New Formula One Overclocking Competition Announced

[Vivi]

I am interested into the young kid who have fun with his hardware

hiya

[Buckeye]

YOu are right, we are not going to provide Super samples. If an overclocker is good, he will have to prove it on a equal play ground, I am not going to support a ground of priviledge people. I see how AMD would be interested to do this, This is their choice, but it is soooo misleading for the young kids who will not get what he is reading about.
In my case, I rather make sure that more people gets awesome performance on the normal channel and let the kids grow by themselve.
I don't see any reason why a little group of people should decide who will get the good parts, this is unfair.

Let's give a chance to everybody and use a levelled play ground.

Francois

I am out of this thread, too many people interested into getting their own agenda established ... Too many free airplane tickets got distributed recently!
I am interested into the young kid who have fun with his hardware, not into the dude trying to make money out of it.

Francois

You know what, it's about time some said this. Those of us who have to pay out of our own pockets for every piece of hardware and try and compete in HWBOT and othor events are getting slammed big time.

It is next to impossible for us to even come close to many of these setups where people get chips/gpus/mbs from special sorces.

Good grief people many of you act like it's your right to get cherry hand picked umber super chips from Intel or AMD or what ever just becasue you "Think" you are good at OC, or you have a special friend some place.

Yet when we go out and purchase parts with out own cash its extremely hard to get even close to the scores many get that are on top. Compete with us on retail equiment and you will see just how good many are out there.

I think you might even drive people away that, after they build a system and go... what.. why can't I even get close to those high scores.

I spent a huge amount on cooling, like many of you have, to be able to over clock better. Purchased everything else, just like many of you, and do my best with what I have.

I am one of the "old" kids that are just trying to have fun, enjoy over clocking a great deal to my best ability. I also think I am one of many out here who feel the same.

Please for give me if I kind of went off there, but this thread thread is getting to be a bit much.

But you guys with a silver spoon for hardware get it now allready and are doing more harm then good for the rest of us in this thread.

[miahallen]

Is it in the companies best interests to do that? Funding a team that could beat their own with someone elses hardware involved?


I dont mean to be so negative, but I do see a lot of potential pitfalls. Im not sure pitting companies directly against each other will necessarily end well.

Team Ferrari and Team Toro Rosso both use Ferarri Engines:
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/teams/3/
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/teams/184/

Team Toyota and Team Williams both use Toyota engines:
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/teams/11/
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/teams/4/

I don't think anyone here is looking to make money on this initial venture. In fact this event will likely cost each bencher several hundred to thousand dollars in LN2 and supporting gear that can't be acquired via sponsorship. So don't pull that cop-out, the young kid doesn't have the budget to buy your ridiculously overpriced chips.

Remember guys, Francois is not Intel. Even if we all can't get pre-binned chips, Intel Marketing may still be interested in supplying chips to this event. A tray of 975 ES chips would go a long way toward making this event come true, even if you have to cut the number of initial teams in order to guarantee everyone gets a single chip.

That being said, let us worry less about the hardware and more about the actual rules governing this event. Questions still need to be answered like what happens if a bencher needs to quit the season prematurely. How are points allocated for winning a particular month? Who decides at the end of the season if a team needs to be cut or if another team needs to be added?

Don't worry about the chips, even if you are all benching Core i7 920s at 21x220, the fact that something organized like that will create a little buzz. Sure, it might take a few seasons, but like all ventures, if you keep plugging away at it eventually you'll get it right.

Well put Chris!

[punx223]

You know what, it's about time some said this. Those of us who have to pay out of our own pockets for every piece of hardware and try and compete in HWBOT and othor events are getting slammed big time.

It is next to impossible for us to even come close to many of these setups where people get chips/gpus/mbs from special sorces.

Good grief people many of you act like it's your right to get cherry hand picked umber super chips from Intel or AMD or what ever just becasue you "Think" you are good at OC, or you have a special friend some place.

Yet when we go out and purchase parts with out own cash its extremely hard to get even close to the scores many get that are on top. Compete with us on retail equiment and you will see just how good many are out there.

I think you might even drive people away that, after they build a system and go... what.. why can't I even get close to those high scores.

I spent a huge amount on cooling, like many of you have, to be able to over clock better. Purchased everything else, just like many of you, and do my best with what I have.

I am one of the "old" kids that are just trying to have fun, enjoy over clocking a great deal to my best ability. I also think I am one of many out here who feel the same.

Please for give me if I kind of went off there, but this thread thread is getting to be a bit much.

