Hmmm, I don't have any cool stories, but a little categorization can go a long way at the bot. I'm with buckeye on the ES thing, but instead of not getting points, maybe a separate ranking for binned and es chips and gpu's would level the field a little bit. Another good set of rankings would be by cooling.

Distributing points by chip or gpu alone just isn't enough anymore. Now making these categories just might give the top guys more categories and rankings to rule on, but at least the little air cooled guys would feel they have a solid chance at some bointage. They will end up going at least slightly extreme sooner or later anyway, and this may help feed a powerful addiction.

However, making more rankings and what-not may just end up getting people to bitch about making even more rankings i.e. by motherboard, RAM, etc. That's a little too far down the pipe for me.

A really well defined ranking system would make a huge difference, but it would destroy the current points distribution on there now and we would have quite a few pissed off overclockers.

Yes and you also have to figure in that just about all those guys are sponsored in one way or another and get a steady supply of equipment for reviews, testing etc. I have scanned through some of these and you will see a crap load of ES stuff in there.

You simply cannot compete with those guys, unless you have a crap load of money to buy lots of new equipment, while they get most of it for free.

I wish there was a way to classify the overclockers like there is in every other sport. Pro, non pro, novice and what not. This would prolly be impossible though but a thought.

So we compete as best as we can because thats what we do and hope that along the way, things improve.

Until there is a flawless system or everyone suddenly becomes trustworthy enough that when they say air, they don't mean the process by which ln2 returns into the atmosphere near their rigs as the air around us naturally has nitrogen in it.

Oh well. Highest I made it was 400 somethin points. Quite a feat in itself. If I don't make a move soon I will be out of the 300 point class! :(

I disagree. You should be rewarded for any hardware you have, regardless of how old. You put in the time and effort to OC it. Eventually, when the next gen processors come around, i7's will be considered classic and we'll bench them too. It's a never ending cycle. The way you'd have it, you bench current stuff for points now and drop it forever when the next stuff comes out. How does that encourage newcomers that don't have deep pockets? It doesn't take very long to accumulate 300 HW points if you're into it. We do it because it represents what our small forum is all about, classic platforms, not junk platforms, that still have a use and can still compete in there own way right along side current technology. FWIW, most of us at CP have current rigs also, and have benched those too.

I'm interested to hear exactly what that category might be. If it wasn't coming from Rom, I'd almost say it was a backhanded compliment.:D

Didn't say it doesnt deserve points.

Well there needs to be a distinction between old hardware and people benching their dell laptops and getting points for it. I am guilty of this. My girls dell has a gpu in it. Can't overclock anything on it but ran a few 3d benches and received 2 points here and there for it. I don't think points should be givin for that. But prolly the easiest solution for that was a 300 point cap they decided.

:this:

My take is that if you stay at it and really make an effort regardless of what you have, it shoudn't matter what hardware you use - Old, new or whatever floats your boat.

Remember that everyone of us started with the same amount of boints - 0 and we went from there. All of us did what we had to do to earn our boints and it paid off.

Time is another factor involved. If you stay at it long enough, you'll earn the boints and those will accumilate regardless of what you used before to get them. That's also part of the deal and why I disagree with a boints cap. If I had let those with 200+ boints or more deter me in the first place, I woudn't have what I do now. If your heart is in it and you are determined, you will succeed and eventually earn a place among those at the top. Even if one should never reach the top, at least you would have given your best effort since no one is guaranteed to succeed by trying but guaranteed to fail if they don't.
Time spent doing it and learning how to make your system run better is what it really takes. Whether a newcomer sticks with it or not tells alot about the individual. If they are serious about it, they will stay with it and not let something as simple as boints scare them away.

Again, I remind you we all began with 0 boints and there were plenty of others with a butt-load of boints ahead of us when we started. Didn't stop us and I actually feel these newcomers should earn their place as we had to or just go home.
That may sound bad or even cruel as stated but it's the reality of what we all had to face when we started and they should have to do it the same way under the same conditions to earn their place too. It's only fair they do as we had to for earning the boints.

As to hardware used, I don't look down on anybody that's benched a laptop or whatever to earn boints since if it earned them, fine by me. I can agree it may look silly for a laptop to beatout some other systems but then again, it's about what you can do with what you have to do it with.

As to newer stuff, you guys know I have an AM3 with a 720BE and yes, I've benched with it and posted up at the bot with it along with a 754 and 939 system too. Whatever it takes to get boints is what I'll do and if I never manage to score another boint, at least I did try.