Is PC Benchmarking Getting Out of Hand?

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Hmmm, somehow I don’t think this guy is going to win any fans in the overclocking community with editorials like this. It is funny that many of the reasons he list against benchmarking and overclocking are precisely the reasons people are doing it in the first place.:D

I do think however that some of this has gotten way out of hand and more than borders on the obsessive. When you spend thousands of dollars on a PC for gaming, probably the last thing you should be thinking of is pushing the hardware further than it was intended.
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I agree, why would anyone ever want to do 280mph in a dragster? It's not like you can actually drive that fast on the street so why even bother?

People always want to go faster.. guy needs to pull his head out of his ass, cars, planes, trains, computers, someone always wants to go faster...
 
I started overclocking because of money. Did not have enough back in the day to buy the top end gear. So, overclock for free performance upgrade and is also fun pushing hardware past where it was designed to run.

Now I still overclock just because I can, still free performance upgrade and fun to push the hardware. Instead of buying low end stuff and pushing it I can afford better stuff and still push it just because I can.

I actually could care less about benchmarking. I don't play benchmarks, I play games. I view benchmarking as a tool. Only to test stability of my overclocked system. No more, no less.
 
Kangg said:
I started overclocking because of money. Did not have enough back in the day to buy the top end gear. So, overclock for free performance upgrade and is also fun pushing hardware past where it was designed to run.

Now I still overclock just because I can, still free performance upgrade and fun to push the hardware. Instead of buying low end stuff and pushing it I can afford better stuff and still push it just because I can.

I actually could care less about benchmarking. I don't play benchmarks, I play games. I view benchmarking as a tool. Only to test stability of my overclocked system. No more, no less.
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This
also its fun to see just how much you can juice out of mid and low end gear
and the BECAUSE I CAN factor
 
people always criticize what they do not understand be it over-clocking or modding or what have you. Steve, you guys at [H] have shown time and time again you do understand. thanks
 
Meh. It's like anything else in hardware. Some people do it because there is a value-for-money benefit to be had, others do it just because.

Personally I'm of the opinion that if your overclock can't run at safe temperatures 24/7, you might as well just give up an go home. Some bro with a backwards hat and three popped collars sitting around with some LN2, barely able to finish a 3DMark run doesn't really impress me.

Some guy with a home built phase change or water chiller on the other hand, who runs his shit 24/7. Now that's impressive.
 
The first thought I had reading this was that this guy probably tried over overclock a PC that he spent thousands of dollars on, and did it wrong, thus frying something that wasn't covered by a warranty.
 
Thought I do agree the LN overclocking is pointless as ocverclocking it unrealistically bloats reports. Its like saying a crappy 60s car is the fastest in the world because its strapped to a ICBM. But stick some controllable rockets and some nitro on it and thats fine. Because its reusable, as long as you remove the ghastly paint and wood veneer. But people always get to a rather shitty 5gh/z and are all impressed. 5 on water is fine. 4.5 on air is good 6 on LN is the baseline.

I disagree with the "forcing people to use vista/7 part. No making people find another excuse to use 10 year old OSs that cause many problems. Its just stoopid.

Metro 2033 isn't really that bad...hardware wise, the 5970 probably isn't the best card for it as well.

3dMark is fugly. The new one looks ok, but the graphics are pretty basic with shiny things added. I've never been "wowed" by it even at 60fps highest settings/whatever.
 
It's a good learning experience so why not do it. I'm more interested in stability. If it barely overclocks before being unstable I don't like it.
 
High end PC over-clocking is not exactly an "expensive" hobby. It's not cheap, don't get me wrong, but there are plenty of hobbies out there that are MUCH more money to maintain. And lets face it -- if you are a sincere hobbyist and you do your homework, there is very little risk of damaging components.

Now, if you are on the bleeding edge of over-clocking, well, different story. Still, if you know what you are doing -- not a terribly expensive hobby.
 
NKDietrich said:
Some people do it because there is a value-for-money benefit to be had
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I overclock because I'm cheap. :)

I generally buy the slowest/cheapest CPU that has good overclock potential, and end up with something that is faster than the top of the line CPU that costs 5 times as much.
 
I used to (and still do to a small extent) overclock.

I did it because I could basically turn a celeron 300a into a pentium2 450.

That was huge... Now, sure - I overclock my current proc by a bit - maybe 500mhz or so, but that's simply because I prefer stability over 3 more FPS in one or two games that I never play.

I used to be an avid overclocker because you could get some serious bang for your buck but now, just buy a decent proc, memory, and gpu, and you're set.

I mean, how often do you find yourself saying "OMG - WTF THESE FPS SUCKZ!!! I MUST OVERCLOCK!!!"

Myself?

