Factory OCed?

Cellulose

Senior member
May 14, 2007
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I am about to buy an XFX 8800gts 320mb however there is the extreme and XXX edition. I want to avoid destroying the card as warranty regarding my situation is slightly iffy. If there was a performance difference then I wouldn't mind OCing a bit though...

If I stick with the original version will I be able to OC to XXX clocks without more risk than a pre-overclocked card?

Thanks a lot :)
Joe
 

Cutthroat

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2002
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The manufacturers just hand pick the better chips so they can create the OC versions and provide warranty on them. Most of the time any of the chips can be overclocked to the same values without any trouble at all.
 

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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IMO it can be worth it if you are the type that doesnt want the hassle of OCing it yourself and got the extra money to buy the OC version. Manufacturers know there are some people who just dont want to OC the card themselves and you do still get a warranty. Also some OCed cards come with extra cooling features but it depends on the manufacturer and model. As Cutthroat says you can pretty much OC a regular card to what the OC card is on your own if you want.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
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EVGA 320mb - $260

After $20 MIR. This is what I ordered this weekend. Overclocking and aftermarket heatsinks are covered by warranty and it has a 90-day step-up program in case 8900 series come out in 90 days and you feel generous to upgrade (altough their site prices are a bit high). If you are going to spend $310 on XXX edition, you might as well go with cheapest 640mb 8800GTS. Also, you can get an aftermarket cooler on that $260 card and get even better OC.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
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In general I don't like factory overclocked boards because it seems like the vendors are just trying to beat each other with bigger graphs at the expense of stability.

It's true there's a warranty but if the card fails it's still a hassle.
 

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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Yeah but thats true of any card though. If it fails its a hassle to return/exchange it. To my knowledge the OC card failure rate isn't any higher than a regular non-OC card. Its cheaper to OC it yourself but for those that are less inclined to want to deal with OCing there are the OC cards. Thats why the manufacturers make them.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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To my knowledge the OC card failure rate isn't any higher than a regular non-OC card.
Remember the 7900 GT OC fiasco with eVGA, BFG and XFX?

Large amounts of those cards were failing because they were overclocked.
 

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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I have a 7800GS Superclock and a 7600GT KO and have had no problems with them. Of course not all models are alike. Hmmm... was the 7900GT the one with the bad memory chips? Now that I think about it I remember something about one of the models from nVidia having bad memory chips in the beginning. But they fixed that I thought. Didnt the regular cards have the problem too?
 

aka1nas

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
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Originally posted by: Skott
I have a 7800GS Superclock and a 7600GT KO and have had no problems with them. Of course not all models are alike. Hmmm... was the 7900GT the one with the bad memory chips? Now that I think about it I remember something about one of the models from nVidia having bad memory chips in the beginning. But they fixed that I thought. Didnt the regular cards have the problem too?

The initial OC'ed 7900GT models were the ones that had high failure rates. The regular ones did have some duds, too, but it was reputedly much higher with the OC'ed cards. IIRC, it was a VRM issue where the OC'ed cards were pushing it too hard and it would freak out and overvolt the RAM, eventually killing it.