I think calling for a potential 1500Mhz on these cards is just a tad, dodgy, the palit has a significantly better cooler than stock and better VRM's(same 6 phase, which really isn't particularly difficult nor expensive to achieve) and only got a slightly better clock.
Also as said, the Palit is basically identical, uprated cooler, quieter, cooler, 6 phase VRM and 8 pin, anyone fooled by 8 pin is being just that fooled.
8 pin is merely an INDICATION that the psu can provide X amount of power down that line, physically there is no reason that a 6 pin can't provide exactly as much power down a cable as an 8 pin.
It's simply a spec, as with anything else, a PSU with 2x 8 pin and 2x 6 pin SHOULD be rated to a point where it can provide 450W alone through those cables no problem.
A psu with 4 6 pins might only be rated to carry 300W down those same cables by simply being say a 700W psu vs a 1k one.
8 pin isn't going to do crap for it, VRM's, maybe, only if VRM's were a limit to start with, if the limit was the power supply to the core, it will help, if it's not, it won't.
Much like 99% of boards out there with increase VRM capacity, extra phases, its to charge you more, not much of anything else.
Interesting card, and the cooler is actually much bigger than I thought as seeing it broken apart there is a chunk of heatsink below the fans. it's a great design for a slim sink, would be fantastic as a bigger cooler with a couple bigger fans on top with less airflow being impeded, but its far better than most.
It's just not worth £100 more, if they just stopped spending so much on the stock crap cooler in the first place, all cards should have this kind of cooling as standard for zero extra cost.
*runs*
