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Behind the Scenes of Competitive Overclocking – HWBOT G.Skill Tweakers Contest Experience Report

As some of you might have noticed, there have been less articles from me on igorslab.de the last weeks than usual. The reason for this, besides the usual fubar in my day job, was my participation in the G.Skill Tweakers Contest on hwbot.org, which I even managed to win in the “Ambient” category shortly before the end. The goal of today’s article is not self-congratulation, but to give more readers an understanding of so-called “competitive overclocking” and a look behind the scenes.

What is HWBOT?

Originally born out of a school project by Belgian Richba5tard, the concept of a database for hardware and benchmark results has been around since 2004, making HWBOT almost a natural monument of the Internet. Just for comparison, the first iPhone came out in 2007. After several changes of ownership and departures, Roman Hartung, better known as der8auer, took over the site at the beginning of 2020 and has since strived to breathe fresh life into it with new ideas and partners. But enough of the history lesson, if you want to know more about it you will find interesting links in the footer of the page.

So what is HWBOT all about? Benchmarks for hardware are nothing special, but it is often difficult to make direct comparisons between results if they come from different sources or if background information is missing. On HWBOT, on the other hand, a result must always be made taking into account predefined rules and specifying system information.

Examples of this are the correct setting of system timers, the use of certain software states or simply detailed information about the hardware and cooling used. This means that the benchmark results are of a much higher quality and can therefore be compared directly with each other more easily.

Wherever a performance comparison presents itself, a competition is usually not far away. And so, of course, there are rankings, much like you’d see in video games, sorted by time, clock speed, points, or any of the other metrics that benchmarks use to judge performance.

By the way, it doesn’t matter which hardware you use for benchmarking, how old or slow it supposedly is, because there are not only rankings per benchmark, but also e.g. per CPU or GPU model, and in turn the subdivision of which cooling is used, so that a fair comparison is always guaranteed.

So if you have an old CPU or graphics card lying around in your drawer and enjoy overclocking, you can still set a world record with it, just for the special category you fall into. And to make the comparison even fairer, members are divided into leagues based on experience and whether or not you’ve played any sub-room temperature cooling methods.

To take it to the next level, there are also teams and team competitions where members can team up and compete against each other. By the way, anyone can join HWBOT, no matter where they are from, with which hardware and for which team, and the whole thing is completely free of charge.

This approach, with a focus on fairness and comparability, has stood the test of time and helped HWBOT gain some traction in the hardware and overclocking community. Of course, such a platform then also offers a lot of reach and potential, so that partners like Intel, Corsair or G.Skill are also on board, sponsor the site and even occasionally organize competitions with great prizes.

Kommentar

Lade neue Kommentare

ipat66

Urgestein

1,343 Kommentare 1,335 Likes

Herzlichen Glückwunsch für den Ambient-Preis...:)
Weiterhin alles Gute bei den Versuchen Hardware zum glühen zu bringen!

Danke für den Einblick.

Antwort 1 Like

Lucky Luke

Veteran

405 Kommentare 181 Likes

Auch von mir Glückwunsch zum Gewinn des Ambient-Preis 👍

Eine interessante Sache und vielen Dank für den Input und die Einblicke.

Antwort 1 Like

Alkbert

Urgestein

926 Kommentare 703 Likes

Vielen Dank für den Artikel. Mir war bekannt, dass der 8auer die Seite "aus ihrem Dornröschenschlaf" geholt hat, bislang aber nicht klar, wie das Ganze unter objektivierbaren Bedingungen auch funktioniert. Das sieht nämlich schon sehr nach einem Fulltime Job aus.

Antwort Gefällt mir

Tim Kutzner

Moderator

799 Kommentare 641 Likes

Danke für die Spende



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Xaver Amberger (skullbringer)

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