I concur... but I feel if a consumer is savvy enough to buy a stand alone videocard, and put it in their computer, uninstall drivers etc., trying to get the max performance out of a game, then they are savvy enough to overclock the card.
GAMING card consumers are different from non-gaming card consumers. Those who buy cards to surf the net/ do some HD movie playback will not overclock a card - they are by far the majority of consumers. But those who want the best perfromance for the money in a game will - they are the minority - but also the ones who buy $150-500 videocards.
So yes while most consumers who buy discrete graphics cards are not necessarily gamers (regular users, OEMs, System builders, IT guys), buy cheaper cards, and do not overclock them - the majority of people who read the reviews and want a gaming card do OC.
I could be wrong
EDIT: whoa... sorry to hear that about your 260... I've build 3 systems for people so far using the 260's, 2 SLI and one normal. All of them have OC'd to at least 700MHz+ core and 1458shaders. There are definitely bad clockers out there though. Maybe overclocking past 285 performance is a bit of a stretch... better 280 performance. fixed.
The majority of consumers, even the majority of gaming consumers, do not overclock their cards. They don't want voided warranties, and they don't want the risk of killing a part. It isn't a matter of them not being capable, it is a matter of them just not wanting to do it.
And my card, with the BIOS volt mod, did 700MHz+, but that certainly didn't match stock GTX285 performance. In fact it did 725MHz, I forget the shaders but they were at whatever that would be linked with the core. The problem is the memory would only do 1150Mhz. Memory bandwidth wasn't even close to the GTX280's, and even if it was, the core is still weaker in terms of performance, close but still weaker.
See thats the thing, Nvidia cards have to be overclocked voiding their waranty to reach the performance of ATI cards...
No they don't. The stock nVidia cards outperform the stock ATi cards. The GTX260 outperforms the HD4870, and the GTX260 216 makes the lead even bigger. The 9800GTX matches the HD4850, and the 9800GTX+ makes the gap even bigger. The 9800GT matches the HD4830. The GTX295 outperforms the HD4870x2, hands down. In the mid and low range, the 9600GT easily outperforms the HD4670, and the 9500GT close to doubles the HD4550's performance.
And another major misconception is that overclocking voids the warranty, it doesn't, as long as you don't kill the card by overclocking it, and even then most manufacturers will still replace the card if you do. And that goes back to what phanbuey said, most people do believe overclocking voids the warranty, and they don't want to do it. The enthusiasts like us, and the people we associate with, are a different bread from the majority of consumers.
Nvidia clocks are hilarious... They are always lower than ATI's
Always you say? Take a look at the shader clocks of nVidia's cards against ATi's.
GTX295: 1242MHz
HD4870x2: 750MHz
And the shaders are the work horse in current generation cards.
and they whoop its azz at those.
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