What's the difference between a OC model of a GPU and a regular GPU?

[KNice]

Is there really any difference between the two other than higher out-of-the-box clocks? Does the OC version have a higher overclocking headroom? Take ASUS' GTX 1650 Super for example. ASUS has two cards for the GTX 1650 Super; ASUS Phoenix OC and ASUS Phoenix. They both look exactly the same and have the same cooler on them. 

[tikker]

Usually a bit of a higher base clock and maybe a better cooling solution, better power delivery or higher power limits. Boost clocks are more or less the same for average consumption as that's all governed by GPU Boost for Nvidia, which for recent generations will depend mostly on temperature and then power limits if the temperature headroom is there.

[mariushm]

One model may have the gpu chip clocked a few Mhz higher than the other, or the memory

The components in the VRM (the voltage converter which converts 12v from power supply to 1v..1.5v the gpu chip uses) may be slightly better on the other model, using more efficient components or more of them resulting in better temperatures or better overclocking ability.

The bios may have higher power thresholds .. for ex the gpu chip normally consumes 80w at 100% but may "turbo boost" itself for a short while consuming 100w - an OC version may unlock that 100w limit or set it to a higher value.

[WereCat]

price and base clock... and base clock is irrelevant because the cards will boost themself a lot higher than andvertised on the box anyways

[RONOTHAN##]

On basically everything made in the past 5 years excluding the 6900XT, it's an extra ~50 on the boost clock but thanks to GPU boost, the actual clock speeds will be basically the same. On the 6900 XT, there is actually two versions of that card, one with a 3GHz frequency lock (not that hard to hit on water cooling) and a version with a 4GHz core frequency lock (beyond what you can hit on LN2). Plus the XTXh version (the unlocked core) can also run memory a bit higher clocked as well. 

 

On your cards though, just get whatever the cheapest one is, you aren't gonna notice a difference between the OC and non-OC model, especially on a 1650S.

[KNice]

Thank you everyone!