HardOCP

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[H]ard|OCP (Hardware Overclockers Comparison Page) is an online magazine that offers news, reviews, and editorials that relate to computer hardware, software, modding, overclocking and cooling, owned and operated by Kyle Bennett. The website was started in 1997 by Kyle Bennett.

Contents 1 Product Reviews 2 Staff 3 [H]ard|OCP vs. Infinium Labs 4 [H]ard|Forum 5 Controversy 5.1 General Mayhem 5.2 Dispute with Falcon Northwest 6 [H]ard|Gaming 7 External links

[edit] Product Reviews

[H]ard|OCP is known for NOT reviewing products and technologies. What they are famous for is their "real-world" gameplay opinions when it comes to computer hardware reviews. [H]ard|OCP does not review products based upon how many FPS it scores in synthetic benchmarks such as 3Dmark but based on the subjective experience the product provides to the end user.

[edit] Staff

• Kyle Bennett - President
• Steve Lynch - Co-operator, and Kyle's right-hand-man.
• Rich Tate - Weekend [H] News gawd and gaming forum moderator
• [H] Enthusiast Staff
  • Kyle Bennett - President
  • Brent Justice - Video Card Managing Editor
  • Mark Warner
  • Paul Johnson
• [H] Console Staff
  • Steve Lynch - Console Managing Editor
  • Chad TeVelde - Game Reviewer
  • Justin TeVelde - Game Reviewer
• [H] Consumer Staff
  • Jason Wall - Managing Editor.
  • Gary Huff** Josh Norem
  • Tim Roper
  • Joey Seiler
  • Allen Varney
• [H]ard|Forum Staff
  • Lethal - Administrator of the forums.
  • MajorDomo - Administrator of the forums.

[edit] [H]ard|OCP vs. Infinium Labs

On September 17, 2003, [H]ard|OCP writer Steve Lynch posted “Behind the Phantom Console”, an investigative report concerning Infinium Labs and its CEO, Tim Roberts. On February 19, 2004, lawyers from the firm Morrison & Foerster, representing Infinium Labs, sent a letter to Kyle Bennett, alleging libel and demanding a retraction. Bennett responded to these allegations by filing suit against Infinium Labs under the Declaratory Judgement Act, which allowed KB networks (the legal entity behind [H]ard|OCP) to force legal resolution of the issue. Facing sanctions from the Court and an order to produce detailed financial information, Infinium Labs settled the suit by admitting all of the allegations in the [H]ard|OCP complaint, dropping their co-pending lawsuit in Florida, and paying approximately $50,000.00 to [H]ard|OCP. [1] A prayer for relief was filed, releasing KB Networks from all claims of liability. [2] [H]ard|OCP reportedly incurred close to $250,000 in expenses during the course of this lawsuit.[3]

[edit] [H]ard|Forum

[H]ard|OCP maintains a forum community (based on vBulletin) called [H]ard|Forum which has over seventy thousand registered users and hosts close to four and a half million posts. [H]ard|Forum is comprised of several dozen subforums covering numerous topics related to computer hardware and software. It is also the birthplace of the General Mayhem forum community, located offsite.

Interestingly enough, the word "fanboy" is among a few words that are blocked. Presumably, this word was banned due to flaming that would happen in the video card, CPU, Console Gaming, and Apple forums as a result of fanboys.

[edit] Controversy

[edit] General Mayhem

The original [H]ardForums contained an area for off-topic discussion, known as "General Mayhem." After operating for a while, Kyle closed the General Mayhem subforum, and several users who disagreed with this decision were banned. In the words of Kyle, "I like to always say that Genmay was like a great big party that was as fun as it could get. It was just we had the party at my house every night and we had to clean up the house ourselves the next morning." Some forum members broke off and started their own General Mayhem website, often known as Genmay. Several years later, [H]ard|OCP's General Mayhem subforum was reopened, and is now operated on a subscription-based access. In May, 2006 the Cars subforum was renamed to Cars/Motor Vehicles and made a subforum of General Mayhem.

[edit] Dispute with Falcon Northwest

In 2005, Falcon Northwest's President, Kelt Reeves, had a heated exchange with [H]ard|OCP, an online magazine geared towards the PC hardware enthusiast and PC gaming communities. [H]ard|OCP received a system from Falcon that performed less than optimally, with noted instability, and reported these findings to their reader base.

In the somewhat unprofessional exchange that followed, Mr. Reeves disputed [H]ard|OCP's findings. He cited that [H]ard|OCP had come forward and publicized incorrect claims with questionable objectivity with regards to which piece of hardware was the true cause of the instability. Reeves stated that both he and [H]ard|OCP had initially assumed that the problem lay with the motherboard but upon further analysis discovered that the video card was at fault. Falcon Northwest's quality assurance testing included 14 hours of looping the 3D graphics benchmark 3DMark 2005 in an 85°C room. Upon receipt of the returned system, it could no longer complete that test without crashing. Falcon Northwest offered to repair the system and send it back to [H]ard|OCP for testing, but the magazine refused this solution, stating that it would interfere with the anonymous testing process.

[edit] [H]ard|Gaming

[H]ard|Gaming was a Counter-Strike based gaming community founded by "Duck" and "Hondaman", friends of Kyle Bennett. They received web and server hosting for the community from [H]ard|OCP; however, they operated without interference from anyone at their "mother" community. During their 5 year run, from 2001-2006, they enjoyed a huge stable of regular gamers, and hosted several tournaments and stats-based prize competitions. All prizes given away were donated by [H]ard|OCP, often previously tested hardware from recent reviews. [H]ard|Gaming closed its doors for good in Winter 2006, after many valiant attempts by Duck to maintain a working server setup. The cause of the community's decline was due to insufficient support and (debatably) sketchy patching schemes of Valve Software and Gabe Newell. The regulars and members of the community have since migrated to other homes such as sister community Ars Gaming and BFGgaming.com. In addition, www.crapyclawn.net consists of a community birthed purely from the [H]ard|Gaming staff and server population. Of the 8 active admins of [H]ard|Gaming servers when the doors closed, 7 of them are current active members of CrapyClawn.

[edit] External links

• Hard|OCP
  • News - The [H]ard|OCP main page, which contains all the daily updates in one location.
  • Enthusiast - Contains high-end computer equipment reviews and news.
  • Consumer - Contains prebuilt (OEM) system reviews and news.
  • Console - Contains video game console reviews and news.
• Hard|Forum