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Thread: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

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    Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    Hi guys,

    I'm looking at getting a 560Ti (well, I was also looking at a 6950 but these are around £30 cheaper) and I reached a dilemma - should I buy a "super overclocked" card, or just overclock it myself? I heard the 560Ti has a particularly large headroom.

    What would be the benefit of buingthis super overclocked version over this (possibly very slightly overclocked) one?

    I am assuming it is relatively easy to achieve decent clock by yourself. If that's true, then why is there such a big market for pre-overclocked cards? My friend (who isn't too knowledgable) bought a slighty overclocked 560 (non-Ti) for £180! I thought that was silly

    Also, would this 1GB version be worse (e.g., streaming textures) than the more expensive version? I intend to be playing single monitor at 1080x1920, with the highest settings as possible.

    Thanks much

  2. #2
    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    The only pre-overclocked stuff I will even consider are those from a MANUFACTURER that has a speed binning process.

    The only one I am aware of is Gigabyte. They test every GPU and rank them, the cream go into the SOC cards, the next lot go on the OC cards and the rest end up as the "normal" cards.

    Although with that said, AMD and nVidia bin them all first anyway....all 560Ti start out as 580s and 6950s start as 6970s...they just disable parts of them (broken or working!) to make a lower-range card to fill a price bracket.......so I would guess that because of the extreme binning happening at the GPU fabs, you will see less variation in the locked and stamped chips going out to Asus, Gigabyte etc to make the cards with.

    The biggest boon with a lot of pre-clocked cards though are the multi-fan coolers. Which will help you maintain a cooler GPU (normally at a lower noise level to boot!) and therefore - theoretically - a higher overclock.

    But to answer your question with a strait yes/no is nigh-on impossible......best answer I could possible give atm is: If you want to play BF3 at max detail, you might find a OC card to be worth a little more. Just don't fall into the trap of paying so much more that you might as well have gone up a model instead.....and although arias deal I posted yesterday has ended.....they do have the same card again today but for £180...and it has everything you want and is obviously in the right price-range.
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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    I have heard good things about the afterburner software. I assume that would let me OC even further?

    The Asus' spec says "With exclusive Voltage Tweak technology also being a key feature of this product, the ENGTX560 Ti DCII/2DI/1GD5 covers users for every possible over-clocking and over-volting scenario. With the complete package offered by this card users can easily boost their performance by up to 50%!". It has a good dual fan cooler, but isn't stock OCed. I assume it should match (when OCed) to a similar, pre-OCed model?

    Sorry for being such a noob

    Thanks

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    Most cards can be flashed with an MSI bios to run afterburner.

    You can also voltage tweak a lot yourself using BIOS editors.

    Personally, I never over-volt GPUs. GPUs run hot enough already, plus any overclock adds to it..seeing GPUs at 80-90c still makes me nervous and in fact I have a 1.0v VID GTX580 (very low) and I have under-volted it to 0.9v to get it cooler while leaving it @ stock speeds.
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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    I bought a superoverclocked XFX 7600GT what must be 5 years ago now and it is still running with no issues. I would watch out for which ones you buy though and check reviews (web wide) before choosing one. I think I will be another pre-overclocked card and I am looking at the MSI Twin Frozr's because of the better aftermarket cooler in addition to the overclock. I have not read many bad reviews on them either so far.

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    I tend not to choose cards based on their OC, I choose them based on the cooler they have attached because I am not comfortable with a GFX running above 80C and would prefer my GFX to be running below 65C is possible.

    My Gigabyte HD6950 1Gb OC does just that, quiet cooler that works brilliantly. I'd recommend choosing a card for similar reasons.

    As a side note I don't find overclocking your GPU to be very useful; I've done it with a 1900XTX, 8800GTS 512Mb and GTX260 and never got a noticeable improvement in games. I managed to up the frequencies by more than 20% but never got more than 8% extra performance which ended up being 2-5 FPS more. I've not bothered with my current GPU and I wouldn't recommend doing it either, just doesn't give enough benefit in my opinion.

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    Are there any particular brands of cooler you'd recommend, like Asus CUII or MSI Frozr? I'm looking at the ASUS 6950 with their twin fan cooler. It's around the same price as the 560Ti, and apparently performs slightly better. So why not!

    Many thanks

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    I really like the cooler on the Gigabyte OC, I think it's the best on the market at the moment. I also like the Sapphire and MSI coolers.

    This is the card I bought: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-g...2x-dvi-dp-hdmi

    Unfortunately I can't find it cheaper anywhere else. It's at Dabs for a similar price. I wouldn't trust the price of that ASUS card, seems a lot lower than everything else which is suspicious to me.

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    If you are going to get a pre overclocked card get one with a custom cooler. That way you can push it harder.

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    I'm going custom cooler regardless.

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    Re: Should I buy pre-overclocked?

    for me, one of the biggest advantages of buying pre-overclocked cards is the 3rd party coolers they come with. If you plan on adding your own cooler for oc'ing the card then go with reference or if the card you're buying has a reference cooler and just the clocks dialed up, buy the cheapest you can find and oc it yourself. However, particularly the super oc's, will normally come with very good cooling solutions and also help reduce system noise as an added benefit

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