BFG video cards and overclocking

Hey all,

Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?

I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the enforcement
of their warranty.

I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.

Peace.

"CarpathiaMan" <synth.virtuoso@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:qM5Tj.2019$3O7.668@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net ...
> Hey all,
>
> Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?
>
> I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the enforcement
> of their warranty.
>
> I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.

Unless they get a card RMA'd with a non-stock BIOS resident, it's not going
to be an issue. There's nothing in the GPU or card that has a bean counter
that rats you out, like the PCM in a vehicle does.

CarpathiaMan wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?
>
> I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the enforcement
> of their warranty.
>
> I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.
>
> Peace.

You broke your video card by OCing, is that your motivation?

Did you ask these groups for advice and limits regarding OCing before
you went ahead and broke your card, it's not like you don't know how to
crosspost....let me check the archives...hmm...nothing here ...nope you
didn't ask!

Phew..aren't you glad you *didn't* break your card? Now, go ask BFG
directly what their policy is, and don't break your card. GPU OCing is
highly overrated these days, it's not like it used to be.

"Mr.E Solved!" <Iamsingle@askme.out> wrote in message
news:2oGdnZbG5J51noDVnZ2dnUVZ_u-dnZ2d@comcast.com...
> CarpathiaMan wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?
>>
>> I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the enforcement
>> of their warranty.
>>
>> I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.
>>
>> Peace.
>
> You broke your video card by OCing, is that your motivation?
>
> Did you ask these groups for advice and limits regarding OCing before you
> went ahead and broke your card, it's not like you don't know how to
> crosspost....let me check the archives...hmm...nothing here ...nope you
> didn't ask!
>
> Phew..aren't you glad you *didn't* break your card? Now, go ask BFG
> directly what their policy is, and don't break your card. GPU OCing is
> highly overrated these days, it's not like it used to be.

I have to agree on that. I did some troubleshooting for a friend who bought
two super clocked custom tweaked voltmodded 8800GTS cards. The specs were
impressive. His stability was not. I solved that (fan speed never rose above
37% in 3D or with temp so I modded the BIOS for him) but I was underwhelmed
by the difference between his cards with a 100% stock BIOS setting and the
"kapow" hot settings (810 core / 2150Mhz RAM / 2075 shader). It boosted his
3DMark06 score by about 350 from stock settings. I didn't bench his card in
games, just got it stable and running in 3D. Waste of money for IMHO....eBay
auction 190202247155 if you want to check out the actual cards he got.

Well, the 8800GTS is memory bandwidth constrained at the settings we like to
play games at. In the best case scenario a 8800GTS with 2150 MHz effective
RAM is going to perform 10% better than stock. This is like going from 60
fps to 66 fps. Did the "hot settings" raise memory voltage at all?

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"Augustus" <no_one@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:7O7Tj.331$KB3.242@edtnps91...
> I have to agree on that. I did some troubleshooting for a friend who
> bought two super clocked custom tweaked voltmodded 8800GTS cards. The
> specs were impressive. His stability was not. I solved that (fan speed
> never rose above 37% in 3D or with temp so I modded the BIOS for him) but
> I was underwhelmed by the difference between his cards with a 100% stock
> BIOS setting and the "kapow" hot settings (810 core / 2150Mhz RAM / 2075
> shader). It boosted his 3DMark06 score by about 350 from stock settings. I
> didn't bench his card in games, just got it stable and running in 3D.
> Waste of money for IMHO....eBay auction 190202247155 if you want to check
> out the actual cards he got.
>

Augustus wrote:
> "Mr.E Solved!" <Iamsingle@askme.out> wrote in message
> news:2oGdnZbG5J51noDVnZ2dnUVZ_u-dnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> CarpathiaMan wrote:
>>> Hey all,
>>>
>>> Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?
>>>
>>> I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the enforcement
>>> of their warranty.
>>>
>>> I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.
>>>
>>> Peace.
>> You broke your video card by OCing, is that your motivation?
>>
>> Did you ask these groups for advice and limits regarding OCing before you
>> went ahead and broke your card, it's not like you don't know how to
>> crosspost....let me check the archives...hmm...nothing here ...nope you
>> didn't ask!
>>
>> Phew..aren't you glad you *didn't* break your card? Now, go ask BFG
>> directly what their policy is, and don't break your card. GPU OCing is
>> highly overrated these days, it's not like it used to be.
>
> I have to agree on that. I did some troubleshooting for a friend who bought
> two super clocked custom tweaked voltmodded 8800GTS cards. The specs were
> impressive. His stability was not. I solved that (fan speed never rose above
> 37% in 3D or with temp so I modded the BIOS for him) but I was underwhelmed
> by the difference between his cards with a 100% stock BIOS setting and the
> "kapow" hot settings (810 core / 2150Mhz RAM / 2075 shader). It boosted his
> 3DMark06 score by about 350 from stock settings. I didn't bench his card in
> games, just got it stable and running in 3D. Waste of money for IMHO....eBay
> auction 190202247155 if you want to check out the actual cards he got.

