Important! Opinions regarding HWBoints algorithm revision

[Massman]

I'm all ears for your opinion !

I'll be updating the starting post with the answers to certain questions

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Originally Posted by Thor941

I think it won't change the fact that "big" clockers with huge HW will still be in the top rankings.

Of course, the global ranking will always be ruled by those with cooling skills, tweaking skills and the expensive hardware to use them on.

Originally Posted by K404

This idea makes slightly older, cheap cards more viable for global points, which while it isnt a bad thing... it will massively increase the competition in these categories..... LN2 will be necessary for hardware points for the cards, which will push more people out ...

We are actually trying to improve the hardware points as well. This does take quite a bit of work in balancing, though.

Originally Posted by Linuxfan2000

How would you rank the dual card GPUs?

The initial idea would be to have two rankings:

1) Single GPU
2) Multi GPU

Multi-GPU would then indeed be dominated by those who can afford multiple cards. However, it seems that in the current generation of hardware even 3D benchmarks are CPU-limited. 4 cards won't be more powerful than 3 per definition.

It's quite difficult to have a solution that works out perfect for all situations. Creating more global categories also means that people have to buy more hardware to compete at the top. Also, it puts more stress on our server.

Originally Posted by ether.real

Instead of the proposed change, I would much rather see a push to using Vantage X instead of Vantage P in hwbot league. Remove the CPU bottleneck and let GPU power be the main determinating factor in getting boints in the GPU tests.

The fact that dual GPUs are now in the 'single'-category is part of the problem of CPU-bound 3D tests. The more powerful you make the 3D part of your system (VGA), the more powerful you need to make your 2D part (CPU) to see scaling from adding VGA OC.

Originally Posted by ether.real

So, when do we classify a Yorkfield as a "multiple" Wolfdale? Cause that makes just as much sense.

There are many differences involved in this, the most apparent possibly the fact that there are only two benchmarks that really scale with multi-core design being Wprime 32M and Wprime 1024M whereas nearly every benchmark scales with multi-GPU design. We may have been postponing splitting up the socket for Wprime a bit too much, though.

Another very big difference is that within the GPU there are in fact multiple processors. We don't split them up in 192, 216 or 512 categories, though.

Originally Posted by ether.real

What about dual GPU cards that don't have a single GPU equivalent? How would those get classified?

Initial suggestion described it as two seperate categories:

-Single GPU
-Multi GPU (dual, triple, quadriple)

In the latter in other words.

Originally Posted by TiN

There is the same ranks with CPU sockets, not cores?

As for Wprime: noted on the agenda.

Originally Posted by ether.real

All sports and competitive leagues are "Pay to Play". You are not going to be able to equalize the dollar influence unless you yourself are willing to buy top end hardware for everyone.

I agree with you. However, I also believe that if there's an easy way to reduce the dollar influence we should at least consider it. It may not change that much for the so-called top dogs, but if it changes something for the less fortunate enthousiasts I'm already happy.

Originally Posted by Thor941

Isn't it possible to make a simulation on the top 100 scorers or I do'nt know how many ...

Next meeting is on monday and it's on the agenda.

Originally Posted by komadyret

This should also be followed by a increase in the hardwareboints ceiling from 300 to lets say 500 points?

Good suggestion. We have already discussed this possibility in the staff section as well and it came to our attention that increasing the hardware points is in fact a very short-term solution as:

- Hardware categories are added by the day
- For one hardware category, there are 7 (CPU) or 6/12 (GPU) new rankings
- For each newly added benchmark there are countless new hardware points available

Whether or not we increase the hardware points cap for the individual league, there will always be a point where the cap forms an issue. Raising the cap will work just fine for a while, but at a certain point we will return to the same situation as we are in today. Raising it again will work fine again ánd bring us back to the same situation. Eventually, we will have a hardware cap that is higher than the amount of points you can win in global categories. The problem is:

The Overclockers League is supposed to be filled with those who show extreme skill using extreme cooling on extreme hardware. The top results, in other words.

This is the main reason why we set the hardware cap in the first place. If we increase the cap so much that it doesn't have it effect anymore, why bother having it in the first place.

Originally Posted by komadyret

Making a third gpu-global-class will seriously shift the weight of the points in the gpu-direction. I'm not sure it's a good thing to make the cpu's so much less important in the big points ...

Again, excellent remark. Creating single, dual and more GPU categories is in itself no problem, but it will most definitly shift the weight of the points to GPU benchmarking. In particular: multi-gpu benchmarking. In other words, instead of making it a more balanced game, we would be making it a more expensive game.

