What is the difference between factory overclocked and non overclocked graphic card?

the purpose of creating this particular thread whether one should purchase factory overclock graphic card or non overclocked graphic card and simply overclock it by yourself. Accoridng to me it seems to be quite simple to overclock your GPU once you have managed to know about the steps to be performed to overclock.
I have found that most of the CPUs and GPUs are supposed to running at lower frequencies rather of expected frequencies. So they are rating them bit lower than that of potential that they are having. But they are also gurantee that one will be able to fabricate the Chip so that it can be ran at the rated speed. So that is the reason why one will be able to overclock CPU. If the thing which I have mentioned above is correct then I wanted to add below mentioned thing.

Consider any GPU which can be run at 900 MHz however the manufacturer of GPU supposed to rate it lower around 800Mhz. it supposed to sell by the specs. After that they release 850 MHz GPU and it has been called as overclocked version and finally they release 900 MHz GPU and they are supposed to called as Power OC version. Since there is no matter what is the capcity of GPU but whatever stuff has been printed on box is being guaranteed by the manufacturer itself.

So let me know whether one should purchase overclocked version or not. In case GPU is same then would it have same kind of overclocking capcity or different chip is provided so it would make change in overclocking capacity. Is that fine to purchase to normal version and overclocking it by ourselves? Or the manufacturer are categorized as per the quality and they are supposed to put to get the different kind of versions. Let me know if you can give a light shed on the above mentioned topic. Thanks a lot in advance.

Well after going through the problem of yours I wanted tell you that GPU are supposed to remain same but coolers are actually gets optimized. You will be able to compare the same with normal HD 6850 and HD 6850 with Cyclone cooler. Well Cyclone is used for the overclocked version of GPU only and it supposed to be more stable. On the basis of cooler I think clock limit has been set by the manufacturer. There are some stock coolers which are having great performance. They are having duel fan or twin frozer. I would recommend that one should purchased non overclock GPU and simply overclock the same by myself only. I don’t think so you will notice any big difference when you do the same.

Normally card manufacturer are not able to set default speed of GPU rather than it has been set by chip maker like AMD or Nvidia.. in case card manufacturer are able to provide faster card with having better cooling and vrm design at the rate of affordable prize then one should purchase it. if you are talking about the overclocking potential then I am suggesting that factory overclocked graphic card supposed to having more potnetia. It can be more overclocked as compared to the non factory overclocked graphic cards. Though both of them are using same kind of cooler. If you wanted crossfire than I would recommend that one should go for stock coolers only as almost all the custom cooler are supposed to dump their heat into the cabinet only. So according to me it seems to be more sensible if you are looking to purchase overclock graphic card.

In this particular situation I recommend that one should go for non overclocked graphic card and save some money and simply do it by yourself only. It might be possible that you will be able to get higher clock speed by using the same but it wont matter if you are not concerned to get couple of extra FPS. You are right custom cooler dumping extra heat in cabinet when you are using it on multigpu setup. Well according to me custom cooler are far better than that of referenced model. They are having more cooling capability and simply throws out the heat from heatsink and fans. For eg reference card supposed to gernerats X amount of heat and non-reference would generate y heat. So y>X as non-reference card supposed to generate more heat as compare to another one.
However it does not mean that you should not use custom cards into multi gpu environment. It seems to be really silly things to purchase a reference model where as there are number of non-reference models available in the market. there would be extra heat generation hence you have to make use of appropriate fans which would remove the hot air from the system. if you are looking to have multigpu fan setup then I recommend that you should use at least 3 fans and there should be appropriate inflow of cool air.

Well according to me the entire thing is dependent on the situation. according to me one will be able to get better performance with the stock card rather than that of factory overclocked graphic card. but you should consider the point that you can get a stock card and overclock the same but you will not be able to get the same output as compared to factory overclocked card or could be possible that you will not be oveclock it at all. now days people are seems to raise voltage and simply get the higher clock. There are some stock card which are not having support for the same at all. hence need of non references card arises. Asus CU cards are good example of above mentioned thing. MSI Hawk has been design to provide better overclocking experience by having better ircuitry and components rather than that of tock card. also it is having better power regulation as well.

It seems to be ok if you are looking to purchase non overclock model of the graphic card. though such models are cheaper and they might having capability as same as that of overclocked one. The only disadvantage is that you would not be able to overclock the non overclocked model to the factory speed and you cannot do anything if it did not worked for you. however overclocked card does not works for you than you can claim for the service warranty. So better one should go for the factory overclocked version as it guarantees regarding overclock rather than of overclocking your GPU. I am also expecting that factory overclocked would have better components and higher chip so that you can you have better overclocking experience as compared to non overclocked one.

According to me factory overclocked cards can be considered as locked card. that means you will not be able to further overclock them at all. until and unless you have flashed bios or you have done some kind of modification on the system of yours. in the situation of mine I have flashed bios for standard 5850 and now I am looking to overclock the same as after adding water cooler. You should get a normal card if you are looking to play with the graphic card and if you don’t wanted to do that simply get factory clocked card.

In my opinion one should purchased factory overclocked card as it is having better cooling system than that of non overclocked one. Also I know that they are having better warranty. You will be able to overclock those card by using MSI Afterburner or Rive Tuner software. I am having MSI GeForce GTX460 Cyclone 1GB card and it is overclocking like anything. The main thing about factory OC card is that they are having warranty and supports for voltage tweaking as well.

There are more and more manufacturers who are providing warranties for overclocking. Well I am aware of the thing that my video card is having overclocking. Now a days overclocking software is also provided into separate disc. also instructions are also provided to overclock your GPU. You have to simply figure out the reference speed of card. my GTX460 is having reference speed of GTX460. You have to compare the same with the clock speed of the graphic card. so that you will be able to figure out whether you are going to purchase an over clocked card. I have researched a lot and find out that there are very less card which are coming with reference speed. In today scenario all the decent manufacturers are overclocking their products. Some of GTX460 cards are overclocked at 825MHz. it is 25Mhz more as compared to card which I have overclocked at my home. What I recommend that you should contact manufacturer to get the idea whether they are cover warranty for overclocking.

There are difference between some chips according to level of testing they are going to pass. Sometimes those chips might get an architecture fault and it needs to be disabled by the manufacture. So tha it became lower specification model. As far as I know there are some 4830 series cards and it should be 4870 chips. The factory overclocked card is guarantee that those card should be overclocked. It might not work if you overclock standard card. Even some cards are going to have degraded perfomanec when cards is overclocked.