PC Performance Plateau. The engine is revvin' but the tranny hasn't a
higher gear.

As if CUDA will fix this utterly shameful mess.

"First of One" <root@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news_6dnbMKVIlPkIDVnZ2dnUVZ_smnnZ2d@giganews.com ...
> Well, the 8800GTS is memory bandwidth constrained at the settings we like
> to play games at. In the best case scenario a 8800GTS with 2150 MHz
> effective RAM is going to perform 10% better than stock. This is like
> going from 60 fps to 66 fps. Did the "hot settings" raise memory voltage
> at all?

Not as far as I could tell.....

Mr.E Solved! wrote:

> CarpathiaMan wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> > Any BFG video card owners here doing their own overclocking?
> >
> > I'm trying to get an idea of how strict they are with the
> > enforcement of their warranty.
> >
> > I've searched around, but I'm finding conflicting answers.
> >
> > Peace.
>
> You broke your video card by OCing, is that your motivation?
>
> Did you ask these groups for advice and limits regarding OCing before
> you went ahead and broke your card, it's not like you don't know how
> to crosspost....let me check the archives...hmm...nothing here
> ...nope you didn't ask!
>
> Phew..aren't you glad you didn't break your card? Now, go ask BFG
> directly what their policy is, and don't break your card. GPU OCing
> is highly overrated these days, it's not like it used to be.

Yes, I've already overclocked my new 9800 GTX card. Technically I did
do some research on the whole topic of overclocking before I ever
ventured into it. I noticed that even companies like EVGA don't mind
if their users do it, and they also go so far as to have a forum topic
dedicated to it on their website. Plus it's a fairly popular thing to
do nowadays. Based on all of this I ended up jumping to the conclusion
that a company like BFG ("The Gamer's Choice") wouldn't mind. I've
seen more than one Newegg review for BFG hardware in which overclocking
is mentioned. Then I discovered through further research that such an
act may void the warranty. So maybe I made a mistake; I don't know.

I have my card only moderately overclocked, so I don't think I'm
stressing it out too much. I initially had it at more aggressive
settings, but it was a little unstable, so I eased back, and now
everything seems fine.

I personally don't think I'm breaking my card by doing this . . . if
the darn thing wasn't working right it would have shown major evidence
of it by now, which it hasn't. I've been doing plenty of gaming with
it since I bought it.

I know the difference between my stock settings and my OC settings are
minimal, and that it only gives me a couple hundred extra points in
3DMark and maybe two or three extra frames per second in my games, but
I just think that half the fun of building and owning your own PC is
optimizing it to get the best performance out of it.

If my card dies on me and BFG refuses to cover it, then I will have
learned a valuable lesson. That's life! I'll deal with it if it
happens and move on.

> I know the difference between my stock settings and my OC settings are
> minimal, and that it only gives me a couple hundred extra points in
> 3DMark and maybe two or three extra frames per second in my games, but
> I just think that half the fun of building and owning your own PC is
> optimizing it to get the best performance out of it.

I agree it's fun, and getting a couple of hundred more in a synthetic
benchmark like 3DMark06 is rewarding to see, but I can assure you that this
does not translate to 2-3 fps more in actual demanding games. In games like
Crysis, it takes going from an 8800GT to an 8800GTX gives about a 3 fps
framerate increase.

"Mr.E Solved!" <Iamsingle@askme.out> wrote in message
news:2oGdnZbG5J51noDVnZ2dnUVZ_u-dnZ2d@comcast.com

[...]

> GPU OCing is
> highly overrated these days, it's not like it used to be.

I would concur with that.