You can score high and get points just don't expect to knock Hipro down off the top of the charts today. Remember, scoring is based on averages, so anytime you do better than the average OCer you have something to score with. It's just that every guy who hits 4GHz on a C2D thinks it's a wild OC... but it's really not. HWBOT pretty much shows you where things stand. If your score falls well short of what other people are doing with an equivalent cooling method, then you have something to shoot for in improving your rig. Learning to bench and what makes a particular benchmark fly is half the challenge.
Example, I think the top A64 x2 Spi score for a 5000 BE is mid 25s.. Without a tweaked OS, I score low 26s. So how would I fix that? Easy, I load a stripped version of WIN2K and turn off the vast majority of the services just leaving it bootable basically. I crank up the MHz on my chip and allocate the Spi process to the core that I've already determined is least likely to crash at the higher frequency. I run Spi three times in a row capturing my validation each time. I knock 3/4 seconds off my Spi time, take 1st 2nd or 3rd in my weight class and score points. I score without the fastest chip or cooling just because I know how to make the bench sing a little (not like those Japanese teams though).
Using the same process for 3Dmark you might run it 500 times before you know what makes it work best. Just beat the averages and you and the team start to score. It's a sport :)
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