Are Factory Overclocked Video Cards Worth It?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,469 words · ~7 min read
0:00
so this video is about the value or lack thereof in spending more on your
0:04
graphics card to get a higher Factory overclock or fancier cooler or board
0:08
design when you're not going to be overclocking sorry for not overclocking
0:13
we've covered that quite heavily in the past and it just isn't the point here as
0:17
we're specifically trying to investigate the worth of factory overclocks there
0:22
will also only be one manufacturer included
0:25
EVGA why because they have an excessively high amount of GTX 980
0:31
models they have 10 that's insane but
0:34
wait why 980 you've made a billion 980 videos in the past and it's value
0:38
proposition isn't even that good anymore good that's not the point I'm not trying
0:43
to tell you what card to buy I'm just investigating the potential value in
0:47
Factory overclocks this video is also not sponsored I contacted EVGA because
0:53
they were a prime example of totally cray amounts of different card versions
0:57
and they agreed to send me four cards as long as as I sent them back there was no
1:01
Financial exchange and we don't get to keep the cards we gain nothing from this
1:05
other than a video and spoiler alert if you're not overclocking don't buy the
1:10
most expensive version of a card but stay tuned to find out
1:23
why Phoenix collection's aour mechanical keyboard comes complete with goldplated
1:28
Cherry MX Brown switches an aluminum coating and a full 104 key layout check
1:33
out the link in the video description to learn more although many graphics card
1:37
manufacturers sell multiple cards with the same GPU perhaps the most well-known
1:42
and excessive example of this is EVGA
1:45
which currently has 10 different versions of the gtx980 so we decided to
1:49
take four well-known models from this product stack and see well how they
1:54
stack up today we've got the reference the super clocked the for the win
1:58
Edition or FTW Edition and classified
2:01
editions of the gtx980 all of these cards including the reference model came
2:06
with evga's ACX 2.0 cooler except for
2:09
the classified which contains a larger version of the cooler due to its larger
2:14
PCB and more aggressive power delivery so what exactly do you get with these
2:19
four models the reference card sells for the same amount as a card with a
2:23
reference cooler uh about $500 and is essentially the same as a
2:28
completely reference designed card except for the ACX 2.0 heat sink for 10
2:32
bucks more the superclocked Edition features about a 150 MHz higher boost
2:37
clock but no other significant upgrades
2:40
another $10 will score you the FTW Edition which not only gets you another
2:45
modest clock bump but also a second BIOS chip for further customization and a 6
2:51
plus2 powerphase design for more overclocking headro as opposed to the 4
2:55
plus one on the less expensive models finally the classified serves close to a
3:00
no compromises card for extreme overclockers it features a beefy 14
3:04
plus3 powerphase system and a third BIOS
3:08
chip including ln2 mode which we'll get more into later you also get a small
3:13
increase in outof the Box clock speed though this will all set you back a
3:17
whopping $635 far more than the other three cards
3:23
so how did we test all this well we used our standard test bench however to get a
3:26
more accurate idea of the card's thermal performance we put the entire test bench
3:32
into our Cooler Master master case Pro 5 obviously minus the bench itself with
3:36
its default fan configuration instead of using an open air test bench we ran all
3:41
of our components at stock speeds also by the way the first thing we wanted to
3:44
check out was the performance of GPU boost in our first video on the topic
3:49
which you can see out here we found that
3:52
there's a fair amount of variation even among otherwise identical cards but also
3:57
that the advertised boost clocks tend to be conservative estimates of what you'll
4:01
actually get in Real World gameplay with our EVGA stack we mostly saw the same
4:06
thing as the reference superclocked and for the win editions all saw load clocks
4:11
that were faster than what were advertised with the reference and for
4:14
the win editions both exceeding the official specification by over 35 MHz
4:19
however the classified fell a little short for whatever reason but as most
4:23
people who will buy this card will probably be overclocking it's not a huge
4:27
concern but not good for me either way the ACX 2.0 cooler did give us better
4:32
performance over the reference cooler which lets NVIDIA cards get up to 83°
4:37
cus before thermal throttling the highest we saw on our EVGA stack however
4:42
was just under 75° underload the classifi larger cooler didn't actually
4:46
really make it any cooler than the other cards though it does have a much larger
4:50
vrm to cool down and if you were overclocking more you might see a
4:55
performance difference there now let's have a look at real world performance in
4:59
games the the outof thee boox overclocks on the non reference cards did give us
5:03
some slight performance gains in 4k with the superclocked Edition adding 2 to
5:07
three FPS and the for the win addition adding another one to2 on top of that
5:12
the classified actually fared the worst of the three overclock cards again I
5:17
suspect most people in the market for something like a classified won't be
5:20
running it at default speeds anyways and could squeeze a bit more performance out
5:24
of it like we've seen in the past with our classified reviews but still today
5:29
however we're looking at what card will give you the best performance out of the box and the for the win Edition walks
5:34
away the winner albeit by a very small margin since the difference between the
5:38
for the win and the reference ACX Card is only $20 it may be worth it to spend
5:43
the extra on a higher clock out of the box and more overclocking Headroom with
5:48
extra power phases if you can squeeze it into your budget and even if you're not
5:53
an overclocker you may think it's well worth the 20 bucks to get a little bit
5:57
more performance out of the box without having to play with anything so in
6:01
conclusion if you're trying to pick between stepping up an entire glass of
6:04
graphics card or just getting a better cooler and overclocking Solutions on
6:07
them maybe jump up an entire class of graphics card that's what I would
6:11
recommend but if you've got 10 20 maybe 30 bucks lying around getting a better
6:17
slightly higher tuned or better cooled or better power phase designed graphics
6:21
card can actually be kind of worth it an interesting insight and unless you're
6:25
looking into overclocking just don't get the topend one
6:30
just don't get like a couple steps in unless you want it for the looks I guess
6:34
but that's on you man Squarespace is a
6:37
simple platform for building powerful and beautiful websites starting at only
6:41
eight bucks a month and with a free domain if you sign up for a year you get
6:44
247 live chat and email support for your website whether you're going for their
6:49
larger awesome templates or even one of their cover page designs more focused on
6:54
a singular page they also have support for things like e-commerce if you intend
6:59
toell products and a responsive design so that your website can be seen
7:03
optimally on all screen sizes tablet desktop phone whatever start a trial
7:09
today with no credit card required and start on building also be sure to use
7:13
offer code Linus to get 10% off of your first purchase Squarespace build it
7:19
beautiful thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do
7:22
but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or even consider
7:25
supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon buying
7:29
a cool t-shirt like this one I mean we actually have that store kind of working
7:33
now or with a direct monthly contribution through the Forum now that
7:37
you're done doing all that kind of stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click this thing in the top
7:42
right hand corner to check out an old video where I actually overclocked the
7:46
graphics card and it was a high-end model and I showed how that's actually
7:49
kind of cool