Should there be "Black Edition" Graphics Cards?

[El_Mayo]

Normal Graphics cards for those who don't overclock (cheaper)
and black edition cards or extreme versions for those who do
just like CPUs

[largon]

Of course not!

[Assassin48]

it doesn't matter because you can still oc a non black edition processor

and for gpu it can be flashed to a different bios which would make them lose proft

[wolf]

Meh is what i say. and get this for an example.

pricing taken from www.pccasegear.com

Stock Radeon HD4890 - $325-380 = great value
XFX HD4890 BE - $535.00 - WTF XFX.... NO

i mean seriously, i hate to be the n00b who thinks since it costs a good 2/3 more than a stock model, it must be another 2/3 better.

At this price there are MANY MANY better options than this BE gfx card, imo that sale price is utterly and staggeringly retarded.

remember the articles about HD4770 CF besting a HD4890? well for the cost of this retarded BE, you can get 3x4770 and tri-fire your way to laughing at XFX.

dont get me wrong XFX are great, greats cards, great warranties, but really, that cost is unreasonable, i think most ppl will agree.

[From_Nowhere]

I'd prefer cheaper OC edition cards that have stock clocks, voltage tweak, no cooler (put your own after market cooler on it), and A LOT of overclocking headroom.

[BumbleBee]

yeah but some overclock editions come with different bundles and memory.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by From_Nowhere

I'd prefer cheaper OC edition cards that have stock clocks, voltage tweak, no cooler (put your own after market cooler on it), and A LOT of overclocking headroom.

i really like that idea, pick high binning chips, put them on custom pcb's with volt tweaks, and no cooling solution at all.

now THATS something for the enthusiasts out there which, by and large, change the cooler on a card no matter what.

i didn't see much be gpu's :\

[Assassin48]

if they did that then the amount of rmas would be so great

People thinking I don't need a cooler on this card then the others I broke something on the card installing a cooler

Its just too much of a risk

[KieranD]

its gotten bogged down one with more ram then that one on an oc then one with a new cooler and an oc version of that fuck sake its all to much

i think that its not BE gpus exactly but just the differnt versions, like superclocked and overclocked and supercharged ect

far to many its like one company evga has several gtx 260 whats the pont its all the SAME card

as for the non cooling on the card is it so hard to take off a cooler? i mean its so that they dont need to make 2 version of a card that already has 5 versions, one with stock cooling one without

[wolf]

well if they made one with no stock cooling solution whatsoever, you would think the price could be slightly down.

perhaps they could weigh up a slightly better binned core against the cost of a cooler and sell them at the same price, the enthusiast model, built to custom cool and overclock, and the stock (aka n00bs) model, which can overclock but has a normal binning core and perhaps no vmod options, and of course a stock cooler.

[Assassin48]

some have different PCB layouts others have different components

Then you get the combination of the above

I say 2 versions only when you need to change something replace 1 of the version this way people arent getting confused by the same card

[KieranD]

its all digital voltage regulation now so you can use software to change the voltage

i would buy whatever the fuck was the cheapest but i dont buy crap

[largon]

I'd love if I could buy "tray" cards in retail same way as I can buy tray CPUs.
No cooler. No bundle. Just the card in a plain brown cardboard box. I for one never, ever, use the stock cooler so for me it's worthless.

Originally Posted by Assassin48

if they did that then the amount of rmas would be so great

People thinking I don't need a cooler on this card then the others I broke something on the card installing a cooler

Its just too much of a risk

I have never heard of anyone who would have killed a tray CPU by thinking it doesn't need cooling and running it without one. It would be no different with VGAs.

[Ramo1203]

Yeah I love that idea of "tray" cards. The bundle is soo useless sometimes, who installs the driver from the CD?? And I have so much of those DVI to VGA things I never use. This would make the price go down.

[hat]

Only if the GPU has an unlocked multiplier... oh yeah... gpus don't have multipliers...

[El_Mayo]

Originally Posted by hat

Only if the GPU has an unlocked multiplier... oh yeah... gpus don't have multipliers...

well why didn't someone say that in the beginning!

[douglatins]

like CPUs?? and that already exists man, like BE XFX, FTW EVGA etc, but they get the name for being factory OCed and premium support

[IINexusII]

sometimes oc'd or black edition stuff is cheaper than normal ones here in the uk

[Flyordie]

hmm... maybe it could work...
Use the BEST components available... cherry pick the dies... and tack on a 20% price increase over the stock setup.

[kurosagi01]

hmm well there is a "black edition" graphics card now..its by XFX

[phanbuey]

TOXIC and ATOMIC cards make sense beacuse of the higher quality coolers, alot of time that means cooler card = higher OC and less annoying to use.

BE cards are stock cards that may or may not have cherry picked GPU's on them. They OC a few % above, on average, than non cherry picked GPU's. If you get just a reference card, it very well may OC higher. So no... they should not exist, there is nothing different about them except for the word "black".

[Geofrancis]

they should have graphics card that have the vcore unlocked i know with the hd4850/70's you can use ati tray tools to up the core voltage by a fraction. if they would relese a card that would let you up the core and ram voltage to ridiculous levels without voltmods like you can do with a motherboard. my dfi board lets me put 2v into the cpu!

[Tatty_One]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

TOXIC and ATOMIC cards make sense beacuse of the higher quality coolers, alot of time that means cooler card = higher OC and less annoying to use.

BE cards are stock cards that may or may not have cherry picked GPU's on them. They OC a few % above, on average, than non cherry picked GPU's. If you get just a reference card, it very well may OC higher. So no... they should not exist, there is nothing different about them except for the word "black".

Yeah, I have just bought a 4890 Toxic @ £190 it's clocked at 960mhz out of the box, same cooler as the Atomic which is clocked at 1000mhz but from what I have seen, all reviews on Toxics overclock beyond 1000mhz, I only found one Atomic in the UK to buy and that was £249!

They also do the VaporX, thats only clocked at 870mhz but most will reach near to or around 1000mhz, cooling not quite as good though as Atomic and Toxic as Sapphire have added heatpipes to their Vapour Chamber cooling for those 2, strangely though, the VaporX is the cheapest out of the 3 but comes with more display port options and has better PWM's.

I bought this card over the 1000Mhz XFX Black Edition for the cooler only, the XFX has the stock cooler that has just got a faster fan speed profile.... I already have 2 vacum cleaners at home.... I dont need a third!

[El_Mayo]

Originally Posted by Geofrancis

they should have graphics card that have the vcore unlocked i know with the hd4850/70's you can use ati tray tools to up the core voltage by a fraction. if they would relese a card that would let you up the core and ram voltage to ridiculous levels without voltmods like you can do with a motherboard. my dfi board lets me put 2v into the cpu!

i do not understand what you're talking about