Α week ago shamino and kingpin got a retail 980X. They did 6.100 on 3D. They knew the mobo, they knew the cpu (not the first 980X they tried) but the couldn't hit 6.600 in 3D, why is that? 2 top class overclockers (i believe shamino is an OC god) were 500Mhz lower then ES cpus. In live events people go with already OS anf they know the mods they will do. MSI gave contestants the vga before to weeks for the MSi MOA so they will have enough time to mod them and test them before the event. So those things you say are wrong. They do not participate cause they do not use their own cpus and vgas. i heard that some participate at GOOC, won the 1500 price (they played with their own HW) and said that they will not go to finals, passing their ticket to the finals to the next one. Maybe they do not wanna prove that they are sponsored or working for companies? maybe;)