But you guys with a silver spoon for hardware get it now allready and are doing more harm then good for the rest of us in this thread.

I couldnt agree more, yet if you have a friend who wants to lend you hardware so you can prove how good of a clocker you are, they disqualify the score, saying you dont OWN the hardware... What about all the cherry ES chips taht some get given to them?

none of us regular guys stand a chance. If it werent for alot of my friends i wouldnt have half the stuff I have now or even had the chance to go subzero, but singling out and having a select few that get the best, means the rest of us buy the product knowing all too well that our product will probably never net us the scores like we see here.

[The Nemesis]

You know what, it's about time some said this. Those of us who have to pay out of our own pockets for every piece of hardware and try and compete in HWBOT and othor events are getting slammed big time.

It is next to impossible for us to even come close to many of these setups where people get chips/gpus/mbs from special sorces.

Good grief people many of you act like it's your right to get cherry hand picked umber super chips from Intel or AMD or what ever just becasue you "Think" you are good at OC, or you have a special friend some place.

Yet when we go out and purchase parts with out own cash its extremely hard to get even close to the scores many get that are on top. Compete with us on retail equiment and you will see just how good many are out there.

I think you might even drive people away that, after they build a system and go... what.. why can't I even get close to those high scores.

I spent a huge amount on cooling, like many of you have, to be able to over clock better. Purchased everything else, just like many of you, and do my best with what I have.

I am one of the "old" kids that are just trying to have fun, enjoy over clocking a great deal to my best ability. I also think I am one of many out here who feel the same.

Please for give me if I kind of went off there, but this thread thread is getting to be a bit much.

But you guys with a silver spoon for hardware get it now allready and are doing more harm then good for the rest of us in this thread.

Personally I would like to see some of these top overclockers use something other than a Extreme chip. Now there's a test of skill and luck of a draw. How many i7 920's have we seen running 5GHz+ 3DMark 06 or Vantage. That would take us back to the not so distant day of the celeron 300A's we all chased off the shelves to overclock. Things were somewhat level back in the non extreme days.

[dduckquack]

i still prefer a cherry-picked-manufacturer-supplied F1 competition, where the competition itself becomes the experimental field of the manufacturers. if it comes to manufacturers making special boards for this competition, let them have their way. if they see it works and it makes their products better they will hopefully apply what they learn from the competition to their other mainstream/retail products. i think they call that innovation. As i can see it the manufacturer that works best with their overclocker will have a better chance of winning in this format, and in the end everybody will end up with better products.

and leave the retail competition to the regular hwbot competition and let us keep our fun

[massman]

I am out of this thread, too many people interested into getting their own agenda established ... Too many free airplane tickets got distributed recently!
I am interested into the young kid who have fun with his hardware, not into the dude trying to make money out of it.

That's funny because you work for the company that wants to make that young kid pay for it.

Sorry, I completely lost track of what you stand for. I have absolutely no idea what side you're on and what you're fighting for ...

And ... really? I'm trying establish my own agenda? I don't think you have one clue what's in that agenda.

You know what, it's about time some said this. Those of us who have to pay out of our own pockets for every piece of hardware and try and compete in HWBOT and othor events are getting slammed big time.

It is next to impossible for us to even come close to many of these setups where people get chips/gpus/mbs from special sorces.

Good grief people many of you act like it's your right to get cherry hand picked umber super chips from Intel or AMD or what ever just becasue you "Think" you are good at OC, or you have a special friend some place.

Yet when we go out and purchase parts with out own cash its extremely hard to get even close to the scores many get that are on top. Compete with us on retail equiment and you will see just how good many are out there.

I think you might even drive people away that, after they build a system and go... what.. why can't I even get close to those high scores.

I spent a huge amount on cooling, like many of you have, to be able to over clock better. Purchased everything else, just like many of you, and do my best with what I have.

I am one of the "old" kids that are just trying to have fun, enjoy over clocking a great deal to my best ability. I also think I am one of many out here who feel the same.

Please for give me if I kind of went off there, but this thread thread is getting to be a bit much.

But you guys with a silver spoon for hardware get it now allready and are doing more harm then good for the rest of us in this thread.

Well ... you're mentioning a few interesting topics here, but

First of all: please check Andre's scores. Almost all are done with retail hardware and if not, he can beat them with retail hardware. I think he's the best example there is to prove a 'normal' user can hit the high ranks.

