Can you give me a little bit more
detail about how much more
difficult it is to make these
graphics cards as opposed to
taking a normal NVIDIA GPU and
just changing the [???] on it?
EC: Well I'm not sure if I should
tell you the true story. Our engineers
are very experienced in deciding on
the overclocking circuit and using
digital PWMs. We have a dedicated
engineer who is responsible for
all previous generations of HOF
graphics cards, so on the hardware
side we are almost trouble-free.
The most common issue which
happens in every generation is the
extreme overclocking boundaries.
NVIDIA is conservative in terms
of XOC. They worry about RMAs
of burnt cards and set quite a few
restrictions on the normal cards.
We have to make requests to NVIDIA
for the XOC bounds, to unlock the
power limits, thermal shutdown,
and so on. This process takes a lot
of time, but luckily, we have made
it on all previous generations.
Although NVIDIA is not really
proactive on XOC, they still provide
us with the correct boundaries
eventually. On the current
generations these boundaries
are encrypted, so even us as AIC
partners we have very few options
with changing these parameters.
NVIDIA still has most of the control
of what is and isn't allowed.
Neo: What has the OC Lab
allowed you to do that was
previously difficult before you
had the space and facilities
allowed by the OC Lab? What
advantages has it given you in
terms of designing or planning
the Hall of Fame products?
EC: Mad is our chip consultant and
designer for HOF cards. He gave a lot
of onions on how to design and prep
for the limits. Five years ago, before
we had the OC Lab, Mad did his
testing in Hong Kong, and everything
is more expensive there. Five years
ago Mad spoke to GALAX and asked
if it's possible to start the OC Lab
and we thought it was a great idea.
We had our first OC Lab near the
current building, but it was smaller
and it didn't have the ventilation
design for extreme overclocking.
This is our second lab, and now
we can do our own XOC testing
and organize some small-scale
events where we can invite some
of our friends and other vendors to
come and see how we overclock.
Neo: Mad has said to me that
when you look at overclocking you
don't just look at it as breaking
records, but rather as providing
the best hardware for people. It's
not about winning, but improving
the products that are available.
Does GALAX look at overclocking
the same way, as promoting rather
than just trying to be number one
Issue 46 | 2019 The OverClocker 15