Reliability of UD vs OC vs SOC graphics cards

[motokiume]

Is there a difference in the reliabilty between the Ultra Durable, Overclocked and Super Overclocked graphics cards (within the same chipset type)?

I ask because I have always bought the Ultra Durable range and avoided the OC and SOC models on the belief that if they are overclocked, then they are probably under more strain. However, at the moment I am unable to find any decent UD cards from Gigabyte in stock anywhere, but there are plenty of the OC cards available. I want a fast card, but I am prepared to sacrifice a bit of speed for reliabilty.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi,

To be honest if you overclock anything whether it is processor, memory or graphics card it will have an impact on it's longevity and heat emitted. The amount of time that it is reduced by would be directly related to the amount of overclock. In practice this probably won't affect you as most components are discarded before they stop working. Obviously this will also to some extent effect the reliability too but the chances are that it wouldn't be measureable. The OC done by companies on their products isn't usually that great and more of a marketing excersize than for the increased performance in my view.

[motokiume]

Thanks for the reply Dark Mantis,

So if I understand correctly, if I don't do any additional overclocking, it should make no difference at all to the life of the card.

One other thing, do you know if Gigabyte "cherry-pick" the GPU and/or memory that they use for the OC and SOC ranges?

[Dark Mantis]

In theory all companies "Cherry pick" the best chips for their OC cards but in reality I don't think that is the case at all. I think it is far more likely that the chips are just tested before installation and if they don't make the grade then they are not used. A kind of cherry picking but not to the extent where they literally pick out the best chips from a batch.