Secondly: i think many of you forget that in return for hardware, one has to provide more than just a few benchmark results. I, for one, have been benching these last two years with almost exclusively hardware sent to me for review. Is that wrong? I spend a great time of my life writing these reviews ... can't I be rewarded for it by having a few weekends of fun with it. Lol, I've heard that comment many times before, especially after the i7 stuff I recieved. I worked almost a month on a 30-page review (7 boards) and people started complaining when I used this one 965 (a crappy one!) to have some fun at hwbot.

Thirdly: when you start working more closely with manufacturers, it's normal you sometimes get gear that some people are not able to get ... is it wrong to use that in Hwbot? Some say it's not 'fair', hence why this F1 competition is being set up. Remove the really cherry-picked chips from the regular bot and throw them in the extreme-bot.

Fourthly: where to draw the line then? Should we be banning LN2 as well? It's fairly simple no: those who don't have acces to LN2, can't compete in the top rankinings.

Fifthly: To be honest, I'm not looking for cherry samples ... I couldn't care less if I get one or not. What I'm trying to defend here is the idea of a league in which the best compete against the best with the best hardware ... because that's the purpose of this F1 competition! Please, all those who think that this is an ordinary league should leave this thread, because it's not.

I couldnt agree more, yet if you have a friend who wants to lend you hardware so you can prove how good of a clocker you are, they disqualify the score, saying you dont OWN the hardware... What about all the cherry ES chips taht some get given to them?

Yes, and there's a very good reason for that: team rankings. Let's say hardware sharing is allowed on the bot. I have this awesome Celeron 352 which can break the WR quite easily; let's say 8,4GHz. So, I invite all my teammates over (each brining their own hardware - except for cpu) and let them all use this golden chip on LN2. They all submit to hwbot and the cpu-z ranking is dominated by my team.

Would you think that's fair? I guess not.

Review hardware has been allowed on the bot for obvious reasons. These cherry picked chips are too, because they're not disallowed. May sound stupid, but that's exactly what it is. For more information and discussion regarding this, please go here:

http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3074.

There's a reason why I started this thread.

[Talonman]

Posted on PAGE 2, and still feel the same...

5) The initial guest teams selected are done so according to perceived skill and influence on global overclocking. We naturally can’t include everyone and top overclockers will naturally be left out. The intention is that after three seasons we have a highly-competitive field which genuinely reflects the best of the best in terms of hardware and overclockers.


I think it should be more open...

No back room picks. Too much opertunity for favoritism.

[ekky]

Originally Posted by Massman
Fourthly: where to draw the line then? Should we be banning LN2 as well? It's fairly simple no: those who don't have acces to LN2, can't compete in the top rankinings.

Fifthly: To be honest, I'm not looking for cherry samples ... I couldn't care less if I get one or not. What I'm trying to defend here is the idea of a league in which the best compete against the best with the best hardware ... because that's the purpose of this F1 competition! Please, all those who think that this is an ordinary league should leave this thread, because it's not.

Good point massman.... i think thats might the purpose of this competition...
i just wait n see final rules whats this competition looks like..


-------------------------------------------------
sory for my bad english

[Philly_Boy]

I think we can suggest all we want but The Overclocker, who is organizing this league, is only going by the few rules stated a few pages ago. Everyone has an opinion about this or that....super cherry picked or retail only. I have watched F1 racing since I was a child.....marvelling at what the best drivers (like Michael Shumacher) could do with the best car designs of a particular era.

That's what I want to see here....what the likes of Vince, Peter, Charles, George and the rest (SF3D, Andre, Sacha, Gorgioprimo, no_name, Kinc, Guatam, Gomeler, stummerwinter, deanzo et al) can do with the best rigs possible. The prospect of watching Vince, Charles or Hipro George overclock a rig that has very few limits gives me goosebumps. I hope the Overclocker can work it out to get the best gear that is possibly available to these guys. If the best possible gear involves cherry picked parts then as long as it's available to any of the Teams then why all the bally-hoo?

The rest of us want to watch this all happen......and dream of one day being able get into some kind of qualifying round to race with these guys. And even then....even among F1 Teams there are the fast guys and the slower guys. I am sure it'll be the same here....

[Leeghoofd]

Personally I would like to see some of these top overclockers use something other than a Extreme chip. Now there's a test of skill and luck of a draw. How many i7 920's have we seen running 5GHz+ 3DMark 06 or Vantage. That would take us back to the not so distant day of the celeron 300A's we all chased off the shelves to overclock. Things were somewhat level back in the non extreme days.

