TheOverclocker Issue 42 | Page 27

GALAX SHOULD BE FAMILIAR TO EVERYONE READING THIS . THE BRAND HAS STEADILY GROWN TO BECOME AN ENTHUSIAST FAVORITE AND GARNERED SOME RESPECT

FROM THE OVERCLOCKING COMMUNITY .

Moreover , GALAX has continued to be an enthusiast brand , more specifically extreme overclocking even when other vendors turned away . GALAX has committed itself with the HOF series of products and in particular the graphics cards , one of which I tried out for this editorial .

As much as one appreciates the overclocking products from GALAX , it would all be for naught if it was just lip service . There are several examples one could make of companies that spoke the word overclocking , but did little else . This isn ’ t the case here and a prime example is how revered the HOF DDR4 overclocking memory has become . While I ’ ve no personal experience with the memory , I ’ ve seen the results of what it ’ s capable of and it ’ s nothing short of incredible . Further proof that at the very least , for GALAX - they are serious about overclocking and in one way or another it is a working strategy for the brand .

All that aside , what this editorial is about is the GALAX GTX 1080 Ti HOF OC LAB Edition . It ’ s a mouthful and there ’ s no reason to call it that , so it ’ s just the HOF from here on in . An important graphics card because it is only one of two that ’ s truly LN2 ready out the box . For sure you could include the ROG STRIX 1080 Ti in there , but it ’ s not in the same league as the HOF and KPE card . So realistically your only two options for LN2 overclocking come down to these .

As such , the argument for the HOF isn ’ t whether it ’ s better than the competing KPE card or not , but rather which card are you willing to take a chance on . Up until you have tried both , it ’ ll be very difficult to discern which of the cards is better . While HWBOT will give you some indication , you ’ ll also see that the HOF has some seriously impressive clock speed achievements , some well over the 2,600MHz mark . At which point it is going to be a competition between the actual overclockers and perhaps less so the hardware .

Either way , that isn ’ t something that one could even attempt to have an objective analysis about because while I spent a good week with the HOF , I ’ ve not done so with the other card and any such comparisons between them would not be credible .

What I can tell you about the HOF though is that it is a seriously impressive card , both visually and of course in its LN2 overclocking potential .

Just in case you ’ ve not done any LN2 overclocking on a GPU before or simply choose to stick to air or liquid cooling . This has been said before in this magazine , but must be repeated and that is – these graphics cards are built for LN2 overclocking . This is the only place where one can truly discern the difference between graphics card designs , right at the egde .

In other words , where air cooling and liquid cooling is concerned , you ’ re going to have the same limits as you would on the other “ regular ” card . The limits are in the silicon and one could say there are a number of mechanisms and schemes that NVIDIA bakes in which result in this fairly constant limit across cards . You will find the exceptions of course , but for the most part the 1080 Ti GPUs all stop at around 2050MHz GPU clock limit , just like this sample . Regardless of the voltage , one applied , this was the limit and there was no changing it . Identical to other GTX 1080 Ti cards as well . Of course some will hit 2075MHz perhaps even 2,100MHz , but that is luck of the draw and has nothing to do with the component selection , power design etc . of the card . So be warned that while this would be a fantastic card

Issue 42 | 2017 The OverClocker 27