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Questions of a Benchmarking Noob looking to join the game

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Blaylock

Blaylock

"That Backfired" Senior Member
​
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Location
Go Blue!
As the title indicates I'm looking into getting into Benchmarking. I'm considering using a small 64GB HDD just for this. Installing only OS, and benching tools. My questions are as follows...

1. Is the HDD swap for benching only a good/viable option?

2. what is the best OS for benching? I've been reading about Ubuntu, Fedora and Linux.

I have a WHOLE lot more questions and I'm sure I'll be asking even more as this thread continues.

Thank you for your help.
 
1. Yes.
2. That varies by bench... I do not know of anyone using Linux for benchmarking.

We have an old front page article that goes over benchmarks at a very high level and gives the same high level tips. But for the most part, 3D is Vista/W7 and 2D is XP. There are plenty of exceptions though...
 
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if you partition the HDD to about 20Gb a piece you can install multiple os's.

remember to install XP first as xp's boot sector isnt compatible with win7. (you could always make a clone of the fresh installs for when they corrupt)

when using water or aircooling i prefer a slow HDD so that the loading times are longer, which means the CPU/GPU cools down more between tests.

you can tweak or strip windows7 using RT se7en and make bootable iso's

i believe nlite is for xp
 
I've been reading all the stickies and haven't come across a ton of advice yet. I'm definitely considering multi OS' s for this application. In fact my original plan was to install OS onto a USB 3.0 flash drive, but that seems to be nearly impossible. I was also thinking of stripping all the B/S out of Windows. Good advice so far. ..I like it.
 
another thing is to study hwbot and learn the rules, submissions, timings/speeds, and wazza.

i also watch extreme benching videos on youtube, some give you tips and hints on how to do certain things. or let you into their secrets.

yea the multiple OS is easy to do, took me 3 goes with RT se7en to strip an OS and make it optimal. start removing printer, LAN, sound, media drivers and then games, startup crap etc.

just always unplug your main SSD/OS when installing the others or youll lose the boot sector.

im having that much competition with a certain member on here i even plan nights by weather temps etc for benching! take my rig outdoors lol

when using 3D benches i try get away with the lowest resolution and set lowest colour bit, eliminate the un-needed prcoesses when benching even explorer.exe (when done start new task and type explorer.exe), 2d benches is best if you have a few ram profiles tested and ready.

i.e high speed/loose timings and low speed/tight timings. youll notice certain benches favour different ones and allow different cpu speeds.

some people boot on high speeds/volts but i tend not too anymore, always boot 5-9 less on the fsb and few notches less on volts then use the mobo oc utility to push each stage, if that goes well then go higher.


and the best thing i found lately is to have someone with similar hardware to compete with... its the difference from thinking 'i dont want to push anymore than 1.6v' to 'ill beat him at 1.7+v'


hope this helps a bit


p.s im still devoted to my team, just like helping out ;)
 
d1nky said:
another thing is to study hwbot and learn the rules, submissions, timings/speeds, and wazza.

i also watch extreme benching videos on youtube, some give you tips and hints on how to do certain things. or let you into their secrets.

yea the multiple OS is easy to do, took me 3 goes with RT se7en to strip an OS and make it optimal. start removing printer, LAN, sound, media drivers and then games, startup crap etc.

just always unplug your main SSD/OS when installing the others or youll lose the boot sector.

im having that much competition with a certain member on here i even plan nights by weather temps etc for benching! take my rig outdoors lol

when using 3D benches i try get away with the lowest resolution and set lowest colour bit, eliminate the un-needed prcoesses when benching even explorer.exe (when done start new task and type explorer.exe), 2d benches is best if you have a few ram profiles tested and ready.

i.e high speed/loose timings and low speed/tight timings. youll notice certain benches favour different ones and allow different cpu speeds.

some people boot on high speeds/volts but i tend not too anymore, always boot 5-9 less on the fsb and few notches less on volts then use the mobo oc utility to push each stage, if that goes well then go higher.


and the best thing i found lately is to have someone with similar hardware to compete with... its the difference from thinking 'i dont want to push anymore than 1.6v' to 'ill beat him at 1.7+v'


hope this helps a bit


p.s im still devoted to my team, just like helping out ;)
Click to expand...