So the point is ? Didn't most of them do that at eg the Gooc qualifiers ? The competition is called F1, F1 stands for maxium speed, bending rules yet not break them... why limit yaself to 920's and annoying Bclocks. I really don't see the point in all these comments about cherry picked, review samples or not. They want to use retail CPU's in the competition, users will still go out and look for special batches etc like we did in the old days and like we still do today.
For the common users they might do a formula 3000 or such...(cheaper hardware and or cooling methods) no mods etc...

These guys will go hard and fast with anything you can throw at them... this competition has got nothing to do with Hwbot or how you scale compared to the big boys. I really don't get all this ing

Only thing that bothers me is how to prove it was a retail CPU or a handed sample somewhere in time...

[Drwho?]

After checking with my hiearchy, i can confirm that we will not provide special samples, all divisions are in synch. That is better this way, the play ground is leveled on the Core i7 side.
Francois

[Buckeye]

After checking with my hiearchy, i can confirm that we will not provide special samples, all divisions are in synch. That is better this way, the play ground is leveled on the Core i7 side.
Francois

I know I will draw a lot of flak about this, but I agree with the stance that Francois is taking on this issue.

I do think tho that top quality equipment should be used in this F1 style competition for the manufacturing teams and would like to see the best possible competition in the spirit of a F1 style competition.

I also like a level playing field in all forms of competitions, its the only way it can be a fair contest.

Perhaps if binned chips could be ID'd in such a way that they cannot make it into regular HWBOT or other forms of scoring that thats up to AMD/Intel. I have no clue what they do with these chips anyway, I am sure they have there own in house testers to test these things.

But it's all pretty much a moot point anyway as in the first post by The_Overclocker states...

6) All kit used must be on sale by the beginning of the month of the task. If another team wants to buy it, it must be available. We do not want specially-manufactured components which have been built purely to win a race... unless it’s fully available to the public.

It's not an easy task that The_Overclocker is taken on and I am sure what ever they decided will be fine, tho some will disagree on this and that, can't please everyone I guess.

[hipro5]

If I understood well, we will compete against each other AND against the Manufacturer's teams?.......

You guys write TOO much and I - personally - don't have that much time to read them all.....

[Russian]

If I understood well, we will compete against each other AND against the Manufacturer's teams?.......

You guys write TOO much and I - personally - don't have that much time to read them all.....

Speedreading, its awesome.

Personally, i dont really know what way would be the best to build this sort of a competition... but from my experience in watching something like F1 almost all of the cars have to be the same, its the drivers who matter. We all know that hardware/cars can go bad... and thats just luck. But, i would really prefer to see that everyone basically get the same hardware and have an equal opportunity to compete with eachother based on OC skill and not who has the best hardware.

[Drwho?]

If I understood well, we will compete against each other AND against the Manufacturer's teams?.......

You guys write TOO much and I - personally - don't have that much time to read them all.....

That would be a very boring contest then, I would mod a CPU to be able to run SuperPI at 6.5Ghz, and kill the contest ...
I don t think Manufacturer should have a team, that make all of the other team irrelevant.
Even in F1, they have rules for weight , tires, gas, and so on.

In the case of CPUs, the possibilities to modify one of the 730millions set of transistor allow you an infinity combinaison of cheat that only the manufacturer can do, I did a demo to show this in the past.

Creating a contest with the 2 teams from Intel and AMD would give a chance to compete to 2 x 2 people. Nothing interesting... exactly when Renault was killing F1 in the 80s with Alain Prost ... or Ferrari in the 2000's ... make the race boring, you know who will win. Ross Braun team is demonstrating the perfect spirit right now in F1, new idea got him ahead, with smaller budget and no sponsor at the beginning. Because he is good, he got 1 sponsor, and kick the b.tt of Ferrari, Williams and all the big one ... F1 is interesting again because of this! they implemented rules recently to make sure that underdogs can have space to grow! you don t want an OC championchip that go the otherway around.

it is much more interesting and exciting when you see young kids coming and kicking the B.tt of the old timers Overclockers ... because they tried to understand the binning of the CPU, or they find out a little tricks! Who ever does its home work better should be able to win!

Francois

[Russian]

That would be a very boring contest then, I would mod a CPU to be able to run SuperPI at 6.5Ghz, and kill the contest ...
I don t think Manufacturer should have a team, that make all of the other team irrelevant.
Even in F1, they have rules for weight , tires, gas, and so on.

