Any quality difference between built by ATI cards and 3rd part brands that use ATI chipsets?

[Link19]

Is there any benifit to buying a built by ATI Radeon X800 XT video card as opposed to buying a 3rd party brand Radeon X800 XT like Sapphire or Gigabyte for instance? Any quality differences?

 

[Link19]

BUMP

 

[MDE]

None if at all. Most "Built by ATI" cards (as well as a LOT of ATI-based cards) are actually made by Sapphire. I'd concentrate more on the warranty and cooling on the cards (noise vs performance).

 

[bendixG15]

Here's another opinion....
If you ever try to sell a radeon card,
you'll get more money for the "Built By ATI" than the 3rd party guys....
Its called "Perceived Quality"

 

[Mrvile]

The only difference is usually in the cooling. Third parties use the same exact GPU chip and card, they usually just use different fans, throw in some extra software and charge you a hundred more bucks. Your choice. But like MDE said, the cooling is different between some cards, so you might wanna take that into consideration if you really need to. Your best bet is still the cheapest one you can find though.

 

[imported_whatever]

Originally posted by: Mrvile
Your best bet is still the cheapest one you can find though.

I do NOT agree with this. More expensive cards will frequently overclock better, as the manufacturer will use higher quality components. For ATI cards, go with BBA or Sapphire.

 

[Budman]

Video cards do not use chipsets,motherboards use chip sets northbridge & southbridge being a SET of chips.


Video cards use GPU/VPU.

 

[Budman]

DP

 

[Auric]

Unless there is a specific known advantage to a particular model like wider bus or unlockable pixel piplelines, I would generally stick with bare Sapphire cards for best value with top quality (ATI reference).

See my post at the end of this thread for evidence of a crappy third party card in disguise.

 

[WobbleWobble]

I know ATI's RMA process is excellent. I'm not quite sure about the other brands though.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
I know ATI's RMA process is excellent. I'm not quite sure about the other brands though.

shapphire is pretty crappy. last time it too them 2 months to get me a new card and it was doa.

so total 3 months without a card,at least they upgraded me from a 9800 to a 9800pro with XT core.