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best overclockers ?

rallyslag

rallyslag

rallyslag

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Which manufacturers make the best overclocking cards ?

I have been looking at diferent manufacturers sites trying to determine whose cards will give the best OC , speciffically an hd 7950. From what i gather companies that use ther own upgraded pcb's and coolers are best , msi,gigabyte and xfx spring to mind. Now as i will be overclocking myself will a cheeper (base clock model) be favorite , xfx do a black (overclocked) and core (standard clock) model . both with upgraded pcb and cooler for instanse. Or should i buy one factory overclocked and push it futher.

I have always overclocked my cpu but never my gpu,as the gains have in the past been nominal. But thease new 7950's seem to offer 20% + overclocks .
 
I've had mixed results, from my experience all reference Radeon cards I've owned since 5850 were better clockers than non-reference designs.

IMO it's better to invest in a reference card with good warranty and upgrade the cooler/watercool it yourself.
 
So while everyone has an opinion on there favorite colour ,and will argue their corner until they are blue in the face, only one person has an opinion between the same card from different manufacturers.

Maybe if people got ther heads out of reading revues and actually got round to using thease cards there might actually start to be a knowledge base round here. God forbid:D;)
 
My current card and my last card were factory overclocked Powercolor PCS+ versions.
Both were/are happy to overclock comfortably past factory settings without the heat and noise penalty of reference versions.
 
Depends on the card, I doubt many will know about the 7950s yet.

However for example, you need an upgraded 570 to overclock well otherwise the reference ones used to blow up, even under water.

If you want a decent overclock the only half sensible way is to go under water though, this usually requires a reference board.
 
rallyslag said:
Which manufacturers make the best overclocking cards ?

I have been looking at diferent manufacturers sites trying to determine whose cards will give the best OC , speciffically an hd 7950. From what i gather companies that use ther own upgraded pcb's and coolers are best , msi,gigabyte and xfx spring to mind. Now as i will be overclocking myself will a cheeper (base clock model) be favorite , xfx do a black (overclocked) and core (standard clock) model . both with upgraded pcb and cooler for instanse. Or should i buy one factory overclocked and push it futher.

I have always overclocked my cpu but never my gpu,as the gains have in the past been nominal. But thease new 7950's seem to offer 20% + overclocks .
Click to expand...

Sorry only read your post fully after I had already replied I did not realise you were interested in the 7950 (I focussed on the thread title).

Mine as I stated is the 7950 PCS+ version and I'm running it at 1000 core which is very easy to achieve.
Noise levels are 'low' and have not managed to hit 70 degrees yet through playing BF3 or looping Heaven.
(can probably tell I'm pretty chuffed with the card)

Also the Gigabyte and Sapphire overclocked versions have good coolers but the XFX is noisy from the couple of reviews I have seen.
 
lrlcr said:
However for example, you need an upgraded 570 to overclock well otherwise the reference ones used to blow up, even under water.

If you want a decent overclock the only half sensible way is to go under water though, this usually requires a reference board.
Click to expand...

I don't recall anything about GTX 570's blowing up and there are some very "decent" overclocks with air cooling.
 
Both my reference 5850s were great for clocking. My non reference 6950 not so. My mate had a reference 5850 from a different manufacturer and it was great as well, his 6950 too :(

GPU overclocking never was worth it years ago, and it is only really worth it now with the 7xxx Radions for big gains, not sure about GTX6xx
 
Chip is pot luck really, but manufactures adding things like asus (voltage tweak)/vapor-x improved cooling, make predictable differences.

The biggest differences are productions runs however. For example initial runs will usually have immature gpus thus less overlockable than later runs, but components tend to be limited i.e. initial run of 5770 used different ram chips from cheaper, later runs which ran at 1450 vs 1300 vs stock (1200). 6850s (?) unlocking to 6870s.
 
I nearly always find early release reference cards to be the best overclockers. I think AMD/NVidia release "cherries" at launch time to help hype up the performance. My launch 4850, 5850 and GTX480 were all better than twin cards I purchased several months later for Xfire/SLI. The not so good cards are held back until the hype has died down, prices have dropped, and nobody bothers to review them anymore. Intell/AMD do the same with CPU's, unless a new revision becomes available.

Alternatively, it could just be that the Fab process deteriorates with age and contamination, and GPU's become less clean (like photcopying the same sheet many times over).
 
the pre overclocked cards tend to have the cherry picked gpus so will normally overclock more but like everything pc and overclocking ymmv.
 
Mr Krugga said:
No, they don't.
Click to expand...

ok they arent cherry picked in the traditional sense they are binned, i didnt mean to cause any confusion just emphasise the fact that pre overclocked cards have the better chips. you will have better odds getting a pre o/c card to a certain speed than a reference card, although it would still be possible with a reference card.
 
Everything considered i went for a gigabyte 7950 windforce , picked up for £70 less than overclockers cheapest 7970. As i game at 1920x1200 anything more is just overkill with thease inflated prices at the moment.
Should be here tomorow :D
 
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sexyhyde said:
ok they arent cherry picked in the traditional sense they are binned, i didnt mean to cause any confusion just emphasise the fact that pre overclocked cards have the better chips. you will have better odds getting a pre o/c card to a certain speed than a reference card, although it would still be possible with a reference card.
Click to expand...

That wasn't the case with the last 4 Radeons I've had.

I don't know if it's the same with Nvidia cards, my GTX 580 is an average clocker from what I've seen.
 
Mr Krugga said:
That wasn't the case with the last 4 Radeons I've had.

I don't know if it's the same with Nvidia cards, my GTX 580 is an average clocker from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

its the same for both companies the binning is done at the card maker end, where they take a tray full of chips and test them on a test bench before they get installed in cards
 
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