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Pay a premium for Pre Overclocked Card?

DampCat

DampCat

DampCat

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Hello.

I'm gonna take the plunge at the end of the month (or wait for the 8800 GT in Nov) and upgrade my 7900GS to an 8800 GTS (or GT depending on the price).

Question is, is it worth paying the extra 30 or 40 quid for a factory overclocked card? the BFG is a fair amount more expensive than the EVGA. Cant i just clock it myself? But then surely they wouldn't bother clocking them if you could just do it yourself?

Confusion.

Thanks!
 
Indeed you can overclock it yourself, I did exactly that with my GTS and now its at 650 core / 1000 mem without any trouble.
 
Just get the cheapest 8800GTS with the warranty options you want. It will easily clock past the "pre-overclocked" speeds.
 
But you take your chances. You might get one that doesn't overclock to evga or bfg speeds (585 i beleive) although unlikely.

bfg and evga have better warranties (lifetime and 10 year) so some of the extra cost is for that. Plus it will make them worth more 2nd hand when you come to sell them.

so it comes down to whether you are prepared to take the small gamble on achieving the overclock and the warranty issue. Some people will be, some people won't.
 
I have an Inno3d card i think, GTS, not a major major brand by any means, and it runs 650/1000 perfectly, nets me 11K in 3dMark, overclocking rocks these days, been years since i tried it last :)
 
My previous cards would never OC past a few insignificant Mhz (7800GT, X1900XTX, X1900XT, 7600GT x2). Then I got a 8800GTX and it OCs real nicely. I think you would be very unlucky to get one that doesn't, but I was unlucky with every card I bought before so there are definitely cards which refuse to OC. Also, for £30-40 it isn't good value imo. All I'd look for is at least two years' warranty with a company who will sort things out quickly if it goes wrong. BFG are probabaly the best in this department.
 
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The thing is no 2 cards are exactly the same (a bit like cars :P). Some will overclock better, some will run a bit cooler, some may use a bit less power etc. When you pay for a pre-overclocked card your just paying for a guaranteed better quality card really, but you can get lucky and buy a standard one that turns out to be as good.
 
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I was going to buy an Overclockers 8800 gtx and put a HS-03 heatsink w/ fan on it to be safe and overclock it to pre-overclocked card speeds. But then I had a long hard think about it.

In the end I bought a pre overclocked BFG gtx (OC2 version). Why? When I added the cost of the heatsink + the cheaper gtx + fan it only came to about 10 pounds cheaper than the pre overclocked card. And with the lifetime warantee it was really a no brainer - the benefit of peace of mind as well as the fact that it makes reselling about twice as easy meant that it was well worth the extra 10 pound. Now I do know that the original choice of an overclockers gtx + HS-03 would have run cooler and possibly clocked higher, but I suppose that comes down to personal preference. Personally, I like the added comforts of a lifetime warantee and concluded it to be worth 10 quid.
 
I guess the warranty is always a good thing. I dont think i'll be upgrading any time soon so reselling is not a big issue. I will ponder some more.
 
The VAST majority of 8800GTS's will overclock to atleast 620/1800. Many get past 650/2000 but best not to bank on that. The only difference between bog standard and factory overclocked versions tends to be bios settings (although EVGA do have improved cooling on one of their models).
 
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