Update on PCMark05 debate

About two and a half weeks ago, members of the community started an interesting debate regarding the PCMark05 benchmark. As you might know, PCMark05's tweakable nature has been giving both the overclocking community as well as the HWBOT staff headaches over the past couple of months. Following the first couple of posts, a poll was initiated. This poll indicated that the community was split in two camps: there's a group that want to see the bench live on, but with updated rules, and another group that just wants to get rid of the benchmark.

The discussion that followed on the poll was definitely interesting. After silently following up on the community debate and one-on-one discussions with community members, we've come to the conclusion that we should first try with new rules and remove if turns out necessary later.

Link to post: http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?p=125168
Okay, let's go with:
- No ramdisk or MFT software allowed
- 220MB/s XP startup cap
- Benchmark must run on default web browser (Internet Explorer, any version) and default audio/video codec
- Browser enhancement tweaks such as disabling/removing features, plugins, make-up etc are allowed
- Audio and video codec tweaks are allowed. Powertoy is, as GUI for the registry, allowed

Also, let's make an agreement that we come back to this thread in 3 months (November 9, 2011) and evaluate if these new rules work. If turns out the benchmark is pretty much 'unsaveable', we can still remove it after a couple of months. Given the outcome of the POLL, I'd say these are the two only options we have.

For comment or feedback, you can refer to the discussion thread at our forums: http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=28773