The official Pro OC Cup Q2'13 thread.

[Bobnova]

Did Cinebench get patched for security while I wasn't looking?

[GENiEBEN]

Not yet

[Bobnova]

Lol so we're trusting that pros never cheat?

 

 

EDIT:

 

So on rankings, after the first iteration are the teams dissolved? How are the rankings calculated with regards to that?

Edited March 4, 2013 by Bobnova

[Massman]

No teams are dissolved; after the first Cup finishes, the second will kick off. During the first month of the second Cup, all the existing teams can register for the second cup again. The link between members and pro oc team will be maintained as long as the member stays with the team. If a member decides to join another team, start their own team or move back to the OC League, the link will be broken.

 

We keep record of what member participated in what team for what Cup, so a member will forever be linked to the team.

 

The Pro OC Ranking, based on the three last Cups, will be based on the stage points obtained in the different Pro OC Cups. There will be a ranking by teams and one by individual members.

[Bobnova]

How are the individual members ranked? For instance, if I'm on a team with other people, why would my ranking be different than the rankings of the other people on my team?

[Massman]

Two options we're still considering:

 

- as you mention: per team, where you can distinguish yourself from others by benching for different teams

- based on the actual results - if your result is used for the Pro OC Team position in the stage, you get the points.

 

The Pro OC Ranking will be centered around the teams, though. The individual user ranking is of lower importance. Similar to, for example, how the top scorer ranking relates to the Premier League ranking.

[Bobnova]

Team centric seems like it'd make things more difficult when trying to get manufacturer support. If I'm here and my team mates are scattered around the globe I don't see a local PC shop as very likely to give me much.

 

You're essentially asking Pro people to give up the one and only marketable thing they have: A personal identity.

[K404]

I've always been of the thought that small teams were EASIER to support than individuals. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally....yea.

 

It's important that you are near to each other and can be presented as a team. Think of BenchBros. They(to me, at least) appear to have it down to an art form.

[Bobnova]

If I lived in a larger area I'd be inclined to agree, but there is only one (1) guy within five hours of me who benches that I know of.

Makes it difficult.

[K404]

I think i'm in the same boat. Sometimes, benching and geography are not kind.

 

Meh. Life

[Massman]

Of course, an overclocker living in Siberia will have more problems. But, well, that also goes for stuff outside of overclocking. Such as finding a job or so.

[K404]

Personally, I believe that anyone who truly wants to be THE BEST will make the sacrifices. Change job/ house/ city/...country? Same as the best F1 drivers/ NASCAR drivers/ pilots/ musicians/artists/anyone

 

If it's a hobby, there has to be a different balance of sacrifice.

 

Let's be honest..... very few people are in any kind of position to be an OC superstar from their bedroom/garage, then go to their 9-5 job like the rest of us.

 

This isn't a post in reply to anyone elses, i'm just typing

[Bobnova]

Funny thing about most (all?) of that list... They make a crapload more money at it than the best OC people do

 

But yeah, my odds are horrible. It takes way too much money, certainly far more than I have.

If I recall correctly Andre binned over five years of my income (gross, not post-taxes...) worth of 2600ks.

That is definitely pro league / cup type stuff. I wonder if we'll see a Team ROG headed by him. That might be the only hope for Pro Cup actually. That might be a step in the right direction. Especially if Team Gigabyte showed up, and Team MSI.

That'd make writing HWBot advertising/announcement blurbs harder though I imagine. "Paid Advertiser Sets World Record, Stomps Other Paid Advertisers!"

 

Come to think of it, what The K404 List all has in common that OCing doesn't is feeder series. To get to NASCAR you can get paid to drive in lower series, if you're good.

Same for F1. Musicians have local shows, that gets them money.

Artists are roughly as screwed as OCers. Possibly moreso.

[Massman]

I'm doing my round of the vendors here in Taiwan and am specifically advising them not to create their own vendor team, but support existing teams with hardware. Of course, the first response of most of them is "let's make our vendor team", but I think it won't take too long before they will realize it's less of a risk to just help out an existing team hardware-wise than it is having their own team. Especially now that the Pro will actually have a real winner every three months.

 

Also checking if there's interest to put up bounty $$ as incentive.

 

That there is no feeder system is because the OC eco-system is pretty much broken. Ideally, the Overclockers League would be the feeder for the Pro OC, but rather than looking to support up and comers in the OCL, vendors and sponsors prefer to stick with the people they already know for five or more years to do the overclocking. Hence why there is so little new blood entering the Pro. Hence why Vivi was still considered a youngster at the last MOA final even though he was the youngster five years ago too. I see a lot of talent in the Overclockers League, but very few are given a fair chance I guess.

