In other words, people (like yourself) that get plenty of freebies want to "move up" and get cherry freebies, is that right? And if that's not possible, then ban them altogether.
Honestly, I didn't expect to hear that from you.
But if that's what you think of me, fine, good for you.
In case of a ES removal or pro/amateur league split up, I will be the first to take the most righteous action.
I voted to totally ban the ES, while the only 980X I have now is an ES, and considering the fact that I lost my job recently and that I can't afford more than a single 980X right now, and that's with selling a few stuff that I recently bought, like the i5 670, and if that 1 980X retail that I might be able to buy in a few days is a banana ( like most of my stuff are thanks to my great luck ) my only hope will be getting another ES from Intel... which I voted to get banned off hwbot.
So I'm the one actually willing to punish myself if you catch my drift.
As for being sponsored, no, I'm not sponsored.
I just own a hardware reviews site, where I publish my reviews of products that I buy with my own cash and a few products that I get occasionally from a few manufacturers.
I don't get multiple pieces ( like the sponsored guys do ), I don't get cherrypicked samples ( like the sponsored guys do ), and I don't get those just to play with them.
I spend hundreds of work hours with each product, spend more hours to photograph them, edit the photos, write the text, prepare the charts, and upload the reviews.
And if something dies, it died.
I also spend the time to figure out the mods for the ones that nobody else published the mods, and of course risk the hardware testing out the mods and other ideas.
And I do that to share the mods, most of the time I work on mods for hardware I won't bench on LN2 at all.
I'm also one of the phew who risk his relationship with the manufacturers (?) [ or even get sued ] leaking stuff that others need and will benefit from using in everyday tasks and in benching of course.
It was also me, who opted to play in the category hipro5 was playing for the GOOC2009 qualifiers when I could just play for the other category and have a decent advantage to win the spot.
Nevertheless, I was the one who shared a tweak I found that could give me the win against hipro5 back then.
It feels like a self-promotion now, and I really don't like doing that and actually blush in case somebody speaks of me like that or introduces me to others in such a way, I actually feel uncomfortable, so I guess it's time to stop.
Enough with the words, words are just words, I'll speak with my actions
p.s. Let's take a look at my big "sponsorship" earnings for 2010...
1* Intel Core i7 980X B1 Q4EG ES ( which I might have to return )
1* Intel Core i3 540
1* A-data DDR3-2000X 6GB Memory Kit ( that must've been kind of handpicked by A-data, but not in the extreme way )
1* Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 retail... which suffered a socket burn with the i3 540 at defaults while doing the review measurements
2* Gigabyte Radeon HD5870 Super Overclock ( both retail, the first one arrived semi-dead, memory artifacts occured on air after 3-4 runs at stock )
1* Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W
1* Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 memory kit ( Elpida BDBG chips )
That's everything I received so far starting from Jan 1st...