Factory overclocks ruining PC gaming?

[Relion]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: Relion

Originally posted by: taltamir
... anand just wrote an article how they had 2 of those cards fry on them already...

Could you please link this article. I'm highly interested since I ordered a BFG OC Card...

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=318

Thank you...and btw...after reading it ... The problem seems to be that the fan is too low in speed...not the fact that they are factory OC'ed...

 

[SlowSpyder]

For whatever it's worth I used an Evga 6800GS superclock (490/1100, reference is 425/1000) card for about a year with zero issues.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Well, I really didn't read much of the thread. But one statement came out that really required a reply from me.

Do factory overclock cards fail to deliver? Yes, often they do as been my experience and those around me. The reason this goes relatively unoticed is because artfacts unless they are REALLY bad are hard to spot and sometimes are only spotted in certain scenes under a certain game. Because one or two off colored pixels are not noticeable, much like a dead pixel. Even up to 100 pixels on your screen the wrong color will often go unnoticed unless they are all clustered together (rarely they are).

I have had a few factory O/C cards that have issues with artifacts and they require underclocking to get them to clock correctly. This issue does exist! It happens and quite frequently!!!

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: CZroe

Originally posted by: CP5670
I haven't had any issues with the factory overclocked cards I've bought in the past (notably two EVGA 7800GTs, which had a significant 18% overclock on the core over reference speeds). If anything, I was able to push them a bit further and still remain completely stable. As others have said, if you want a hassle-free gaming experience, you should switch to a single card before doing anything else.

By the very nature of PC gaming being shoe-horned into a platform from The Eighties, we'll never be free of it. I just want to minimize it. Their actions add to the problem. Also, I wouldn't be running x64 and 4GB DDR2 if I wanted it to be hassle free. I'll maintain multiple gaming systems if needed... time to ressurrect the X2 3800+ as an XP 32-bit gaming system using these 7800GT cards when my 8800GTs get here. Heck, I have a Voodoo2 SLI + Geforce2 GTS-V system for all the 9x-only games in my backlog.

I agree with you in general that there are too many cases of high end hardware giving users more trouble than it's worth. I spend some time initially tinkering with system settings and overclocks when I buy new stuff but don't want to worry about it after that. As for the overclocked cards, I think the only widespread case I've heard about was the 7900 cards, although at the same time, the Nvidia card companies do seem to have gotten much more aggressive with their overclocks in the last year or two than they used to be. In any case, if a card is unstable at the factory clocks, the card is basically defective and should be replaced rather than downclocked to reference speeds. You pay for the overclock as part of the card's price, after all.

I keep an old Win98 system around similar to that too. Although it doesn't get much use these days, since I only have two or three games that I haven't been able to run on modern systems in some way.

 

[zagood]

Skipped a lot...let me know if I missed something...

Temps were within standard operating range, so it wasn't a temp issue. Either the chip was faulty, or the OP's PSU just couldn't handle those cards (don't know since he never gave the PSU model). I would have gone for a new PSU first then RMA on the cards.

My 2c.

-z

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: zagood
Skipped a lot...let me know if I missed something...

Temps were within standard operating range, so it wasn't a temp issue. Either the chip was faulty, or the OP's PSU just couldn't handle those cards (don't know since he never gave the PSU model). I would have gone for a new PSU first then RMA on the cards.

My 2c.

-z

It's not just me. It's a range of personal and publicized issues over several years (and products) that all add up to one thing: Manufacturers are not responsible with their factory overclocks.

In my case, I started out with a PCP&C Turbo-Cool 510 (MORE than enough) and then had to move to a cheap Antec Neo 550HE, but I temporarily tried my Turbo-Cool 1KW during one of my troubleshooting sessions when making the transition this past Summer. The 1KW eliminated any power concerns and the instabilities remained. Under advice from forumers here, I remained with the Antec 550 PSU.

 

[zagood]

Ah, got it.

VGA makers probably got to the point where they figured, "hey, people are overclocking their cards, I bet we can make some money off that." Other than the brief range of overclocked cards from eVGA and some others that had special cooling solutions, all they had to do was apply a different bios and charge a premium for faster speeds on the same chips.

Unfortunately, just like with the number of failed home overclocks, not all chips are created equal...with subpar quality control through the binning process you can bet that a percentage of them aren't going to handle that overclock.

Just rambling. I get your frustration, but I don't think factory overclocking is a bad thing, as long as decent quality control standards are in place. Have they been? Depends...I'd like to see the percentage of failed OC cards vs. the percentage of non-OC cards. Unfortunately those numbers would be really hard to get a hold of.

-z