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Factory Overclocked Cards

Hauk

Hauk

Platinum Member
Many (including myself) go for standard cards and overclock them, while others go for factory overclocked cards and the associated premium.

We know companies like Asus are awarded contracts to mass produce for other OEM's like EVGA. So for EVGA to pick which cards become their overclocked cards they'd have to test a finished product right? Or would they test individual components prior to board assembly?

I'd like to believe there's a process, despite a long-time feeling it all marketing BS. I've yet to come across information on the process however. If someone knows how cards are selected for factory overclocked versions, please share. I've seen the terms batch and yield thrown around, but it'd be nice to know what the testing procedures are.

As end users, we test for a stable overclock using a gradual step-up from stock. That's a process. But we're dealing with one card. How could an OEM use a simliar process for the thousands of cards being shipped each month? Obviously, there'd have to be a different process.
 
I don't think that I've ever seen a factory overclocked unit that had a speed that 95+% of all cards couldn't get. What you should do is buy the regular 8800gt, make sure it's stable at KO or SSC speeds, then flash the bios. voila, instant increase in card value 🙂
 
When I worked at professional video editing and conversion I found out that our advanced professional process of transferring VHS to DVD involved putting a tape in a VHS player, plugging it in to a 200$ DVD recorder deck from best buy. pressing record, pressing play...
When I worked at electronics support I realized how testing just means sell it to the customer and if it doesn't perform replace it with another... we were selling motherboards with 30% defect rate and just sending in a new one to customers when they complained... and we had some easily breakable parts, if the customer calls and says "I broke it during installation" we still send him a new one free of charge (WD does the same if you break the SATA plug on your harddrive, but I wasn't working for WD)

I seriously doubt there is any sort of testing or process that is done for factory overclocked cards...

They simply sell you a card with a bios firmware set to oc to something 90-95% of cards can reach... if you are one of the 5-10% that CANNOT reach that then your card is "defective"... you return the card for replacement and they give you another.
Then they flash the bios on the card you returned to have the card run in stock speeds, and sell it to someone else as a refurbished stock card.

That being said, if you buy a stock card there is a 10% chance it cannot OC AT ALL. If you buy a an OC card there is a 10% chance it will arrive "defective" and you will get a free warranty replacement for a card that can oc... just pay shipping both ways.
 
I'm kind of curious about this too. As far as I know (from reading the INQ), the Nvidia cards themselves are all manufactured by two ODM companies, so they should all be more or less similar. I wonder if the video card companies that buy them then do some sort of in house testing and binning to find the best OCing ones and then factory OC them and charge a premium. The ones that don't make the cut then might get sold as regular cards. Some of the companies also add custom coolers that may be better than the reference cooler, and might allow better OCing than what a user could achieve with a reference model cooler.

Just some of my own, not necessarily correct, theories
 
My buddy bought a eVGA 8800GTS 4 monthes ago that he OCed toMORE then the ultra clockspeed without any problem on the stock cooler, with stock voltages, in a SFF case (bad airflow). He got extremely lucky obviously, but if they had been binning them then his card would have been sold as an SSC card, not as a stock card.

Stock for GTS and GTX = 575.
Stock for ultra = 612.
His card oced to ~620

He actually got it higher but settled for "safe" and lowered it some...


Extra point: many people suddenly find they have crashing on games using their OC card due to new games utilizing the card slightly differently (for example, if bandwidth useage increases while decreasing need for a specific processing unit it might cause that specific part to exceed operational parameters). They have to underclock the OC card to make it stable again. This is specific to certain games where the problems occur... while a stock card is safe for practically everything, an OC card could have parts of the card outside of operational parameters and if you ever hit 100% usage on that part you will get crashes...

Exrea point: OC casts use the EXACT same cooling solution as their non oc bretheren.
 
There's no difference. All these manufacturers are doing is providing warranty with those OC speeds and selling at higher price.
 
Originally posted by: AmberClad
As far as I know (from reading the INQ), the Nvidia cards themselves are all manufactured by two ODM companies, so they should all be more or less similar. I wonder if the video card companies that buy them then do some sort of in house testing and binning to find the best OCing ones and then factory OC them and charge a premium...
Click to expand...

That's the other term I was trying to remember, binning. So is binning simply testing finishd product and sorting them by category, where one may go in say A (top performing) category while others go in B (high performing) and C (standard performing)? Thanks AmberClad for the input. Not to sound chauvinist, but female input here is, refreshing. Smart chicks are hot! 😀

Taltamir, you made a very good point. When you ship x number of product out the door, there's an expected failure rate. If x number of product don't perform to advertised specifications and the end user squalks, simply replace with another unit and see if the squalking goes away. Sell return as standard and if no squalking, you've "re-binned" the product properly.

Who knows, maybe someone has inside information on an actual process and they'll post about it. I'm leaning towards the idea there's not one though..
 
I purchased a 8800GT SSC b/c it was only $20 more than a SC. I was guaranteed an overclock of 700/1000 and they are tested(binned) at the factory so I know that it will be stable at least at those speeds if not higher.
 
Originally posted by: SteelSix
That's the other term I was trying to remember, binning. So is binning simply testing finishd product and sorting them by category, where one may go in say A (top performing) category while others go in B (high performing) and C (standard performing)? Thanks AmberClad for the input. Not to sound chauvinist, but female input here is, refreshing. Smart chicks are hot! 😀
Click to expand...
😱 Aw, well, like I said, it was just a theory, and judging from the fact that some people are apparently getting nice OCs from supposedly stock cards, the whole binning theory might have to be thrown out. But yes, what you just described is what I understand the binning process to be.
 
Sorry Amber, my sense of humor gets the best of me sometimes. It is cool to hear a woman talk tech though. Anyway, back on topic..
 
I dont think there is anything special about the OC cards other than some models in the past have had better cooling units on them. eVGA and ASUS has been known to put better cooling units on some of their OCed models. Other than that though the OCed versions are basically the same and are factory OCed for those consumers who do not want to bother with the hassles of trying to OC the cards. Its like what others here are saying 95% of the standard cards should and will safely reach the same speeds as their OCed counterparts.
 
Originally posted by: waffleironhead
Dont most OC cards usually come with better cooling solutions than the reference cards?
Click to expand...

Not much these days. Look at the 8800 series. GTS and GTX's came with pretty much the same cooler. Seems mfrs are sticking with reference design yet marketing some cards as OC cards. Another point...
 
When eVGA first came out with their ECS3 system the better OCed cards came with it but the standard reference card didnt have it. Since then the ECS3 cooler is pretty much standard now on all their cards. I havent looked at what ASUS is doing with their 8800 series to say wether there is any difference or not.
 
Might be worth it to peruse the 8800GT overclock section to get an idea of what the vanilla cards are hitting and what the OC versions are hitting. If the factory oced cards are consistently hitting higher max clocks than the vanilla versions, it could imply that the cards are indeed binned at the factory.
 
I'm currently using an x850xt PE in my main system (yes, I know, it's ancient). Stock clock is 540/590, and IIRC the PE series is a factory binned chip.

Anyway, it hit 600/600 with the stock cooling, artifact-free. When I put on some RAMsinks and an ancient waterblock, I'm at 640/620. Certainly nothing to sneeze at. I have to imagine that, if they were truly testing these individually, they would have sold this one as a "factory overclocked" card.
 
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