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Benching...Why??

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Silver_Pharaoh

Silver_Pharaoh

Likes the big ones n00b Member
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Joined
Sep 7, 2013
Okay, from what I gather, people who "bench" seem to spend a lot of time and money on squeezing out every last Mhz.... Why?

Is it just a fun hobby?
Do you get something for being #1?

What do you do with the rigs after? Folding? Cryptomining?

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this, because to me it almost seems like a waste of time, money and electricity. (But I don't bench, so that's just an outsider's point of view ;) )
 
Silver_Pharaoh said:
Okay, from what I gather, people who "bench" seem to spend a lot of time and money on squeezing out every last Mhz.... Why?

Is it just a fun hobby?
Do you get something for being #1?

What do you do with the rigs after? Folding? Cryptomining?

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this, because to me it almost seems like a waste of time, money and electricity. (But I don't bench, so that's just an outsider's point of view ;) )
Click to expand...

Why? Because we can!

Yes!
Yes!

Perhaps.


It is that feeling you get when, perhaps you get a gold on HWBot, or when you scoff and the wealthy guy who is bragging about his new system or when even the local experts call you as a last resort.

If you aint smelt electronics cooking or you do not enjoy the rush of chancing a rig death then you should buy an HP:)

Why must I have rear wheel drive V8 vehicles? There are reasons!

We OC to see how far we can go and then generally we back them off and work the crap out of the rigs. I did do the DC thing but now I do more video editing and converting than anything else. Trust me the moar powa the better.
 
Archer0915 said:
Why? Because we can!

Yes!
Yes!

Perhaps.


It is that feeling you get when, perhaps you get a gold on HWBot, or when you scoff and the wealthy guy who is bragging about his new system or when even the local experts call you as a last resort.

If you aint smelt electronics cooking or you do not enjoy the rush of chancing a rig death then you should buy an HP:)

Why must I have rear wheel drive V8 vehicles? There are reasons!

We OC to see how far we can go and then generally we back them off and work the crap out of the rigs. I did do the DC thing but now I do more video editing and converting than anything else. Trust me the moar powa the better.
Click to expand...

Thank you Archer.
Very well explained. :thup:

I too enjoy overclocking, I was able to push my N550GTX to 1070 Mhz core tonight! And while cryptomining, it only reaches 70 C with my new case I built :)


I imagine that some of the bencher will see this thread and put in their 2 cents, I'm egar to hear what the active benchers say about it..
 
I mainly like to do it, because if you take the time to find the right settings, you can even beat guys using the same hardware that have a mhz advantage over your setup. It's something that you can excel at with a little finesse. Brute strength isn't always a winner in benching, and I like that.
 
ChanceCoats123 said:
I mainly like to do it, because if you take the time to find the right settings, you can even beat guys using the same hardware that have a mhz advantage over your setup. It's something that you can excel at with a little finesse. Brute strength isn't always a winner in benching, and I like that.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
So it's more like a competitive hobby?
 
I generally bench to see what my components are capable of and then find a happy medium for gaming. Benching is fun for the same reason everything is in life. Pushing the limits.
 
noname2020x said:
I generally bench to see what my components are capable of and then find a happy medium for gaming. Benching is fun for the same reason everything is in life. Pushing the limits.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
So benching has more uses than just that--benching?
I never thought of using benching to find a good overclock for gaming!
Hmmmm....
 
Silver_Pharaoh said:
Thanks.
So it's more like a competitive hobby?
Click to expand...

Very competitive hobby - check out hwbot.org - there are thousands of people and many many teams from all over the world (including our own) that compete with everyone else to submit the best scores possible in various synthetic benchmarks.

Benchmarking gives you the opportunity to push everything to the limit, where stability is only important enough to get that results screenshot for submission. This section is not about being stable with prime95/etc, it is getting that last little bit of speed and/or using the right tweaks and settings to cut that 1 second off of your time to leapfrog 50 people to get some more points next to you and your team's name.
 
Exactly what chance and janus said...!!!

Nice run shrimp! Though that means something to me, it means nothing for someone who doesn't know the context. ;)
 
Thanks everyone!

