Foreword: Allan "Zardon" Campbell
On the 8th August 2004 at 5pm, one of Driver Heaven's most loved moderators Joe "Roadee" Dawson passed away. Joe was a war veteran who sustained some terrible injuries in the Gulf War which made his life a very painful one, and yet when you spoke to him you were never aware of just how severe and painful his injuries really were, he was always the first to crack a joke and laugh at the funny things in life. I spoke with him on the phone several times, and he was extremely witty and I was, very truthfully, honoured to call him a friend.
His avatar (above) on Driver Heaven always brought a smile to my face, because this was a guy who was so humble, he could laugh at himself, even though i'm sure it was the last thing on his mind.
Roadee spearheaded the Driver Heaven Forum "Fastest Rig" competitions many years ago, in which we seperated hardware into different categories and those who scored the highest in the respective classes became forum "gods", as they were given an avatar trophy of their hard work and computer prowess. Today, another great friend of mine from Sweden. Mikael "Asmoday" Pettersson will continue the running of these forum competitions. Let me pass you over to him and he can explain how the whole process will work. I hope we can continue to keep the spirit of Joe alive on the forums ...
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The basics
If you have entered in the Roadee Competition before you will have noticed that we made some alterations. One of them being hardware changes in some of the classes, and another (we hope) welcome change is the addition of separate Crossfire and SLI classes. This means that you can have for instance an extreme system but can only have one graphics card and will now not risk being beaten by someone with an otherwise slower system but having the advantage of SLI or Crossfire. Phew, hope that makes sense.
And for those of you who haven't entered before, you should check it out, It is a lot of fun and stirs up a bit of friendly competition between members. The competition is open to everyone, staff included. It basically works like this, benchmark your computer with the latest build of 3DMark2006, 3DMark2005 and PCMark2005. Add all three scores together and divide by three for a final score and submit it in this thread only if your score is higher than the current highest score for the specific class you are entering for. After that you will be awarded an oversized avatar for that specific class for no less than one week. (Valid Futuremark links MUST be included to enter.)
Futuremark, to many, is the industry standard for benchmarking and their products are free to download and they also are pretty secure and fraud free. For this competition we want to see your 3DMark2006, 3DMark2005 and PCMark2005 compare links. In the event of a version update to any of the benchmarks, scores must be updated within one week to maintain your trophy, or scores will be nulified.
Scoring process:
3DMark2006 score plus 3DMark2005 score plus PCmark2005 score divided by three equals final score/total. Example: 1234 + 5678 + 9100 / 3 = 5337.33
Total must be higher than current trophy holder's score.
There are five class divisions, they are as follows (Award avatars are shown under each class):
Super modified - CF/SLI: This class is for computers on the extreme edge of overclocking. It includes ALL sponsored computers, volt mods, water-cooling, peltier, Promethia, Vapochill, and anything else on the extreme edge of enthusiast overclocking. All types of CPUS and Dual graphics cards are permitted.
Super Modified - Single Graphic: Same as above But only single graphics cards are permitted.
Pro Stock - CF/SLI: All AMD and Intel CPU types/cores are allowed. Air cooling only, volt mods are allowed as long as everything is aircooled. Dual Graphic cards solutions are permitted.
Pro Stock - Single Graphic: Same as above but only Single Graphic card solutions are permitted.
Stock: All AMD Athlon 64 types/cores up to X2 5000+ and Intel processors up to the Core 2 Duo E6600. Air cooling only, no volt mods, and no extensive mods. Changing the Northbridge chipset cooling solution is allowed as long as it is with a passive or fan solution that is mounted in the stock location, and is stock appearing - no water cooling, etc. Only Single DirectX 9 graphic cards and below, No CF or SLI configurations allowed.
Rules:
You may enter at any time, however; Avatars will be updated on sunday evenings GMT time, which will give you plenty of time to tweak your scores either if you are defending or attemping to claim a title.
The winner of each title will be given a MASSIVELY oversized avatar in accordance to their title class (yes the images above). But be aware the avatars will be moving like a trophy between the members who break each other's scores. Just to make sure that your hard work does not go without notice, each person that successfully challenges a person's score will retain the avatar for at least one week. In doing this it will keep a single class from switching hands several times in a short period of time.
As we said above this competition is open to everyone, staff included, and all we need to see are your three compare links from the above three programs. (All compare links MUST remain active to maintain your trophy.) DriverHeaven reserves the right to refuse any entry at anytime as we see fit. Only one avatar can be retained by any given person or sponsored team at a single time.
You may continuously update your scores at your leisure. To do so simply edit your original post and then send Asmoday a PM with the updated scores and links. Please note that updating you score will not extend the time which you can retain a trophy. Updating your scores is only to keep challengers at bay.
Information needed for entry:
1. Class division you are entering for
2. Motherboard make and model and mods/extra cooling used (if any) - note if default
3. CPU make and model, default and overclocked clock speeds
4. Video card make and model, default and overclocked clock speeds, mods/extra cooling used (if any) - note if default
5. RAM amount, make and model as well as any mods/extra cooling used, note if default
6. Primary CPU and system cooling
7. 3DMark2006, 3DMark2005 and PCMark2005 active links and score total
8. Display drivers used
Example:
AMD Stock
MSI K9N Platinum - no mods, stock cooling
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
ATi X1950XT - all stock
2GB Geil DDR2 PC6400 - all stock
Zalman 9500
result 1 + result 2 + result 3 = xxx/3 = score
To enter the competition follow this link into the forums:The Roadee "Fastest Rig on DH" Competition Entry Thread and to Discuss the competition head over to this thread.
Good Luck to all of you!
