Overclocking plays a vastly different role in the computer industry today than it did 10 years ago, a time when overclockers were considered outlaws by manufacturers. Back then even mentioning overclocking could void your warranty and industry leaders like Intel were working to eliminate it all together.
In contrast, nowadays processor and graphics cards manufacturers have embraced the practice, touting high "overclockability" as a feature and in the process using it to sell enthusiast oriented products at a premium.
Here"s one scenario that begs the question of whether overclocking is worth it... You go out to buy a new graphics card, set a budget, and it"d seem that for another $30-60 you can always go with the next step up that performs a little better. Or, you could save those extra dollars, go for the budget model and overclock it and basically match the next step up"s performance.
With that in mind, we have hand-picked three graphics cards that represent select price ranges to see just how much extra value can be obtained through overclocking. For the $100+ range we have the Radeon HD 6750, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti has been used to represent the $200+ market. Then at the top of the food chain we have the Radeon HD 6970 going for $300 and up.
Read: Graphics Card Overclocking, Is It Really Worth It?
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