Futuremark, the company behind some of the most popular PC performance benchmark applications, which also maintains a score validation and record-keeping system, the ORB, announced that it's working on important changes to its site design as well as the ORB database itself. A side-product (which in disguise is the news of actual importance here), is that Futuremark's next-generation ORB will not support "legacy" benchmark applications from the company, namely 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, PCMark 2002 or PCMark04, thereby marking a complete retirement of those applications.

Back in their day, those applications put hardware through their minutes' joyride through hell, but now their practical application is reduced. Retiring ORB support means that while you can still run the benchmark, you can't submit your score online or validate it. That effectively eliminates these applications from professional-level overclocking competitions.

"With the new site, Futuremark is also officially ending online service support for legacy benchmarks. This means that the new service will not support 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, PCMark 2002 or PCMark04. Nothing prevents you from running these benchmarks even after the online support is retired and you still do get a result as all legacy benchmarks display the result without submit but you will no longer be able to submit or compare scores with these benchmarks and existing results from these benchmarks will no longer be accessible," posted a representative one the company's forums, YouGamers. Perhaps with this move, Futuremark is making room for its new upcoming DirectX 11 compliant benchmark, aptly called 3DMark 11.