Overclocking Competitions: About the Player not the Hardware

Transforming a niche hobby into sport is a difficult thing.  It took years before playing video games became more than a job and now it is one of the fastest growing “sports” in the world.  The same could happen with overclocking.  Sure, the pace is slower than a DOTA match but the challenges are real and let’s face it a three hour game is rather typical in professional sports. 

Currently overclocking is viewed as a quest for records and to get those records you need a combination of perfect hardware, experience and luck.  For overclocking to actually become an ocSport it needs to remove “bin” from the equation and focus on the people first and their hardware second.  Much like in golf the player comes to the course armed with clubs and a ball overclockers will come to a competition armed with their supply of computer components. 

Overclocking has always been about pushing the limits and setting records on a personal or global level isn’t about to change.  In fact for the style of competition to work the ability to control the hardware will become more important and those with the best hardware will win.

I hope that this article creates some discussion around the topic of overclocking and maybe pushes the emerging sport into a new direction.  As I mentioned before there are a variety of ways a live overclocking competition can be held and my example is just one possible scenario.   

Below are a few more.

Format: Individual

Style: This competition format awards points based on how accurately a competitor can match a per-determined score.  The event is divided up into timed stages and follows the ascension model with each run getting progressively more difficult.  Benchmark weight will be determined by how many points are available in a stage and how quickly a competitor can complete the runs.  The competitor with the most points at the end wins.

Note: the example used in this article is “Closest to the pin”

Format: Individual / Group

Style: This competition format awards points on how accurately a competitor can match a pre-determined score.  The event is a single timed stage that is divided up into a number of sub-stages.  As the competitor completes a stage and turns in a score they are given a new benchmark and target score and can only advance once the stage is complete.  Points are awarded based on accuracy and the competitor with the most points at the end wins.

Format: Group

Style: This competition format awards points on how accurately a competitor can match a pre-determined score.  The event is divided up into timed rounds with a single benchmark running in each round.  Scores are submitted at the end of the round or if a team submits a score for maximum points the round can end early.  A single point is awarded to the winner of each round.

Accuracy tolerances are extremely tight in this level of competition and the time for each round is shortened.  Given that members of a team are all trying to reach the same goal it is not unrealistic to have 10 - 20 minute stages.  The team who collects enough points to reach the “race to” goal wins.
(R:4, R:5, R:10, etc)