Lots of good advice there D1nky
 
thanks guys, im pretty devoted to my team but like giving advice especially to people just starting out. its tough when youre a noob and probably the most frustrating part of the benching game, usually when people give up not knowing how or why.

i dont think ill ever leave the team, even if im the only guy there lol just wait for us top20 tho...
 
Thanks d1nky. Good stuff. Taking your rig outside sounds like something Johan would do. :) I did disconnect my primary HDD and installed winXP and Win7 on 2 different partitions last night but haven't updated the service packs or drivers yet and I still need to strip out the non essentials. Then I can start putting up some HWBot scores.
 
i wouldnt worry about updates or service packs atm.

i find it best stripping an OS before installing, literally remove everything like drivers, sound, firewall, updates, security, themes etc etc

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/RT-Seven-Lite.shtml

you can use this on your main OS, delete all the crap and then create a bootable ISO, i even partition my USB and have many bootables on there.

it takes some figuring out but its all fun!

remember you dont need the net on a benching OS, everything can be saved. and then used from your main os to submit.

ive created a folder on my storage drive thats linked to every partition for saving bench files.
 
Blaylock said:
Thanks d1nky. Good stuff. Taking your rig outside sounds like something Johan would do. :) I did disconnect my primary HDD and installed winXP and Win7 on 2 different partitions last night but haven't updated the service packs or drivers yet and I still need to strip out the non essentials. Then I can start putting up some HWBot scores.
Click to expand...
Be careful though blaylock, it addicting.

Great comments from everyone above. I will add, you will learn a lot about your system by benching it. Take detailed notes of everything you do and for what bench. It will help you better understand what changes help your rig respond better to what bench.
 
I have gone to a local electronics recycle place and picked up small sata HDs for $5. Makes for easy o/s installs. then I label which motherboard it goes with, so I don't always have to reinstall if switching around hardware to bench.

here is the article on the front page. It is in need of a refresh, but gist is right.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=684938

Any other questions, feel free to ask or PM.
 
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When trying to install RT 7 lite I get the below error. Their web site says req. are WAIK (Vista and XP), DOT Net Framework 3.5, and either VMWare Workstation 7.0 or Virtual PC to run this program.

Which did you use or run?
Do I need all of them?

just don't want to download and install unnecesary programs. :shrug:
 
That is the 32bit version (x86) and you are installing it on a 64bit OS is what I think it is complaining about...
 
Yep that looks to be the issue from what I can tell there.

Blaylock - good luck pursuing benchmarking! Soon enough you will be grabbing every computer/laptop/combination you can just to eek out those last few boints!
 
Lol funny you mention that. Was looking at benching stations today and scratching my chin. Hmmmmm.
 
EarthDog said:
That is the 32bit version (x86) and you are installing it on a 64bit OS is what I think it is complaining about...
Click to expand...

Yes this is correct. It was the 32 bit was trying to install. Got the 64 bit installed now and working on cleaning everything up. Maybe I'll be all set for the new year.
 
d1nky said:
another thing is to study hwbot and learn the rules, submissions, timings/speeds, and wazza.

...eliminate the un-needed prcoesses when benching even explorer.exe (when done start new task and type explorer.exe...
Click to expand...

So reading the HWBOT rules it states I must submit my results. In 3D Mark05 (for instance) there is a save as and .xls option. Can I save these results and submit them later, or do I end the explorer task, run the BM, and then re - start explorer.

The reason I'm asking is I was thinking of disabling the Internet all together... or is this not desirable?
 
You don't need the internet for the submissions, none of my benching OSes are on the network (entirely stripped out), but I'm unsure if you can see the details window without the licensed version. All you really need is what is listed in the screenshot requirements (unless you have a top-20 global score)
 
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