[fsphiladelphia]

Well, I downloaded the F.E.A.R. demo, and it was extremely playable, however, much moreso in 1024x768 than in 1280x1024.  This is the first program where I had to come back down to earth on the resolution.  The computer absolutely ate the Doom 3 and Quake 4 for lunch.  Since I'm able to get F.E.A.R. (which, from casual observation of this board/googling seems to be a pretty solid benchmark) running extremely well, then I'm satisfied and don't feel the need to push the card any further.  This system should hold up until I'm through grad school for another 2 years, and I'd imagine at that point I'll be looking to upgrade, but for now, smooth sailing.

[Herra Tohtori]

Hm, my card runs the FEAR Extraction Point single player demo playable with all 4xAA and 16xAF and all settings maxed out, but it doesn't let me use 1280x1024 resolution - it only offers 1024x768 res. I don't have FEAR demo at hand right now.

But as the old proverb of jungle goes: "If it ain't broken, Phantom doesn't try to fix it".

So if you don't need more capacity, you don't need to overclock your card... as simple as that.

[fsphiladelphia]

Hm, my card runs the FEAR Extraction Point single player demo playable with all 4xAA and 16xAF and all settings maxed out, but it doesn't let me use 1280x1024 resolution - it only offers 1024x768 res. I don't have FEAR demo at hand right now.

But as the old proverb of jungle goes: "If it ain't broken, Phantom doesn't try to fix it".

So if you don't need more capacity, you don't need to overclock your card... as simple as that.

I agree.  Now, by virtue of the fact that I'm even on a message board such as this in the first place, I am sure you know that there is a part of me that would like to overclock it just to see what it can do.  But for now, I'm holding off.  Maybe if I get really into this FEAR demo and feel a desire to buy the real thing; then I could see overclocking to be able to run that thing at the absolute max (which I _can_ do in playable fashion; just not as playable as 1024x768).  But like I said, for now, smooth sailing.

Still, as I am sure you can relate, yeah, part of me always wants to see just how much power can be wrangled out of any particular computer, my current one included