I thought something must be off. It looks like the coolers are the same so you may as well do the overclock yourself.
LOL, I thought it was me misreading the thread... You sir have hit the nail on the head re: warranty. some are willing to take the risk, overclock things then RMA them if they break. They usually blah it with manufacturer and say "no, I haven't overclocked it". Others don't want the hassle. Going by the GTX460 overclocking article, it has huge overclocking headroom so it sounds safe to overclock it a bit with little risk of bricking it. I would suggest that you could overclock the normal one to the same speeds as the Platinum version with very little risk of killing it. (Disclaimer: you would be doing this at your own risk.) ...just thought I'd get that last part in.
... hit another wall Found two cheaper 460s... EVGA Innovision 3d Both have: Core clock - 675MHz Shader clock - 1350MHz Whereas the Palit has: Core clock - 700MHZ and Shader clock 1400MHz. The EVGA and Innov3D are £7-£10 cheaper. Is an extra 7- 10 pounds to get the Palit worth it to get an extra 25MHz of core clock and 50MHz of shader clock?
The price of the Palit has come down at dabs to £180, but... In the name it says best value. This normally means it is the shops own revision and is not as good quality. However, the picure states that it is a Palit... Do you think if I bought it, it would receive some cheap rubbsih, or the official Palit GTX 460? For an extra £1, I can buy it at Scan where it definitely is a Palit. But I just like to get the best deal possible :] I guess if I order from dabs and find it isnt the Palit, I could go all american on their ass and file a lawsuit for misleading me.
Personally i'd get the evga one at £170 or there is this one cooler is slightly better i've heard but can be very noisy, is factory overclocked aswell. Also the evga are out of stock as is the msi at aria but i don't think they have ever been instock since the card is new so i predict they should come instock within a few weeks really.