HWBot Explained

Hey everyone, as our HWBot team seems to be picking up in popularity, I realized we really need a central thread to explain in detail what this whole competition is about. With this in mind, I threw together this guide. Feel free to suggest changes.

HWBot can be found at http://www.hwbot.org

To understand the exact purpose for which HWBot exists, you first need to know what a benchmark is.


Benchmarking


A benchmark is a test designed to elimate as many variables as possible in the comparison of computer hardware. The test itself is consistent in that it can be run across many different machines and accurately demonstrate how they compare to each other. As there are different types of benchmarks, one computer scoring better than another doesn't always mean its better, but more on this later.

There are two main types of benchmarks on HWBot: 2D and 3D. 2D benchmarks generally test solely your processor or memory, while 3D benchmarks mainly test graphics.

2D Benchmarks:

• CPU-Z
• PCMark 2005
• PiFast
• SuperPi
• SuperPi 32M
• WPrime 1024M
• WPrime 32M

3D Benchmarks:

• 3DMark 2001
• 3DMark 2003
• 3DMark 2005
• 3DMark 2006
• 3DMark Vantage - Performance
• Aquamark

Now that you know what a benchmark is, explaining HWBot will be much easier.

HWBot gives the overclocker a location to submit, view, and compare the results of benchmarks. It is considered by many to be the authority on World Records. It provides a personal and team based competition aspect.


Organization


Going further in depth, HWBot is divided into three main ranking systems, two of which have their own point values.

First, there is the hardware category. To make the competition enjoyable and fair for all, the hardware category is a way to receive points even if your score doesn't have world record potential. Your submission is compared against others who have submitted scores for the same benchmark with the same components. 3D scores are ranked based on the GPU used and 2D scores are ranked based on the CPU used.

If you get a score that is not only very high for your hardware, but is also very high compared to all hardware, you get a global ranking.

Finally, if you score in the top 20 globally, your submission is considered to be in the World Record ranking as well. This is a ranking that does not append points as Hardware and Global do because it is just a ranking of honor. The points are already received from the Global ranking.

I keep mentioning points, or actually, "Boints" in this case. Obviously, all these Boints that you may or may not be acquiring have to go somewhere! Each member has his or her own running score which is a total of Hardware and Global points. These scores are then added up to give the team total, with one exception. Once a member has aquired more than 300 hardware points, they no longer add to the user's total. However, they do still add to the team's score. These points may then organize the users even further.

There is one main ranking which is further subdivided into two groups. The main ranking is the all-inclusive ranking, which is divided into the Hardware Masters and Overclockers League.The Hardware Masters category is generated by ordering those with the most Hardware points. The leader of this category receieves the title HWBot Harware King. The Overclockers League orders participants by how many Global points they have aquired and is considered to be the highest achievement on HWBot. The leader in this category receives the title HWBOT OC King.


Competitions


To keep the overclocking scene exciting and new, HWBot and various sponsors organize special competitions outside of the standard system in place. The competitions often times have different rules such as requiring certain hardware or brands. They always have prizes.

OCN also hosts competitions from time to time using HWBot to track the timings and results. To see if there is one running, check out the Overclock.net Competitions and Promotions section.


Essential Threads

• OCN HWbot Profile sticky - Displays OCN's HWBot activity as well as information regarding rankings
• HWBot Tags and How to Use Them - Learn how to use the new HWBot tags
• Howto: Submitting offline 3dmark results No networking drivers? Here's what to do.
• Helpful .bat file to Open CPU-Z/GPU-Z
• Watermarking Zip
• Simple Optimizations for Super Pi
• Mark reader

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you benching for OCN! To join, click here. Remember to choose Overclock.net as your team!

Fixed. Take a look and see if that sounds better/correct.

I'm about to go play golf but I'll be sure to get that done tonight! Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Hey moddy mods/eddy editors. If I were to make a second post detailing all of the tests, could you move it up right under the first one? Or should I just add it in the first post.