[Bobnova]

Less of a risk I can see. Seems like less of a reward too.

 

It'd be a death blow to the idea of anybody without team affiliation in the league of course, but I bet it'd be a lot cheaper for the manufacturers too as they could focus their efforts on 3-5 guys instead of spreading cards/mobos/cpus all over the place and hoping a person used their stuff and won.

 

I totally agree on the broken part and the why. Not sure really what to do about it, if there was a way to make it financially viable for the top overclockers league people to go to pro cup that'd help. I can't see Mtech for instance being interested in dropping his now-very-visible name in favor of an unrelated team name. Maybe that's a personal problem on my part, ego or something.

 

I think part of it is inherent to the sport, "skill" is important (though it's mostly memorized knowledge, rather than a physical skill), but money is far more important.

It's a problem in auto racing too, the days of a driver's skill being able to carry a meh car to the front are over. They haven't figured out a solution either.

[Massman]

For most vendors, who have their HQ located in Taiwan, this isn't a question about money. They all have their internal budgets for overclocking and it's merely a question how they spread that budget over the various activities. Risking openly losing against another vendor is a real concern; it may sound unbelievable to you, but believe me it is. Remember F1OC? Team ROG dropped out because they didn't want to risk getting beating by Gigabyte. Actually, the problem is not the actual losing, but within the company having to face the boss and explain why the company lost.

 

Sponsoring the teams is a far less stressful exercise. If the team wins, a nice PR can be written. If the team doesn't win, no PR will be written. Also, the entire process of seeding boards and cards is already set in place; no real problem to keep that going.

 

What I do see happening is closer cooperation between teams and vendors. Let's say some team manages to agree with MSI to use only their components throughout the competition, it's possible that they get a one-time quarterly invite to the office and bench as engineers (or maybe Elmor) help to debug the issues. Some vendors already do that, so I certainly see that happening with others too. It doesn't even need to happen with the HQ, might as well be a local office that asks a local team to do more PR demos and things.

 

As for the personality aspect, I disagree. Federer does not necessarily have more personality exposure than Kobe Bryant, Ronaldo or Vettel. Usain Bolt doesn't necessarily have more personality than Messi, Michael Jordan or Derek Jeter. The ability to express you and yourself is not per definition limited by a teamsport, but can surpass that. The opposite is also true - there might be people that can be very valuable to a team with knowledge and dedication, but don't like being in the spotlights. For them, a team might actually be better on a personal level.

[Bobnova]

Not wanting to lose makes a lot of sense, really. I can definitely see that being the case.

Hadn't really thought about it from a truly bulk money standpoint. Sort of silly as my income is almost entirely part of the similar budget for reviewer samples.

 

Individual exposure wise you probably have more experience than I do, but it seems to me like being able to say you're the #6 Pro League Overclocker would be more useful than saying you're part of the #6 Pro Cup team.

I just spent about 8 minutes sitting here trying to think of a decently solid sport analogy and failed, I guess that means it's a new situation. Test drivers in F1 maybe, they do a ton of work and are instrumental in the success of the team, but you don't hear much about them.

 

Where I will agree without reservation is in that the Pro League was not getting OCing into the mainstream. There's a chance this will so what the hell, it's worth trying I guess

 

Also, I'm glad you're more reasonable about criticism than some (many?) outfits, else I'd be long banned. It's appreciated.

[Splave]

here we go KPC Pro OC going hard in the paint

[GENiEBEN]

The points on front page dont match the ones on the league page. (Kenny is first with 164 on front page but here Vince is first with 232)

[I.M.O.G.]

here we go KPC Pro OC going hard in the paint

 

[Lucky_n00b]

Been having some talk with the vendors i know, and it turned out that getting sponsorship for this kind of cup is not easy if you've never been in the spotlight before (e.g breaking a WR, winning competition,having relatively high-ranked in your country,etc) - totally understandable though.

 

Going to be a bit hard doing this with on my own, but l see some people also use their own hard-earned money to do overclocking, especially Rbuass, which is quite inspirational considering how expensive OC gear/hardwares in Brazil compared to other region, so let's just see how pro OC Cup turned out to be - should be fun since some big names was already in the cup :D

 

(well, at least my office agree to pay the electricity and ln2 bill - still better than nothing )

 

Cheers,

[K404]

I'm the Pro cup League for some fun really. I'm not working on anything that's gonna get my XOL ranking back up, so I may as well try something a bit new. If others wanna join me, fine

[CL3P20]

OCN's in the mix now.. brought a few friends to play too

[I.M.O.G.]

Nice to see you guys jumping in.

[xxbassplayerxx]

Polololol