Been reading slizone and was surprised to see that the officials of SLI Zone claimed that it's a waste of money paying extra for factory pre-oc cards.

As we all know, alot of manufactures tries to stand out from each other when it comes to selling their "value-for-money" products. Increased clocks, redesign cooler (and even partnership with renown cooling specialists), longer warranty, 90-days step up program, gold plated DVI connectors are some of the examples the manufactures do to outshine their competitors.

As most of us are interested in performance rather than anything else, do you think it's worth paying a little extra for the pre-oc cards, or, rather buy the reference speed cards and OC it yourself?

buying OCed cards would mean that the card surely will run at that OCed speed already. you can buy OCed unit to OC further also.

Thus it's only waste money if you want to overclock it more. If you buy, plug it in and leave it as it is, it's good enough.

does preclocked cards can oc better than default clock cards?

i bought 2 OCed cards before.

my 6800 Ultra. bought it and didn't OC it further.

my 8600GT OC edition of course, i OC further la. i bought used unit mah.

well,for me,pre oc card is already reaches its limit and wont oc more than it.

Well it depends on individuals. Some do not wan2 go thru the hassle and risk of overclocking, thus going for preclocked card.

Others, would get the cheapest card outthere and MAX it out.

but then again, the preclocked card already OC'ed to the best speed that it can achieve and the manufacturer already bundled with it the best heatsink that it needed. for manual overclocking, you need the time to test out the best speed, and also might spend more and heating solutions

There are various factors that needs consideration.

Firstly is how more expensive the OCed version compared to the normal version. If it is much more expensive, then there would be no point getting the OCed version as normally, an overclock GC would provide only a few additional fps which doesn't justify it's extra price.

Secondly is how high the OC is. If it is just a small OC, then that is also not worth it. The best is to compared the OCed version vs normal version and see the performance gains of the OC. Remember that the gains in fps is usually not great.

Thirdly, how high can a normal GC overclocked as compared to the OCed version. In some cases, the normal version can OC as high as the factory pre-overlocked version!! However, this would also depend on luck. If you're lucky, you can get one normal card that can OC higher. Like goldfries said, the OCed version would guarantee that it will work at that OC level.

Fourthly is how much you can afford. Some people would just buy the greatest of the series because they just have so much money to spend and want the highest frame rate obtainable!!!

I had a 7800 GS extreme edition which came pre-overclocked at 440/1300 (from stock 375/1200). It was much more expensive and could only be overclocked to 490/1450 stable. I had seen people with the normal stock version OC until 500/1500 or more!!!!!

So, in the end, IMO, there's no straight forward answer.....

this was true for my 6800 Ultra BUT my 8600GT OC edition proves otherwise.

i managed to push the OC edition even further. from 600/800 to 690/900 or so.

not necessarily. as mentioned, my 8600 GT OC edition cames with decent heatsink already (copper based, alu fins) and it still OCs.

temperatures are 62c at most.

Well it still depends on many factors. Luck is also one of it.
i rememebered me and my fren bought identitical X1600 that is factory overclocked. But mine can still overclocked further while he's stuck at that speed without encountering artifacts

Heck no! Usually, not all of them, the pre-overclocked cards have special PCB, better memory (handpicked or lower nanosecond rating) better core and power regulator on the card so it's more stable to overclock

But as usual, do your homework before buying any pre-overclocked card so you won't end up buying a card that have issue in the first place

i'm prefer manual overclocking, and the gc price are more lower

factory OCed cards comes with warranty..

as far as i know..

dun think it applies only to pre-oc cards. i think this approach is to make themselves unique from their competitors.
asus 8800gts 320mb for example, is a reference card, but it uses 1.1ns memory (forgot wat memory brand) as opposed to 1.2ns.

i think it does apply to pre-oc cards.....i find that pre-oc cards tend to OC better than stock/ reference cards. thats just my experience la.

Najmods has a point...in order for the cards to run @ OCed speeds stable...im pretty sure minor tweaking has to be done...and my guess is due to this minor tweaking, the preOC cards tend to OC better. sometimes ALOT better. im guessing it has something to do with core and mem voltage which allows u to push alot higher.

take my old preOC 9550 for example... it was running on infineon 2.8ns ram....and the clocks on card (core and mem) were one of the highest stock clocks for a 9550. that particular infineon 2.8ns ram was rated for a max of 2.2v. on stock it was already running at 2.1v and damn that card OCs like mad. (found out about the voltages while voltmodding the card)

so i say, pre OC cards is the way to go...
if ur planning to leave them at stock clocks good...coz ull get the extra clocks comapred to stock
if ur planning to OC oso good...coz like i said...i find that pre OC cards tend to OC alot more than stock.

This post has been edited by mADmAN: Aug 10 2007, 03:09 PM

Nope.
I found that as not true.

Take the Colorful 8600GT OC Edition for example, it's pre-overclocked to 580MHz Core & 800MHz Mem.
But, i manage to overclock it to 650MHz Core & 1000MHz Mem.
Stable all the way to benchmarking and playing games for hours.

The same goes to my BFG 8800 Ultra Overclocked too.
It's pre overclocked, but i manage to overclocke more than what is set by the manufacturer.

My 79GS also, stock core/mem for this card is 600/800, uses 1.2ns samsung RAM n i manage to push it to 650/900 its still stable

my oc'ed gc comes at 550/1700, but then i get to push til 675/2020 stable also, but temp reached 80C, so only in really dire cases then only push that high..

normal 8800gts cant go that much IINM

are you sure there's a variant of 79gs at 600/800 from galaxy? AFAIK, the highest 79gs sold by Galaxy is 560mhz (the one that comes with zalman fan).

you are right abt the 1.2ns RAM, other 79gs uses 1.4ns. i'm using 1 now