Makes a lot more sense now.
Bragging rights :p the rush pushing the rig faster and harder... Cool! :cool:

I always thought that it was wasted money, but I see where the benchers are coming from, it's a pretty hardcore and fun hobby! :D
 
Last edited:
Important to remember is that you don't have to always have the newest hardware to benchmark. A lot of people buy old stuff to bench as there are a LOT more points in that than in new stuff.
 
Janus67 said:
Important to remember is that you don't have to always have the newest hardware to benchmark. A lot of people buy old stuff to bench as there are a LOT more points in that than in new stuff.
Click to expand...

Really? I thought the newer/faster stuff would get more...

Or is it because most new stuff is designed to be overclocked therefore it's too easy to overclock and get lots of points?
 
Well there are two kinds of points at hwbot. Hardware and Global.

Hardware points is by placing for specific hardware, and the more submissions there are for that piece the more points it is worth. For example, a TON of people owned E8400 Core2Duo processors, so placing well in any CPU-based benchmark with one of those is worth a lot more points than say, an AMD FX-8350 (which has fewer submissions) at hwbot.

Global points is where newer hardware comes into play, as those are the best across all generations of hardware. Generally those that take the top global spots are sponsored benchmarkers that get trays of CPUs and boxes of GPUs (generally for free), and mod them like crazy with no (or at least less) fear of killing something as they can relatively easily replace it.

Both count towards individual rankings for users (and teams), and because there are always older (and thus generally cheaper) hardware to be purchased a lot more points can be made with older hardware than buying the latest and greatest and putting it under subzero cooling.
 
Janus67 said:
Important to remember is that you don't have to always have the newest hardware to benchmark. A lot of people buy old stuff to bench as there are a LOT more points in that than in new stuff.
Click to expand...

Very true. Classicplatforms is a top 10 team and pretty much bench nothing but old tech. ;)
 
Mr.Scott said:
Very true. Classicplatforms is a top 10 team and pretty much bench nothing but old tech. ;)
Click to expand...

Cool! I saw that you are the team leader for classicplatforms, I imagine that benching is a fairly big deal to you correct?

You've been benching for years then eh? :)
 
I'm a recreational bencher. I bench for fun. HWB just gives me a theater and something to gauge my performance. Years?.....lol, yeah you could say that. :)
 
So benching has more uses than just that--benching?
I never thought of using benching to find a good overclock for gaming!
Click to expand...

Silver_Pharaoh, I saw this comment you made and it made me want to point something out. First off, just to give you a bit of background on myself. I have always been one to tinker with things. When I was a little kid I used to take apart my dad's watches just to see how they worked, he didn't like that. I've always been one for speed, I raced BMX bikes when I was a teen and when I was older I raced my car, all for the fun of it. Now that I'm married and have a kid, racing the car is a tough task, not enough time. I started playing with computers only a few years ago and overclocking was just a natural progression for me. Why, for me it's just to see how far I can push and how well I can compete on the benches. My point of though was to answer the statement I quoted above. I have learned more about overclocking, by benching and really pushing my hardware, then I would have by just trying to get my Cpu/Gpu stable using a stability test. Benching has taught me more about what changes work and don't on my specific setups. This allows me to know what I can do for a 24/7 stable setup and it makes it much easier for me to pin point what could be causing an issue.
 
Mandrake4565 said:
Silver_Pharaoh, I saw this comment you made and it made me want to point something out. First off, just to give you a bit of background on myself. I have always been one to tinker with things. When I was a little kid I used to take apart my dad's watches just to see how they worked, he didn't like that. I've always been one for speed, I raced BMX bikes when I was a teen and when I was older I raced my car, all for the fun of it. Now that I'm married and have a kid, racing the car is a tough task, not enough time. I started playing with computers only a few years ago and overclocking was just a natural progression for me. Why, for me it's just to see how far I can push and how well I can compete on the benches. My point of though was to answer the statement I quoted above. I have learned more about overclocking, by benching and really pushing my hardware, then I would have by just trying to get my Cpu/Gpu stable using a stability test. Benching has taught me more about what changes work and don't on my specific setups. This allows me to know what I can do for a 24/7 stable setup and it makes it much easier for me to pin point what could be causing an issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
A good explanation. And it makes sense: You learn more from doing than reading about it.

The same applies here, you learned more by benching than just overclocking and running stability tests.

Thanks for the response!


So benching is a fun hobby yet it teaches lessons at the same time... Now that's a hobby! :) :thup:
 
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