What boost in FPS does a higher core clock really give?

Since card companies like to release 50 different versions of every card each with different core clocks, you always wonder how much performance gain you're paying that extra money for, don't ya?

Specifically, the GTX 260 216 cards...

You can get the "low end" cards stock at 576Mhz
Then, you can go all out and get an XFX Black Edition at 666Mhz for about $50 more.

With some of the most popular games out now like FSX, COD4, FarCry2, Crysis, whatever the game may be, what kind of performance gain would one get from the super clocked cards than one with the stock speeds?

Don't say "Just buy a stock one and overclock it." I know I can do that, but that's not what I'm asking.

 

Its always better to buy pre-overclocked version since they always use tested quality boards for those cards. And of course with that kinda card you can overclock even further and get even better performance... So , yes pre overclocked/quality editions are almost always the best choice.

 

I agree with the above poster. Most people will tell you to buy the stock versions and just overclock, however, pre-overclocked video cards have been tested and will almost always guarantee better overclocks over the stock versions. But everything depends on the price.

 

Actually not as much FPS boost as you may think..game depending ofcourse
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-260-core-216--bfg-ocx-maxcore/1

 

I know it's my second post here, so I'm going to try to start off on a good note

Personally, I never regard a factory overclock of a card to be a significant purchasing point. In my experience, I've never seen a night-and-day performance increase. There are just so many other factors that go into a card's performance aside from the clock speeds.

I think it really all depends on how far you want to push the card and how much you're willing to spend to that end...assuming you're going for a superclocked (e.g. BFG's OCX line) spending the extra 50 bucks or whatever it might be on a superclocked card is giving you less of a margin to play with, even if you upgrade the cooling solution you're still likely to be at the higher end of the overclocking threshold of the card. I think we'd all be willing to agree that the default clock out of the box, whether OC'd or not, is never good enough and we all end up trying to find that absolute maximum clock at some point or another.

I'd much rather invest that money spent on the factory overclock towards a superior card, even if it's stock, you're still giving yourself the option to overclock it later - even if it means being patient to save up the extra $100-$200 to throw at the bigger, badder card.

 

Um, those overclocks are total crap. If you are going to buy a BFG OCX, I would just save money and buy the stock version. The TC asked for the XFX Black Edition (666MHz), not BFG whimpy (590MHz) overclock edition.

 

umm..maybe you need to read a little deeper
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX MAXCORE
Memory: 896MB GDDR3
Core Clock: 648MHz (vs. 576MHz standard)
Shader Clock: 1404MHz (vs. 1242MHz standard)
Memory Data Rate: 2250MHz (vs. 1998MHz standard)
Processor Cores: 216 (vs. 192 standard)

 

Well I strickly buy Asus brand video cards and with Asus they have there [TOP] overclocked series. I have found that there reference models overclock just as high as the [TOP] versons. And actualy the cooling usually is the same on both. As for actual performance? Hmm.. hard to really say, it would be game to game frame rate wise and to be perfectly honest not enough to justify the difference in price.

Good example is I have a reference Asus 9600GT with a stock clock of 650core/1625shader/1800memory. I can OC with no problems 725core/1700shader/2000memory which puts it [TOP] speeds. Both versions use Asus big Glaciator Fansink. Here is a pic of the reference card:



Now the [TOP:

Same cooling same setup....

 

In answer to the original question I would say it depends on the game. High core clock = faster geometry processing in high polygon count situations. Some games are more shader based, so overclocking the shader would be more beneficial.

 

Yup, agree with above poster.

 

I see a pretty night and day difference with my clocks. Well maybe more like night and dusk. It's all about being able to clock GPU/Shader/Memory.

I don't know if the $50 extra is worth it though. I know you said you didn't want the response of "Buy a stock card and OC", but honestly that's the best bang for your buck. Buy stock, OC as high as you can and put the extra $50 away for a future high end card purchase. That $50 will do more for you in the future.

Of course, I'm well above the High end BFG pre OC clocks. So I could be biased, but I've always bought stock and OCed high. The extra cash never seemed to be good value.

 

overclocking gives higher minimum frame rates so i have seen.

 

i agree with morb. when i add more shader i get more fps.

when im at 1550 ill get more..changing the core and mem dont seem to do much. 720/1200 is max i can go.

but if the overclocked versions enable to reach higher shaders then i'd say they are worth it.

 

That's funny, my 8800gt gets just a little boost from shader oc'ing. When I up the core though I get a huge boost. But then again going from 625 to 756 is a big jump. My shaders go from 15?? to 1890.

 

Do the shader clocks automatically scale when you increase the core speeds or do they have to be independently set and tested? I have two of these coming http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...vel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_- and am looking for info on overclocking them.

 

from my experience, i never got average of more than a few fps's from oc'ing a video card as far as i could push it. i think 10fps was the fastest oc on a game i benchmarked.

i did once, get 24 fps boost just by switching to high priority in Thief 3

 

With Riva tuner you can independently clock shader core and GPU core. The only limitation being that on the GTX's, your GPU core cannot clock any higher than 1/2 what your shader core is.

For example, if you can clock your shade core to 1400 your max clock on your GPU would be 700. But then there is the whole crystal state tech going on and that means that you have to fiddle around with the clocks to see wich one will stick. 700 may not take on the GPU, but 702 will. But if you can't get your shader core above 1400 then you may not be able to hit the 702 mark.

I hope that all made sense.

 

It absolutely made sense. I suspected as much but I haven't really messed around with overclocking for quite a while. Thanks for your response!

 

I use the Precision tuner from EVGA. Much cleaner and simpler than using the the Riva Tuner. BTW, you cannot set a 700 mhz core clock. You can set
694 and 702 as long as your shader is at least slightly more than 2x your core clock. Another thing which you touched on is that your shader frequency stepping is is 54mhz. So from a shader clock of 1350, the next one you can use is 1404 next after that is 1458. Okay now that everyone is confused....

 

If that confuses anyone they have no place overclocking anything really...