In the case of CPUs, the possibilities to modify one of the 730millions set of transistor allow you an infinity combinaison of cheat that only the manufacturer can do, I did a demo to show this in the past.

Creating a contest with the 2 teams from Intel and AMD would give a chance to compete to 2 x 2 people. Nothing interesting... exactly when Renault was killing F1 in the 80s with Alain Prost ... or Ferrari in the 2000's ... make the race boring, you know who will win. Ross Braun team is demonstrating the perfect spirit right now in F1, new idea got him ahead, with smaller budget and no sponsor at the beginning. Because he is good, he got 1 sponsor, and kick the b.tt of Ferrari, Williams and all the big one ... F1 is interesting again because of this! they implemented rules recently to make sure that underdogs can have space to grow! you don t want an OC championchip that go the otherway around.

it is much more interesting and exciting when you see young kids coming and kicking the B.tt of the old timers Overclockers ... because they tried to understand the binning of the CPU, or they find out a little tricks! Who ever does its home work better should be able to win!

Francois

Yes, but that doesnt necessarily mean that just ANYONE can enter... you should have to enter through a series of circuits and eventually making your way up to F1. But i entirely agree with levelling the playing field. I would like to see the exact same hardware that is plucked from the exact same retail batch and just let them have a go at it.

[MACMAC]

I would like to see the exact same hardware that is plucked from the exact same retail batch and just let them have a go at it.

That would make this competition horrendously boring, and more than slightly redundant.

This has to be a balls to the wall affair, and those involved need to be able to achieve new benchmarking highs and amazing overclocking feats.

We can have a Fair Game/Mr.Rogers/We Are the World competition another day.

[lolhalol]

how about a budget cap... for each specif benchmark u can have only a specific budget cap.. hardware is calculated by retail price on newegg at the time of score tabulation. you gotto be smart in picking hardware. best combination and efficiency with high clocks win.. this way everyone can choose their hardware .. just a suggestion..

[[XC] gomeler]

That would make this competition horrendously boring, and more than slightly redundant.

This has to be a balls to the wall affair, and those involved need to be able to achieve new benchmarking highs and amazing overclocking feats.

We can have a Fair Game/Mr.Rogers/We Are the World competition another day.

Exactly. Retail is unpredictable, we could all be benching at 4.8GHz-5.0GHz if the chips aren't pre-screened.

That would be a very boring contest then, I would mod a CPU to be able to run SuperPI at 6.5Ghz, and kill the contest ...
I don t think Manufacturer should have a team, that make all of the other team irrelevant.
Even in F1, they have rules for weight , tires, gas, and so on.

In the case of CPUs, the possibilities to modify one of the 730millions set of transistor allow you an infinity combinaison of cheat that only the manufacturer can do, I did a demo to show this in the past.

Creating a contest with the 2 teams from Intel and AMD would give a chance to compete to 2 x 2 people. Nothing interesting... exactly when Renault was killing F1 in the 80s with Alain Prost ... or Ferrari in the 2000's ... make the race boring, you know who will win. Ross Braun team is demonstrating the perfect spirit right now in F1, new idea got him ahead, with smaller budget and no sponsor at the beginning. Because he is good, he got 1 sponsor, and kick the b.tt of Ferrari, Williams and all the big one ... F1 is interesting again because of this! they implemented rules recently to make sure that underdogs can have space to grow! you don t want an OC championchip that go the otherway around.

it is much more interesting and exciting when you see young kids coming and kicking the B.tt of the old timers Overclockers ... because they tried to understand the binning of the CPU, or they find out a little tricks! Who ever does its home work better should be able to win!

Francois

... have you read anything everyone else has written or do you have global ignore enabled? We aren't asking for stupid chips that clock to unimaginable frequencies. All the majority of us want are EQUAL CHIPS. You talk of regulation, THAT IS WHAT WE WANT! If we have everyone using retail chips I guarantee you there will be results all over the place, Core i7 is like a crapshoot. Even if you pre-bin a series of chips and CHARGE US it would be better than having everyone hunting through retail stores blowing money that could be spent on cooling. We already do this with HWBot, the point was to make this event different and over the top.

Francois Cliff Notes:
We want regulation
We want chips that have been pre-screened/binned/regulated to perform close to each other.
We don't want to know who has the biggest wallet or best chip source, we want the event to be fun.


I might be an ass at times but I believe I understand the fun this could be, even as a spectator, and I'm going to be as loud as I can be to see that this happens.


and in closing..