Never. And i'm just running a E8400 @ 3.6 with a stock 470 GTX.
 
First this knucklehead bashes overclocking, then at the end of the article talks about his new build and what he expects it to do??? Huh?

We should all go home now and be ashamed I guess.:eek:

I do this stuff because I can take a cheap-ass CPU and make it do what the really expensive pieces do.............plus it's fun.

LN to me represents the dragster, OCs are the F1s and stock is a Buick.
This guy needs to take a breathe........most LN guys could give two shits about voiding a warranty.......:D
 
Benchmarking PCs is nothing new, since the days of the Pentium 2 and beyond people have been curious enough about performance to push their hardware to the limit.

This guy must have been born yesterday. People have been benchmarking and overclocking computers since their creation. And, so what if the most extreme examples are impractical. Hobbies - and everyone has them - is by definition done for fun. Why doesn't this guy rip into game playing itself as useless? Modest overclocking is very practical.
 
I agree slightly with the statement, but the reasoning I do not. As someone stated earlier, some benchmark just to get the biggest e-peen. That part of overclocking and benchmarking is getting out of hand. There are others who started with low end products and could not afford/aquire better parts. You either delt with being slow or you threw caution into the wind and do this unheard of thing called overclocking you read about on the internets. Again that was back in the day and those who started this way have all grown up/got better jobs/whatnot and overclocking has become a norm for sites like this and others.

Honestly I just do mild overclocks, but I can see the fun/interest in it. Also we all throw money away on hobbies, so why not overclock if that is what you want to do.
 
Wow, this guy is a moron, just really, really bad info here but this is my fav:

Heaven is the new kid on the block for humbling your PC hardware whatever megahertz your persuasion is. Whether you’re running a dual HD 5970 rig or a quad-GTX 480 setup, this benchmark is sure to bring you back to reality with one foul swoop. Heaven is at version 2.1 right now and is free for personal use. It looks pretty awe-inspiring I will give it that – just don’t expect decent frames-per-second unless you have a pretty beefy setup.
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This guy hasn't been within a mile of a higher end gaming PC for a while if he's thinking this. On a single 1920x1080 monitor this benchmark gets destroyed on my rig and I can even get 30 FPS average at defualt settings in 3D Surround.

Where does this stuff come from?:confused:
 
This guy needs to shut up and go find something that makes him happy - because he sounds really pissed-off about everything in his life. He's just decided to take it out on PC tweaking in this particular instance.

I never buy high-end (just midrange), and I still get 2 years out of my system purchases. If I overclock at all, it's usually only about 20%, and I only do it because it gains me an extra 6 months to a year between upgrades.
 
Kangg said:
I started overclocking because of money. Did not have enough back in the day to buy the top end gear. So, overclock for free performance upgrade and is also fun pushing hardware past where it was designed to run.

Now I still overclock just because I can, still free performance upgrade and fun to push the hardware. Instead of buying low end stuff and pushing it I can afford better stuff and still push it just because I can.

I actually could care less about benchmarking. I don't play benchmarks, I play games. I view benchmarking as a tool. Only to test stability of my overclocked system. No more, no less.
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I couldn't agree more. Benchmarking is also a neat way to see if something is worth buying. I trust the benchmark reviews I read, often times when in a hurry, just skipping to Kyle or some other trusted reviewer's conclusion to get a decision.

Overclocking is fun: who doesn't like getting something for nothing? It's a puzzle to find ways to increase performance, it's also a way to gain cool points on the web (less of an emphasis but cool nonetheless). I could see some rediculousness when it comes to the LN2 powered world record numbers achieved for what? just the record?
 
Gathering from all the above posts .... SURVEY SAYS: this guy is a moron.
 
Question is: are studies about Human interaction with technology getting out of hand? Really I see a plethora of articles everyday on how we are obsessed with technology in some way, or our interaction causes something unnatural, e.g. rewire human brain or behavioral changes.
 
Wow. Whoever Gary is, he just wrote one hell of a stupid article.

I do think however that some of this has gotten way out of hand and more than borders on the obsessive. When you spend thousands of dollars on a PC for gaming, probably the last thing you should be thinking of is pushing the hardware further than it was intended. Although in saying that a lot of PC components are sold with the promise of overclocking capabilities. Usually though, it will be somewhat vague as to your warranty covering damage done from overclocking too much. Personally I’ve done some damage to cards over the years trying get the temperatures down a bit or whatever the reason.

Either way people have made a hobby (albeit an expensive one) out of overclocking. What I mean by obsessive is visiting forums and seeing people sporting their hardware specs and benchmark results in their signature profile. It almost smacks of locker-room male posturing, of a digital sort. For me at least, benchmark results mean almost less than nothing beside how well the PC performs in the games I want to play. A high score in 3Dmark might give some a digital boner but it may not mean all that much depending on what game they’re playing.

