both are about average. I'm not getting any highly binned CPUs from vendors and still made it into top 10 two weeks ago. Just by benching a lot of old cards and investing a lot in LN2. I'm spending about 300-400 EUR per month on LN2 at the moment.

It's absolutely no problem for me to buy few mainboards as they cost like 200-300 EUR. Refusing the support by vendors wouldn't change my ranking at all. Pushing people like me into pro-oc is just a bad joke.

Edited March 13, 2013 by der8auer

[K404]

Lie http://hwbot.org/submission/2266474_der8auer_3dmark03_geforce_8800_gts_512_mb_71773_marks

 

 

DAMNIT!!!!! LOL You have a good MHz advantage though *clutches at straws* You are the exception that proves the rule *clutches at more straws*

 

 

Why ban 4-Way SLI CF scores from XOC? How many are there even? 5? That will change nothing.

 

Today, it changes (almost) nothing. Tomorrow, maybe not. Enthusiast league don't get WR points....affects the same number of people. I was thinking of ways to limit the expense for people wanting to compete at the top.

 

ES are already banned from XOC so that's fine.

 

 

Banned, yes... but still used. Check out Tolsty (results are up to 10 months old) and (IIRC) Wizerty.

[Xtreme Addict]

I am not about judging and so on. I can only tell about myself.

 

When PRO League was created, I could choose PRO or XOC. I read rules and decided that I qualify in 100% for PRO and in fact I wanted to be ranked with best overclockers. Why I decided that I qualify for PRO League? Here is answer:

 

Despite the fact that I live in Poland and most vendors offices are really without resources for marketing (samples, $ for samples and so on - in my opinion it's the problem of attitude of those departments, they don't; want to organize samples themselves but only "take" what HQ sends or doesn't not send. Why I say that support in Poland is not good? Maybe because "Intel Poland" had only 2x i7 990X cpus for reviews in 40 million country in EU... All samples in Poland have to be sent back, mostly in 1-2 weeks time. I am fucked living and benching in Poland, I know lol So in the beginning of PRO OC League I had:

 

- Antec support (1-2 PSU sent for LN2 benching for eternity)

- Asus Poland support (I borrow a lot of boards from them, sometimes GPUs), all have to be returned)

- Intel Poland support (after reviews they send me sometimes ES cpus (but not all generations, for instance SB or Ivy was too "hot" and needed for reviews) I got i7 990X and 3960X for tests/benching, all have to be returned)

- Some local distributor (small one) helps me and sometimes borrows 4 GPUs or some mem for a weekend of benching, of course they have to be in great shape in order to sell them later so sometimes LN2 isn't possible)

- Gigabyte Poland (but they used to have less boards then Asus Poland, because of the structure of Gigabyte, in Poland there is only motherboard department with samples, GPUs marketing is organized by small PR agency which doesn't send hw for OC), of course everything have to be returned

- MSI Poland (the same as Gigabyte or even less samples, but boards and gpus), everything have to be returned

- some support from Linegal Chemicals (my ln2 place), better prizes and so on

 

So in fact, I got samples for free only from Antec (1-2 PSU per year). And all 4-ways/Quad CF, binning of CPUs and so on (Gultowns, SB, Ivy, SB-E) I did by myself by private $. Moreover because polish departments didn't care about special bioses or tools (like Afterburner Extreme) I had a really big problem sometimes...

 

I think that all reviewers (which are benching mostly on samples) should be moved to PRO OC. If some overclockers get 1-2 cheap sample per year for free, and they spend a lot of $ for OC, they can choose XOC or PRO. I chose PRO (mostly because of other polish overclockers, which mostly don't have any support, looking at them I could say I had great support) and I don't regret it. I developed a lot, got some good contacts, made a lot of friends and now I have support from HQs. But I didn't stop spending private $ on OC, on the contraty I spend the same or more, but I can focus more on binning CPUs, GPUs and doing better results

[FireKillerGR]

 

Banned, yes... but still used. Check out Tolsty (results are up to 10 months old) and (IIRC) Wizerty.

 

Please let me know if you see any other submissions like the above.

I think I didn't forget any of them.

 

PS. BTW. I believe in K404! (as requested )

[Mikecdm]

Lie http://hwbot.org/submission/2266474_der8auer_3dmark03_geforce_8800_gts_512_mb_71773_marks

 

I don't even see what and why you want to change in the XOC league. Apart from the old Pro-OC-League it's possible for everybody to get into top 10 without high-end hardware. You can buy a crap 6,3 GHz 3770K and use it for all the cards and you will be fine. No highly binned hardware needed.

OC will always be about money. If you can't afford the latest CPU and GPU - well that's life. You can't expect to be first without invensting money. It's just impossible.

 

I bought 2 x 3770Ks myself and both are about average. I'm not getting any highly binned CPUs from vendors and still made it into top 10 two weeks ago. Just by benching a lot of old cards and investing a lot in LN2. I'm spending about 300-400 EUR per month on LN2 at the moment.

It's possible to be top 10, but not as easy as you make it seem. Unless you are getting top 3 or so in most those benches, you'll be averaging in the mid 20pts per bench. Eventually you'll plateau and be stuck. The only way to move up from there is by getting top 3 scores. I know this because this is where I'm at. A lot of the gpu that I've benched were with sandy and I haven't had the chance to bench as many with ivy.

