Are you an overclocking geek or hardware enthusiast and have a bit of a competitive streak? Then carry on reading because competitive overclocking is a thing now if you didn’t know and it’s run by the only front runner in the market – HWBOT.
It’s not all fancy digital scoreboards either. There are some serious prizes up for grabs.
What is HWBOT?
HWBOT is a overclocking focused website that was originally formed in early 2005 as a school project with the goal of letting people compete for overclocking records.
HWBOT has since grown to be one of the largest overclocking websites complete with it’s own forum. HWBOT now has over 40,000 members competing to get the best scores with hardware. Now that HWBOT is such a huge organization for overclocking, you can get a lot of rewards from participating in the competitions on HWBOT.
Since growing in popularity, it is now possible to earn rewards and prizes for competing in events. From new pc gaming hardware to an all-expense-paid trip to one (or more) of the big overclocking events like MOA, events at Computex amongst others.
How Does HWBOT Work?
HWBOT developed an algorithm that calculates the number of points a submission gets for each specific benchmark.
There are two categories of points for users;
- Hardware Points: Hardware points are awarded for getting high scores with specific hardware, like getting the best PCMark Vantage score with an i7 2600k.
- Global points: Global Points are awarded for overall high scores for example getting the #1 score in PCMark Vantage in the world.
Global points are much harder to achieve but reward more points where as on the other hand, hardware points are easier to achieve but, you can only achieve up to 300 hardware points total.
If you want to know more about what HWboints (points on Hwbot) are, and how they work, check out this page to find and an in-depth explanation of what they are: https://hwbot.org/article/hwboints.
How to use HWBOT?
To have a chance at winning any of the prizes, as well as to have fun competing on HWBOT, you need to know how to submit and compete on HWBOT.org! This section will guide you on how to successfully compete on HWBOT.org.
If you’re new to overclocking, checkout our introduction to overclocking for absolute beginners which goes over the fundamentals of overclocking theory.
First things first, you need to make an HWBOT profile.
1. Start by Signing Up
Signing up is fairly easy, as you simply need to go to hwbot.org sign-up page and create an account.
As per usual, this is a fairly run-of-the-mill process, with an e-mail address required and allows a custom name, and password. You can customize your profile as much or as little as you like, and here is an example of my HWBOT profile that I have fully customized:
2. Download Overclocking Utilities & Monitoring Software
Next, you will have to download appropriate benchmarks and utilities, like CPU-z, GPU-z, and optional utilities like MSI Afterburner, Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, or AMD Overdrive. The only two that are strictly necessary are CPU-z and GPU-z though the other utilities are very useful for monitoring temperatures and stability.
* Note, due to a bug in Windows 8 cannot be used for overclocking submissions. There is a timing bug which prevents accurate submission.
3. Download Benchmarks
Once you have installed CPU-z and GPU-z, and any other utilities on your PC, you can now go to HWBOT and download any of the assorted CPU or GPU benchmarks they accept. There are many to choose from.
You can find a list of benchmarks that hwbot accepts here.
4. Run Benchmarks
Once you have downloaded one (or more) benchmarks, you should install and run each of them. When the tests have finished, you should take a clear screenshot of score, with CPUz and GPUz both open.
An example of this is below:
Once you have taken your screenshot, move on to the next step.
5. Submit Your Results
Head over to Hwbot.org. When you arrive, there is a large, blue submit score button. When you click this, a new page will open with a list of benchmarks to choose from. You may pick an appropriate benchmark that you have run, in this case, PCMark Vantage. Then you will get to a new page that looks like this:
You will then fill out your hardware according to what you have. If you have an Intel system that supports Intel’s XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility), you can use the XTU profile feature to fill in the hardware automatically. If not, you will have to fill in your hardware manually. Try to be as accurate as possible.
When that is finished, enter the score you achieved and then upload the screenshot you have previously taken. When you have done that, check the box at the bottom of the page that means you understand the rules of HWBOT. Now, hit Submit Benchmark Result and your result will be submitted. When finished, you should be brought to a page with your results, which will look a lot like this:
Congratulations, you have officially submitted a result to HWBOT!
Since you now know how to submit to HWBOT, you can delve deeper into overclocking and competing on HWBOT.
If you are interested, you can take a look at the Performance PSU HWBOT team and join us on the pursuit of speed and the coldest temperatures this side of the north pole.
Now that you have learned how to compete on Hwbot, go ahead and start grabbing some overclocking medals! I think that competing on HWBOT is a great way to have fun with your hardware with the possibility of winning some awesome prizes and rewards as a bonus!
Leave a comment on what you think down below, along with any other things you would like to say.
