Forgive my noobness but why buy a graphics card that's been overclocked at the factory when you can buy a normal card for less and overclock it yourself via software? I assume that the factory overclocked card won't have that much room for further custom overclocking either.
I'm thinking of the XFX GF 8800 Ultra XXX edition here, it's been factory overclocked and of course wins all the benchmark reviews and runs a couple of degrees hotter. But why not save some money and buy a regular 8800 GTX and overclock it yourself to the same level? Is the XFX GF 8800 Ultra XXX edition more stable at the faster speeds or something? I've been told the Ultras are just overclocked GTXs as well, what's the deal here? Are Ultra's overclockable to faster speeds than regular GTXs are overclockable to?
1. Those card sometimes have better cooling solutions than the standard cards.
2. They are guaranteed to be overclocked to a certain speed. All cards are overclockable, the maximum safe OC will be different.
3. If you screw up your own OC and the card is f*cked, guess what? So are you.
4. No fuss involved. Just plug 'n play.
1. Agree
2. Agree
3. Not always. EVGA covers overclocking in the warranty. Unless the card is actually physically damaged, the card is covered.
4. Agree.
I think many people that buy these cards do so for 2 reasons. 1) They don't want to be bothered with doing it themselves or they don't know how and are afraid of messing something up. 2) These cards usually have the better VRAM modules, so there is less of a chance of the OC going bad and it also means that the card could be pushed farther than it already is.
The first two answers have it completly covered all i would say is its one thing buying a midrange card and ocing it your self but do you really fancy paying the mega bucks that is an Ultra and take the risk of screwing it up yourself sure its covered on the warranty (if you got the right one) but then you have no Ultra for a while.
I wouldnt want to,guess it all comes down to tec level if you know what you are doing and are happy doing it then i dont see why not.
Mactronix
It's also possible that the chip used on the Factory-OC cards is binned higher. At least thats always been the allure of Factory OC cards to me... Even though I've never bought one. (that and better cooling )
To Valtiel
Thats my understanding of how it works, Basically they have performance requirements for the main sku and any that are over by i guess a set amount or else there would be no ocing available on the main card get binned high and the lower ones get binned low so that you get XT cards and Pro/GT cards etc.
Thats my understanding of it anyway so if i am correct then an ultra is a GTX core that when tested went over and above a set point when testing the chips from a GTX wafer.
Mactronix.
Eisen6faust 
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