The new HWBoints revision
targets specifically the Pro OC
League. It leaves every other
league unaffected.
limited selection of benchmarks and
hardware. Each cup also has a clearly
defined start and end date.
The first Pro OC Cup started on the
1st of March and will end on May 31st.
Up until April 1st, participants were
able to register for the Pro OC Cup.
After this period, no new overclockers
could join or leave the Cup, so the
ranking remains regardless of score
submissions or not.
This will be the main structure
for future Cups: the first month of
the competition is an open transfer
period where entrants may create
new teams, join existing ones or opt
to completely stop participating. After
the one-month registration period,
the teams and their line-up are fixed.
If you are in, you are in, If you are out,
you are out.
Throughout the following two
months, all teams may submit
results as they please. Even though
sandbagging (the process of
withholding scores until the very
last moment) is a concern, this
phenomenon is an inherent part of
competitive overclocking online. In
an attempt to curb that, two weeks
before the end of the competition,
elimination takes place. Only the ten
best teams may continue submitting
results. For the rest of the teams the
competition is over.
With successive cups, a Pro OC
ranking based on the performance
of the teams and individual members
will arise. The ranking is calculated
by taking into account the last three
season performances and will show
how consistent overclockers and
teams are. Obviously, the ranking is
not online yet as it requires multiple
Cups to calculate.
Each Pro OC Cup will consist of five
different stages, similar to the other
competitions we host at HWBOT.
HWBOT staff (not involved in the
actual competition) will decide upon
the five stages and obviously, these
will be available at the beginning
of each Cup. For the first Pro OC
Cup, chosen were the following
benchmarks: 3DMark Fire Strike
(Single GPU), 3DMark 11 Performance
(No restrictions), Super PI 32M,
Memory Clock and Cinebench R11.5.
The benchmark selection represents
various levels of difficulty, popularity
and relevance to current hardware
architectures. Some benchmarks
may return in future Pro OC Cups and
some benchmarks will never make it
to the Cup again.
As far as teams go, each can
consist of up to five members. As
the members are part of a Pro OC
Team, they are no longer competing
in any one of the Overclocking
Leagues. After a Cup finishes, they
may choose to return to the other
leagues. Members are not obliged to
submit any results, but can still play
a part in the team's performance. For
example, if someone takes up the role
as team manager, he or she may be
responsible for finding sponsors but
may choose to not submit a single
result. As each competition starts
from scratch, moving from one team
to the other will not affect the team’s
ranking.
THE CUP THUS FAR
As we were putting the finishing
touches to this editorial, the final
line-up for the first season of
the Pro OC Cup is finalized. In
total, the Cup features 18 teams
and 57 overclockers – a greater
turnout than expected. Amongst
the participants we find prolific
competitors such as KIngpIn,
AndreYang, NickShih, SF3D, Rbuass
as well as a couple of surprising
new comers to Pro overclocking.
The G80 (Geforce 8 series) Scottish
king for example - K404 is part of
the 5xP team. In that UK based team
we also find Anandtech’s Borandi,
leader of the Enthusiast League for
quite some tim