Non OC Edition GPUs??

[Benkin]

What are the best non OC edition GPUs? I can only seem to find OC edition GPUs, I'd rather OC the card myself and not pay $30 extra for factory OC.

[LogicWeasel]

When it comes to not-overpaying for a GPU, I look mainly for the traits:

 

-not stock or reference cooler/Founders (too loud / cooling ability not ideal enough in most cases)

-not low profile (goes with cooling, if it's not a HTPC or OEM case, not worth the trade-offs unless it costs way less)

-not a brand that has terrible support or non-native to my country (so avoiding a Chinese GPU brand if you're US because you may not get a warranty)

-not the cut-down, low-power, or lower-RAM model (i.e. - the GTX 1060 3GB vs 6GB)

 

Ideally once you've filtered all those factors out, as long as it has a good cooling design, it's a viable pick.  At that point I pick the cheapest one, or the one that looks coolest at that point, and then you typically cannot go wrong.

[Benkin]

6 hours ago, LogicWeasel said:

When it comes to not-overpaying for a GPU, I look mainly for the traits:

 

-not stock or reference cooler/Founders (too loud / cooling ability not ideal enough in most cases)

-not low profile (goes with cooling, if it's not a HTPC or OEM case, not worth the trade-offs unless it costs way less)

-not a brand that has terrible support or non-native to my country (so avoiding a Chinese GPU brand if you're US because you may not get a warranty)

-not the cut-down, low-power, or lower-RAM model (i.e. - the GTX 1060 3GB vs 6GB)

 

Ideally once you've filtered all those factors out, as long as it has a good cooling design, it's a viable pick.  At that point I pick the cheapest one, or the one that looks coolest at that point, and then you typically cannot go wrong.

I thought the there was a bigger point in staying away from factory overclocked cards, as Linus mentioned once. They aren't really worth the money at medium to high end range? And you can't overclock an OC edition card further, as well as voltage being locked, from what I've heard on OC edition cards.

 

And if you go to https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/ almost all of them are OC edition cards.

[LogicWeasel]

14 hours ago, Benkin said:

I thought the there was a bigger point in staying away from factory overclocked cards, as Linus mentioned once. They aren't really worth the money at medium to high end range? And you can't overclock an OC edition card further, as well as voltage being locked, from what I've heard on OC edition cards.

 

And if you go to https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/ almost all of them are OC edition cards.

I feel like you may be taking some info out of context.  Do you have a link to the video you're referring to?  I'm not familiar with factory OC cards having more restrictions than a garden-variety graphics card. 

 

As far PcPartPicker's GPU listings, welcome to the "Gaming" GPU market, they want to attract buyers by showing words like "Superclocked" and "Extreme Edition" in the names.

 

If you're worried about being able to overclock your GPU, look at specific model reviews from sites that test overclock (but as usual YMMV and silicon lottery rules apply).

 

If you're worried about not-overpaying for a GPU that doesn't need an OC, just use the guidelines I put above, as you'll find a GPU that'll be fine.

[Coaxialgamer]

Basically all cards have an OC now.

It's worth staying away from the heavily overclocked , highly binned cards with massive coolers if you just want a better value and are overclocking on air .Those typically have a decent markup , such as EVGA's classified cards or MSI lightning .

Otherwise , the normal cards withan OC of less than 10 % are generally not more expensive than stock cards .