Are these "OC", "FTW" "super cool extreme" cards something special? I mean they cost a bit more compared to the non overclocked cards. Can't I just take normal card and overclock it myself for free? Maybe these special editions have better capacitors and BIOS volatage mods and some fancy stuff like that. It gotta be that.
They're for people that don't know how to overclock or don't want to overclock. The rest of us buy them for the non-reference coolers.
Custom PCB, better power delivery and lower temps mean better OC headroom. Also on occasion there's the so called "cherrypicked" version that promises to eliminate GPU rng for you. At a premium ofc
They have better oc capabilities,here -usually- matches what we say "you get what you pay for" . Alex13 and Sykozis said them right too. Better coolers + better components = better overclocking..(well,most of the times). So if you don't care much for any kind of overclocking just skip them.
In my case gtx 750 is 1020/1085, 750Ti SC is 1176/1254 and FTW is 1189/1267. I bought the 750 ti sc because i'm on a budget. The one I bought has ACX cooling 2.0 + custom pcb + 6-pin adapter.
I buy them for the cooler and being able to OC them if I want to. I just don't like the reference style cooler.