Originally Posted by Dualist

As you are surjesting you either have to buy one card or four, so much for making it cheaper and more acessable.

The other solution would be exactly the same situation, but then forcing even more to buy four. This is how it works when you buy ONE videocard:

- Current system: compete in single-card category, so you have to buy a very expensive dual-gpu card. You participate in 50% of the GPU global categories.
- Suggested system: compete in single-gpu category, so you can choose between a couple of less expensive single-gpu cards. More expensive will be better for higher scores, but less expensive doesn't mean no points instantly. The gap between top-dollar and middle-dollar is less big. You participate in 50% of the GPU global categories.
- Multi-category system: compete in single-gpu category, so you can choose between a couple of less expensive single-gpu cards. More expensive will be better for higher scores, but less expensive doesn't mean no points instantly. The gap between top-dollar and middle-dollar is less big. You compete in 25% of the global categories.

In other words, if you want to increase your ranking in the Overclockers League (or actually: any league) you will have to invest in a second multi-gpu solution as well. However, if you have a multi-category system (dual, triple, quadriple) you need a solution for each category. This would be even MORE expensive than the one suggested in the newspost.

Originally Posted by bazx

is there a technical reason why we cannot have multiple GPU ranks?

No, we can rank results based on number of sockets, number of cores and number of cards.

Originally Posted by ether.real

Splitting up the Single/Dual GPUs is all brass on the titanic until the CPU problem gets fixed.

There's very little HWBot can do about the CPU problem. This is a characteristic of the benchmarks used; Vantage Xtreme is one we could add, but it won't change the cpu problem in all other benchmarks.

Changing to a single GPU system does in fact solve the cpu problem a bit for at least half of the 3D rankings.

Originally Posted by ether.real

How is this any different than someone else coming with a 5870 that crushes you at stock speeds?

It's already a difference in money. Also, it's a new generation; not really a fair comparison. We can't ban innovation.

Originally Posted by drnip

I say why have a ceiling? You don't have one on global points. That might be a little bit of influence on people breaking back out all the old hardware they have which in return equals more participation.

We have a cap because the Overclockers League was designed to rank overclockers on extreme overclocking skill. This means:

- Extreme cooling (LN2)
- Extreme hardware (High-end systems)
- Extreme results (Best scores in the benchmark)

Without a cap, this league would be dominated by people who just bench very much and although I'm not at all saying that this doesn't require skill, it's not what the Overclockers League is designed for. Note that the amount of available hardware points increase spectacularly as hardware categories increase.

[Toxic substance]

As you said it is going to give really nice boost to newbie ocers with no dual GPU cards.Also it will give them a chance to compete with more weathly guys who buy a 295 just to test it .I think we must differ them by core

[Polpi_91]

i'm agree this opinion

[Thor941]

I think it won't change the fact that "big" clockers with huge HW will still be in the top rankings.

[richba5tard]

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

[Toxic substance]

@thor941:I never tried to compete Hipro ,Andre or Vince but some others that don't beat me by their skillz , crazy OCes or tweaks but some 295 and 4870x2 being stock only because I play with a decent 4850.Always talking for global ranking

[Thor941]

Originally Posted by richba5tard

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

Not at all

That's just the way it is (to me)

I think that our o/c "world" is like that, unless will have to ban all the sponsored people as well, but it is just impossible

I like the way points are calculated now, and the new way won't change things that much in my opinion so I'd say that it sounds good to me as well.

[K404]

This isnt my final answer but...

This idea makes slightly older, cheap cards more viable for global points, which while it isnt a bad thing... it will massively increase the competition in these categories..... LN2 will be necessary for hardware points for the cards, which will push more people out.

Benching wont really become any cheaper- LN2 or no points. LN2 needs specific lifestyle choices to already be in place before it can become a viable option.

At least with the dual-core cards, the bigger names can fight over those for the top spots and the less-sponsored guys with less money and less cooling can still do well in hardware categories


I am aware this answer is selfish... I dont think its my final answer

[canna1988]

Hello,

I agree with this new possible rules, because is not good that some people with a GTX295 with liquid cooling got better result than a GTX285 maybe under LN2... so for me is possible change

Also my team think same about this.

Sorry for my english.

Alessio

[Linuxfan2000]

Sounds like it might be a good change.
One question though, how would you rank the dual card GPUs? Will there be three catagories with single card, single card dual GPU, and SLI/CF cards? I don't know how that would work out, but if we just changed the 4870X2 and GTX 295 to the dual cards ranking, they wouldn't be as good as for example 2x 4870X2 or 2x GTX 295, so there wouldn't be much of a point to bench them, right?
I get the idea though, single GPU competition for global boints sounds good!