 

Your example of 03 is a poor example. You chose the one bench were cpu clocks aren't as big of an influence. In just about every other bench, cpu clocks will dominate. You can see this by new golds being posted daily with cards on stock cooling. Granted there are exceptions here and there, but a good majority are done with stock cooled cards.

 

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.

 

The 3 people that you have mentioned are good examples of knowing how to work the points system. Stevero is up their by racking up a ton of globals and hw points in pcmark which required a several thousand dollar storage setup. Knut has skyrocketed in the rankings because of the high dollar server set up he purchased. Those two aren't using ordinary hardware, but know how the system works. Tapakah on the other hand, he owns like every single 775 gold which probably required the most work out of these 3 people to accomplish.

 

I did all the 775 stuff when i first started, I don't really enjoy it as much anymore. I don't really like grinding the old stuff any more. The points motivate me and influences what I bench, but I still like benching. If I had to choose between benching a 7970 and a 4850, the points might be what determines what I bench, but in the end i'm still benching something that I enjoy and still having fun. Plain and simple, a points and ranking structure motivates people. One can say it's about the fun, but if we find a multitude of the aspects of benching fun, then it comes down to points and rankings or competitions which in turn are rankings.

[knopflerbruce]

Current gen ES are not allowed. I don't see the issue using older engineering samples, though - that would be ebay items rather than sponsored, hand picked stuff.

[hokiealumnus]

Current gen ES are not allowed. I don't see the issue using older engineering samples, though - that would be ebay items rather than sponsored, hand picked stuff.

 

Side note: I've received three generations of ES chips from AMD and Intel. They have all been very far from hand picked. My 3960X hits a brick wall at 5.1 GHz. Its IMC won't even get to DDR3-2400 at all, much less with stability. The SNB sample was a 5.2GHz chip. IVB won't do 5GHz stable on water.

 

On the other side, neither of two Bulldozer chips or the Piledriver chip would hit 8GHz, which for the bot is about all they're good for.

 

ES used to matter, back in the 980X days. Since then, they've sucked. At least the ones I've received. I have no problem being forced into Pro, but make no mistake - it's because the chips are free for me to test, not because they are anything resembling good chips.

[K404]

I like to think of the ES rule as "future-proofing" If there is another scenario where ES are better than retail, there will be complaints all over the place.

 

Plus, I think it reduces the demand for (expensive, no-warranty) "black market" items because most people want to avoid the Pro League.

[I.M.O.G.]

It's possible to be top 10, but not as easy as you make it seem. Unless you are getting top 3 or so in most those benches, you'll be averaging in the mid 20pts per bench. Eventually you'll plateau and be stuck. The only way to move up from there is by getting top 3 scores. I know this because this is where I'm at.[/Quote]

 

Top 20 is pretty tough without lots of big globals. For hardware, 50 for gold (20x50=1000), 40 for silver (20x40=800), and 33 for bronze (20x33=660). Top 20 in XOC league requires >1100 points total... So you'd need 20 HW gold cups plus a handful of globals, or 20 silver cups plus a bigger handful of globals, or 20 bronze cups and A LOT of globals. If you can't claim and defend quite a few hardware cups in the most competitive categories, you aren't getting near the top 20 of XOC.

 

Looking at it, the smart move is to attempt 2D domination. Tapakah will rarely ever lose HW points because old 2D cups are rarely seriously contested. The hard part, is to get golds in maxed 2D categories you have to beat Tapakah. 3D is a lot more fun tho, and has a lot more people mixing it up - just more variables all around.

 

There's not that many GPUs though with maxed points (49+ first place), only 10-15 or so... Keeps it pretty competitive, as those are the top rankings you have to have for top XOC ranking.

[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.

 

Any feedback on this list? Any suggestions or ideas I missed in this thread?

[Mr.Scott]

Just a random post from what you would consider an 'outsider' from the Pro league. I like the concept/format of the Pro cup. If what you're trying to accomplish is to draw more interest/participation from the remaining leagues, IMO, this is a good way to do it. It's structured not much different from the normal team comps which have been pretty populated and successful lately. FWIW, I'm interested, and I know there are others interested. Just waiting to get one under your belt to see how it all pans out.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Mr.Scott

[Splave]

Any feedback on this list? Any suggestions or ideas I missed in this thread?

 

yeah, I was sad you didnt bold mine but I got over it

[I.M.O.G.]

I don't agree that there's a point in going from a 4 cup structure to a 3 cup. It's already essentially 4 2 month competitions, with one month each of open enrollment and organization... In comparison, I don't think 3 cups or 4 makes a meaningful difference.

 

Looking at the rankings currently, we aren't 3 weeks into the current competition, and SP32M is almost settled - there are likely to be a few more submissions competing at the top end, but thats it. Memory frequency will get a few more competitive submissions too, but its at least half way done. Cinebench is likely to bring out a few more big rigs to round out the top end there. So that leaves the 3D stuff - both of those will get a decent number of improved submissions, and we have over 10 weeks to get them posted.

 

The current timeline seems reasonable to me.

[phil]

Just a clarification.If a member of XOL joins a team for a Pro cup,can he after the cup go back to XOL(if he is not sponsored of course) ?

[hokiealumnus]

I think I can answer this one: Yes, but only after the current quarterly cup has ended and team selection has begun again.

[I.M.O.G.]

I think I can answer this one: Yes, but only after the current quarterly cup has ended and team selection has begun again.

 

Or he can go back before open enrollment ends.