gfx card brand superiority

[Rambusted]

With power supplies the brand can mean a lot in regard to quality. Does the same hold true for gfx cards? Is a power color as good as an xfx if they are clocked the same and running the same chipset? Is evga the best nvidia partner. Do u guys even consider the brand or is price really all that matters?

 

[RavenSEAL]

I always buy Sapphire AMD cards, they have an excellent track record

 

[DominionSeraph]

Brand means far less.

With PSU's you're looking at the difference between 98% lasting you 3 years+ and 50% failing within 6 months. With GPU's it looks to be more the difference between 1% and maybe 8% RMA.

 

[tweakboy]

EVGA or
ASUS

thx, gl

 

[skipsneeky2]

Always have been a Evga guy,from the 8800gts 512mb that is still kicking in a friends rig to the gtx280 to the gtx295 to a gtx580 all of them never gave me issues,lost the gtx580 due to a psu last year but my current gpu of choice is a evga gtx560 and none of the cards ever gave me a single issue.

 

[Mars999]

Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI, Sapphire are my choices anymore now that BFG is dead

 

[peonyu]

Brands I have had experience with and whether it was good or not -

Sapphire: Good
Diamond: Mixed. Cards seemed ok, but a rebate with them took 6 months [they said it would be 3 at most]. Considering the large time gap with the Rebate, a RMA is not something I would like to ever do with them.
XFX: Have one of their cards now, no rebate or RMA so I cant say. People tout their name though.

MSI: Gtx 570 burned out in 5 hours - bad experience - took 4 months for them to finally send me a replacement.
Zotac: Good. Card died after 5 months, sent it back to them and they sent me a new one, took 2 weeks time total. Make sure your card is registered and buy from a reputable company and NP.
Evga: Mostly good. I had a 295 card go bad and they sent me a faulty 480 as a replacement...The bad part ? They said the lifetime warranty on my 295 was only for the 295. So it took a looooong battle with the reps to get a working 295 [or 480 if they wanted to send me one instead, though since I never asked for a 480 the lifetime warranty should extend to it]. Fair ? I didn't think so.

Just my 2c.

Personally for AMD I go Sapphire or XFX.
Nvidia - Zotac or Evga [despite the bad experience it did get resolved].

 

[Rambusted]

Any notoriously bad brands, like a diablotek PSU in gpu form?

 

[peonyu]

Not really. GPU's can be hit or miss from any company since they all come from the same place. It really boils down to Warranty and the ease of having a RMA go through without much hassle. All of the companies people listed in this thread are good. The only companies to avoid are Chinese ones, but their garbage seems limited to Ebay [thank god].

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Everyone company messes up from time to time.

MSI was slow, the two times I had to RMA mobo's to them.

Asus was fast the first time I sent a AM2+ board to them, the second time it took them six months to get me a replacement, which had broken ram dimms... I just kept it though as I didn't want to wait a year on an RMA... lol

 

[Barfo]

I've had good experience with ASUS, Sapphire, ATI and Visiontek.

 

[blastingcap]

Any notoriously bad brands, like a diablotek PSU in gpu form?

Diamond has a bad rep but I can't speak from experience

Personally I only trust 3DFX cards.

 

[wand3r3r]

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1418072&mpage=1&print=true

Several companies has changed their warranty policies as of late. XFX dropped the transferable warranty to the 2nd owner. If you don't register you only get a 2 year warranty.

Sapphire only has a 2 year warranty as well...

The other companies have a mix of ~3 year warranties, with Diamond having a 5year but most are tied to the original owner.

Asus and MSI seem to be the only certain choices tied to the card, not the original owner. MSI is the only one that allows overclocking, the others void a warranty.

Compiled a list in a spreadsheet here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArCtGVODPUTtdEdEUjRiSFdyckZ1Q1dGNUI3bkd5R1E

 

[Arkadrel]

Quality wise Id say XFX are near buttom of the stack.
However they used to have great warrenties.

Quality wise, ei components and cooling solutions, id put PowerColour above XFX.

I think Asus, Gigabyte, MSI all make higher quality products.. (they cost more as well usually).

I like Sapphire, its a good middle ground, quality is good and price isnt insane.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I don't buy unless it is a lifetime warranty, and I can change the heatsink out and keep the warranty. Transferrable is a plus.

Aside from my VisionTek 5970, I think I've owned eVGA for my last...6/7 nVidia GPUs:
GTX580
GTX280
8800 GTS 640MB
8800 GTS 512MB (second PC)
7800GT
5900 Ultra

I've got a 6800 Ultra in there from PNY. Holy hell, the 6800 was a mess BIOS wise.

 

[MBentz]

eVGA currently, Leadtek, ASUS, MSI and VisionTek in the past.

I would go for the best warranty at this point.

 

[djnsmith7]

There are things I don't like about Evga as a company (shady Step Up practices), but they make quality products.

For AMD, I bought my first pair of MSI cards (7970s), but I've owned Sapphire, VisionTek & Diamond products previously & they worked great.

For PSU's, I've have good luck with Silverstone modular units & have another on order.

Personally, yes, the brand makes a big difference, as there are brands on both sides I wouldn't consider buying. On the GPU side, Power Color & PNY are the first to come to mind. For PSU's, the first brand that comes to mind is Ultra.

It just depends on who you ask.

 

[Rambusted]

thanks for the replies all, good info. I am currently running a visiontek and its rock solid, in the past I have owned 3dfx, pny, sapphire, leadtek, and I really havent had any issues with any of them. Matter of fact I have a voodoo 5 5500 pci in the original box and packing material that i used for quite awhile and I bet it would still work.

 

[Stuka87]

I have owned ATI (ATI Branded Cards), PowerColor (AMD), Sapphire (AMD), MSI (AMD), eVGA (nVidia), Palit (nVidia) and one ASUS (nVidia).

This doesn't count pre-2001 cards, but most of those brands don't exist anymore.

And really, as far as reliability goes I have not noticed any difference. Now I can tell build quality difference between some of them. Mostly in the coolers used by each of them.

My current card is a PowerColor and I would rate the quality of it to be quite good. Its been running for 2 years solid and the fan is still quiet, no bearing rumble or the like.

I say look at specs and reviews, and then choose what you like.

 

[superjim]

Like others, I've owned many brands and luckily never had to RMA a single one. XFX was the king of warranties up until recently. My decision is based on warranty, non-reference cooling and price.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

For GPUs brand only matters as far as warrenty and customer service is concerned.

That and the cooler if the cooler is non-reference. If the cooler is reference then there is even less difference.

 

[bononos]

I remembered reading that lifetime warranties may only be referring to the lifetime of the product cycle (not the lifetime of the card in the owners possession). So the warranty ends if XFX stops selling say the 5850 2 yrs down the road.

 

[thilanliyan]

I have had to do an RMA with Gigabyte and XFX and they were both pretty good. I have only ever had one DOA product, and was an Asus AM3+ m/b.

 

[Smartazz]

Owned 4 evga cards and an XFX card. Just be sure to register them for lifetime warranties. Anyone know when XFX started requiring registration for lifetime warranties? I didn't with this 6870, but I did buy it about a year ago.

 

[Jacky60]

Sapphire, Asus, XFX use pretty crap components these days and their warranties seem to have been downgraded-understandable I guess. Warranty should be 3 years and transferable.