Who ever does its home work better should be able to win!

Francois

EXACTLY! The fictitious kid you speak of shouldn't be trying to figure out why his Core i7 975 won't do 5.1GHz on LN2.

also, if someone thinks I should shut up for slamming on Francois, let me know and management will take it under consideration

[BustaH]

Exactly. Retail is unpredictable, we could all be benching at 4.8GHz-5.0GHz if the chips aren't pre-screened.



... have you read anything everyone else has written or do you have global ignore enabled? We aren't asking for stupid chips that clock to unimaginable frequencies. All the majority of us want are EQUAL CHIPS. You talk of regulation, THAT IS WHAT WE WANT! If we have everyone using retail chips I guarantee you there will be results all over the place, Core i7 is like a crapshoot. Even if you pre-bin a series of chips and CHARGE US it would be better than having everyone hunting through retail stores blowing money that could be spent on cooling. We already do this with HWBot, the point was to make this event different and over the top.

Francois Cliff Notes:
We want regulation
We want chips that have been pre-screened/binned/regulated to perform close to each other.
We don't want to know who has the biggest wallet or best chip source, we want the event to be fun.


I might be an ass at times but I believe I understand the fun this could be, even as a spectator, and I'm going to be as loud as I can be to see that this happens.


and in closing..


EXACTLY! The fictitious kid you speak of shouldn't be trying to figure out why his Core i7 975 won't do 5.1GHz on LN2.

also, if someone thinks I should shut up for slamming on Francois, let me know and management will take it under consideration

Bravo, at last an intelligent comment. thank you.

However it is done we need a neutral person to pre bin the cpus, that will make the comp far more interesting, like Gomeler said if we wanted to know who had the biggest bank account or best contacts for cpus, there are other comps that possibly have proved these things already, that is exactly why this needs to be thought out properly.

This comp has the potential to be very good for the overclocking community.

[massman]

... have you read anything everyone else has written or do you have global ignore enabled? We aren't asking for stupid chips that clock to unimaginable frequencies. All the majority of us want are EQUAL CHIPS. You talk of regulation, THAT IS WHAT WE WANT! If we have everyone using retail chips I guarantee you there will be results all over the place, Core i7 is like a crapshoot. Even if you pre-bin a series of chips and CHARGE US it would be better than having everyone hunting through retail stores blowing money that could be spent on cooling. We already do this with HWBot, the point was to make this event different and over the top.

... but there's this kid on air cooling ...

[K404]

Cant continue with the idea of an OC F1 league AND talk about aircooling.

Can have one OR the other. If the majority want an aircooled section, we can drop the F1 parallel right away. F1 doesnt have a race where all the drivers are in Ford Fiestas...though that would be entertaining!

Calling it F1 brings up a train of thought. If we stop calling it F1 we'll be open to a wider range of ideas, in a whole range of ways. We're heading more towards a tri-athalon here- a range of disciplines.

LN2 is a leveller in some ways. Aircooled sections will more than likely go to the Siberian overclockers. Free cold with infinite capacity.

[[XC] gomeler]

Cant continue with the idea of an OC F1 league AND talk about aircooling.

Can have one OR the other. If the majority want an aircooled section, we can drop the F1 parallel right away. F1 doesnt have a race where all the drivers are in Ford Fiestas...though that would be entertaining!

Calling it F1 brings up a train of thought. If we stop calling it F1 we'll be open to a wider range of ideas, in a whole range of ways. We're heading more towards a tri-athalon here- a range of disciplines.

LN2 is a leveller in some ways. Aircooled sections will more than likely go to the Siberian overclockers. Free cold with infinite capacity.

Or to guys like me with -40C forced air chambers But on topic, I think Massman was poking fun at Francois? I think we stopped caring about benching on air about 3 years ago with the rise of Core 2.

[massman]

I already explained what I mean by cherry samples, but apparently the message is not coming across to some people. For the last time: Intel getting involved in all this has as sole purpose to:

1) Make sure the chips used in the competition are good chips, so that we're not benching at 5GHz.
2) Make sure the playing field is pretty much equal, so that we're not benching 5.3G against 5.8G.
3) To exclude having TOO much money involved going to hardware parts that are not made by the team's sponsor. If Asus sponsors a team, it's to show the quality of their products, not the quality/luck/wallet of the chip/bencher.

Maybe this first could be AMD-LN2 only? I'm sure manufacturers could use the feedback on those motherboards. Only Hipro5 would be mad then, though