One thing I never understood was the use of things like liquid nitrogen in order to push a processor past 5ghz speed. The constraints of the setup are so crude as to never be an accessible games platform. It’s merely for show, and most people don’t have chemicals of this sort lying around nor would I recommend they bring their PC anywhere near them, at least not without a chemistry degree. But I guess they achieve their showman-like goal and are fun to watch. I’m just a bit concerned they detract from the PC experience somewhat. If people start to become only concerned with how high they can score in a benchmark and always trying to squeeze an extra digit or two, they may lose out on just enjoying a PC and having fun gaming.
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It never ceases to amaze me how people who don't overclock, or who are bad at overclocking, look at it as dangerous. The stupid bastards don't understand, there is such a thing a suicide overclocking (for benchmarking) and 24/7 overclocking. And they don't understand that a properly overclocked system will last just as long as stock. Then they try to make you look like an asshole or an idiot for taking such a "risk." The ignorant fucks.

It's not all about swinging your e-peen in everyone's face. For most, it's about making a system that will simply perform better than what you paid for. The best overclocking going on out there is guys taking low-end CPU's for low$$$ and cranking them up. That's where overclocking started. This guy obviously has no fucking clue.
 
Overclocking is meant to get more out of a budget system not a $3000-$4000+ gaming rig unless its old. No one wants to destroy their expensive system. But to eke out extra performance its a good thing. I think a good overclocker can make a $1200 system just as fast as a $2500 system. I am sure That hardware enthusiasts and overclockers will enjoy squeezing the most out of their hardware at any price point. Its okay to have bragging rights and to have a large e-penis. I say people should do what they want. To each their own. But its more impressive to overclock a core i7 920 to 4Ghz for $300 rather than a $1K+ extreme edition... ;)
 
My justification for overclocking is simple: It's mine, I bought it, I can do what I want with it.
 
What an idiot.

"Durrr I don't enjoy what you enjoy, so you must be dumb for doing it"
 
It was out of hand when somebody at futuremark said "hey, lets design a benchmark that isn't a game, to rate how well a computer can play games!".
 
InsanePerson said:
The first thought I had reading this was that this guy probably tried over overclock a PC that he spent thousands of dollars on, and did it wrong, thus frying something that wasn't covered by a warranty.
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Same thought I had.

Where would the world be if limits weren't pushed.
 
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The guy who wrote this ginormous pile of elephant offal is full of (insert my name here)

Overclocking obviously has it's place amongst computer enthuaists, as evidenced by the popularity of a site like [H]
 
i just play games. i don't benchmark, but i try to get whats needed hardware wise to run it :)
 
Man I have heard so many Myths about overclocking over the years....

1. It's against THE LAW!! (haha I'm serious I was told that by an employee at a Comp usa a long time ago, he was butt hurt about how much Williamette sucked, apparently he didn't like my comment at the time that Intel really screwed up with RAMBUS, and decided when the OC word came up he would claim IT's ILLEGAL!!! Yes I have met some real winners in my time)
2. IT WILL SHORTEN THE LIFE OF THE CPU!!! (Really common one)
3. IT'S STEALING FROM THE MANUFACTERER!! (...yea... actually heard this one multiple times from different people, funny how ironic this statement is. Especially considering most of the people making this statement really don't understand a whole lot about how CPU's are made.)
4. IT DOESN'T IMPROVE PERFORMANCE!!! (... this was from a "know it all" in an IT department. His other claim was he saw a 30ft long copper head snake.... I'm not kidding.. and no I don't know of what sort've drugs he had)
5. It'll Void the WARRANTY!!! (Oh noes!)
6. IT CAUSES OVERHEATING!!! /sigh
 
So i suppose we just chuck our shiny cpu/gpu coolers in the bin then? or how about we ditch 3rd party motherboard and buy them direct from intel? seriously what's the point paying so much for a machine that's not in a business environment when a machine for half the price can do the same with a few little tweak? or hey lets buy a sports car and limit the engine to 1000rpm.
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Shorten the life of the cpu? using a stock cooler will do that already. a cpu running 4Ghz @ 35°C will outlive the same cpu running 3Ghz @ 50°C provided you don't overvolt the thing.
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The author came regged to come talk to you guys but he actually called you names in an email to me asking me to hurry up the reg process. I don't think he is going to make it through the filter to get in here and flamebait. What a douchebag.
 
Also, thanks to overclocking and learning how to overclock, you learn more about your machine than the average user does, and that in and of itself is valuable.

The whole point of life is that it's an ongoing learning process, right?
 
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