Why the BIOS rule is so critical
At first you might think: What’s the problem when a bios is uploaded after the competition start? It’s still free for everyone to use, so equal opportunities for everyone, right? Well it’s not quite as simple as that. First off, rules were changed while the competition was already underway, which is a complete no-go in any sort of competitive environment, be it sport or e-sport. Secondly, because 2 days had already passed, everyone who put in time and effort before the new bios was uploaded, along with everyone who does not use that motherboard now had their results substantially devalued.
Thirdly and most critically, this change in the rule now opens up a loophole where every motherboard manufacturer can provide their associated overclockers with special, tweaked bios versions that must not be public at the time of use. Only just before the competition ends, when the best scores are usually submitted, must the bios be uploaded to the forum thread. Hence everybody else, who is not sponsored by a motherboard manufacturer and can only use publicly available bios versions, will never get the chance to use that much better bios for the competition stage. Many of us who argued in favor of the original bios rule pointed out why this change was problematic, but were dismissed as dramatic and lazy.
By extension, this makes the competition quite unfair for regular community members and skews the odds towards all those who have special ties to a motherboard manufacturer, which is not as uncommon as you might think. Most of the world’s top overclockers are, in fact, affiliated with a specific brand that provides them with hardware, software or sometimes even just money. Anything to give them an advantage in competitive overclocking.
Everybody else who buys their hardware off the self is at a disadvantage. Most accept this as the cost of being an enthusiast, and do not expect any sort of sponsored support. However, this is especially disappointing in the context of the competition since the rules were specifically designed to level the playing field, prevent such unfair advantages, and to make the competition more approachable for regular enthusiasts.
For example, there is a CPU clock limit in place to make conventional cooling methods more competitive. There is also a limit to how many cpu cores can be enabled, so even users with smaller chips like an i5 or i7 are not at a disadvantage. Engineering samples of components are banned…and the list goes on. All of these rules are in place to make the competition more appealing and approachable to new users, yet all of this is rendered largely futile when a component as critical as the BIOS can be openly exploited to give an advantage to the select few “heavyweights” that have associations with motherboard vendors.
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