Factory OC'd video cards.

Z

zeejay

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Feb 1, 2008
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Are they worth while?

My GTX 280 is slowly dieing with the PSOD. I'm going to RMA it but i want to go ahead and get a 480 in the mean time.

I was looking at the EVGA standard verses the one step up SC

Due to speed binning will the lower rated card just never have a chance of good OC, or is it still mostly luck of the draw anyway?

Honestly the difference doesn't look worth it to me I don't think I'll need to OC it for a while anyhow.
 
I guess I may have posted a little too hastily. I'm reading now that the SC ed is just pre OC'd and not really speed binned. I think I'm going to go with my original plan and just get the normal one for 20 bucks less.
 
I've wondered the same thing...it seems to me that if the card won't OC, it must end up as a card in their non-OCed product line. It's also very suspicious that there are always at least two products with the same expensive cooler design - one clocked really high, the other clocked just slightly high.
 
what are psod's? i know bsods but dont know what psod stands for LOL (srry for noob post)
 
to me they arent worth it. all a factory oc card means is that its guaranteed to run at those speeds with no problem. id rather save the money and overclock it myself. but thats just me.
 
Nope.

Every Factory OC card I've owned or friends have owned has gotten unstable after a few years and needs to be underclocked back to reference clocks or eventually RMA'd.

I'm sure they stress test and bin them a little bit, but it is only for a short amount of time to see if a card will pass at a certain clockspeed but mostly they come from the same lots. They are stress tested for a short time but that doesn't guarantee that they will last for years and consequentely when you have them in your system for 2-3+ years at permanent overclock, they start getting unstable over time.
 
Yeah, the factory OC is no guarantee the card will run stable for X number of years, only that it passed their stress-test before shipment. So buying an OC card is a crap-shoot, and really only something you should do from a reputable maker offering a long warranty.

And yes, by creating an OC card, the manufacturer is binning chips - however, most factory overclocks are not very aggressive, so most of the chips can hit those speeds without breaking a sweat. This means that they run into few "failures," so your chances of getting a bum over clocker are only slightly higher with the stock model.
 
Yeah, i guess they sorta have to bin them a bit to be able to sell it at higher clocks. It's not like FTW ed though where they totally have to cherry pick them. They probably do sell some of the cards that won't clock higher as normal ones, but I'm guessing not all of them were tested and failed higher clocks.

I went with the normal 480, it gets here tomorrow, should be fun.
 
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