In the bad old days, you'd buy a video card that ran at some standard clock frequency. The core clock was the core clock, the memory clock was the memory clock, and that was that.
Then a couple of companies decided to try their hands at selling and supporting video cards clocked higher than the reference clocks. In a commodity market, selling an overclocked card was one way to eke out a little more profit margin and distinguish yourself from the competition. At first, the GPU makers frowned on this, but not for long. In fact, Nvidia and ATI have begun embracing the idea. They allow companies that resell cards, that are often indistinguishable from each other, to compete on something other than software bundles and prices.
When Nvidia launched the 8800 GT, they told the press they left lots of headroom in the card, so card makers could, if they so desired, pump up clock rates and give buyers a little more value. Of course, that added value comes at an extra cost. As we noted in our recent 8800 GT roundup, the factory overclocked cards cost quite a bit more than the standard cards. These higher clock rates can make a big difference in some games, and less so in others.
Of course, you can simply take control of the situation by overclocking the card yourself. This article shows you just how to do that.
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