Factory overclocked cards

[mikeo]

Just got to wondering the other day (after buying my 2nd OC card from BFG).

Does anyone know if companies like BFG/EVGA etc. do any testing on the cards they overclock? or do they just:

EG. In BFG's case: hive off one bunch of cards and stick in the OC BIOS, another load gets the OC2 BIOS and yet another the OCX BIOS?

It's just that in say the GTX 260's case, everyone seems to be saying that they will take a fairly reasonable overclock anyway (650/700+ on the core seems common).

 

[mame]

some must be speed binned because my standard clock 4850 is not stable with any overclock even with the fan @100%.


Can I go right off topic and ask how your e8400 is on your DS3L ? I have that board and keep getting the upgrade urge for a CPU

 

[WJA96]

Does anyone know if companies like BFG/EVGA etc. do any testing on the cards they overclock?

Yes, I believe they all come in as unlabelled generic cards from the factory that makes them all and they then get tested a a certain speed that either pass all the tests or they don't. I don't know if they start off as OCXs or OCs, but they are definitely tested and guaranteed at the higher speed.

 

[DigitalReaper]

Nice, so your chances of getting a poor card go up if you don't buy one of their overclocked versions...

 

[Peter450]

Not really as the OC cards make up a very small % of total sales

Most GTX 280's seem to hit 700 or so on the core and 1250+ on mem and 1400+ on shaders yet a lot of OC versions have pretty puny overclocks

This could be down to the noice however, as anything over 70% gets very noisey on these cards with there stock fan's, but these companies could always use a better rated fan, so no i would not buy a pre OC card on the basis it will clock better

 

[mikeo]

Can I go right off topic and ask how your e8400 is on your DS3L ? I have that board and keep getting the upgrade urge for a CPU

HI. Runs fine as long as you get the latest BIOS. I also see that the latest quad cores are now supported on this board (though it says beta BIOS). Probably upgrade to a 3 GHz quad when the prices come down (a fair bit!). Just need the exchange rate to improve and for AMD's new quads to be released and should they be any good, may well depress Intel quad core prices. One can but hope.

PS. Thanks for the feedback folks. Maybe explains why the seal on the anti-static bag the cards comes in has been broken and then re-sealed.