What is a "factory overclocked" video card

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Srack0verflow

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hi
right, the time has come to buy a new graphics card because the old one packed up and i can't cope much longer with almost everything not working with this integrated crap i'm forced to use atm.
my choice comes down to two basically. but according to reviews on the net they appear alike apart from the more expensive one being 'factory overclocked", now i'm not too sure what that means but it's almost R700 difference and if it means what i think it does, it's not really worth it right?
 
It means that they overclocked the card at the factory and no warranty void. They tested the card to be stable so yyou won't have any issues. Check some reviews to see if it's worth the extra amount. If you don't overclock your GPU a lot your gain will be like 2fps in games and the heat increase will be to much. I say go for a stock card and try to overclock it to the factory overclock cards settings
 
It has been overclocked in the factory..

GPUs (and CPUs) are rated at a clock speed for the silicon and voltage that they run for the given application in the graphics card. This clock has a safety margin where specific model chips operate. This can be increased to squeeze more vooma out of a chip in an application, like overclocking.

Manufacturers(evga, inno3d, sapphire etc) may clock a card higher than rated in the reference design by nVidia or AMD. This is then deemed factory overclocked.

The advantage of getting a factory overclocked card (or overclocking yourself) is that the manufacturers offer a guarentee. Where if you were to overclock by yourself, you'll probably void the guarentee.

SO you're paying R700 for the guarentee. (and the fact you know that It'll work at the rated, now overclocked, clock speed )
 
Well i overclocked my cards and cpu's and returned them under warranty. Just be sure if the card is running faulty switch it to the default clocks and then RMA it
 
nelis said:
Well i overclocked my cards and cpu's and returned them under warranty. Just be sure if the card is running faulty switch it to the default clocks and then RMA it
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Sorry mate, but that's unethical. The pricing (which includes warranty) is premised on the understanding that you run within spec as supplied. To over-rev your GPU or CPU, damage it, and then RMA it without saying you over-rev'd (a) is a lie, and (b) raises the price for all honest users, because we have to carry the cost (in higher CPU/GPU/card prices). This spirit of this forum is to help one another and not to teach people how to cheat And Srack0verflow - if the factory supplies overrev'd GPUs and you run it as supplied and it fails, then it's perfectly legit for you to RMA. But please don't buy a stock clock, overclock, then RMA it when it fails (as nelis advises).

As an aside, small variations in materials purities and fab processes mean that final chips vary in electrical and thermal tolerances. Each chip (or sometimes batch) off the same line is tested by the fab and rated to a safe clock speed, and these can and do vary.
 
They boost performance at the manufacturing point and compensate cooling and everything for you... It is a cheaper way of getting a warranty accompanied device that has been boosted for you... Generally you cannot boost the performance any more without warranty issues and adding your own cooling design...
 
Not worth it unless it has a non-reference cooler. MSI's twin frozr is a good cooler.
Buy a standard card and overclock it later on when you feel like its getting a bit long in the tooth. Chances are you will never be unhappy with its performance and it will remain at stock for its entire life.
 
doobyscoo said:
Not worth it unless it has a non-reference cooler. MSI's twin frozr is a good cooler.
Buy a standard card and overclock it later on when you feel like its getting a bit long in the tooth. Chances are you will never be unhappy with its performance and it will remain at stock for its entire life.
Click to expand...
+1.

I've got 2x MSI GTX 460 1GB Cyclone cards and I've only overclocked them in the beginning for benchmarking. Now I'm running them at stock speeds since the performance is still incredible :)

AFAIK some manufacturers allow you to overclock their cards without voiding the warranty? Of course if you're going to mod the BIOS so that you can push the voltages even further, then you're voiding the warranty.
 
thanks very much for all the insights my friends. ended up going for the cheaper stock card and yes i am rather satisfied with it. i did some benchmarks and it delivers an average of 50 fps on the default settings, where the 8600 gt i had previously gave all of 13 fps at a lower resolution. so ja... quite chuffed indeed :)
and Arthur, don't worry; i'll only consider overclocking long after the warranty has expired and i can't return it anyway
 
Cut a long story short, for an extra R700 for a few extra hertz, hell I would rather take the stock, invest that R700 in a nice cooler, and overclock the crap out of it without being worried.
 
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