This thread was inspired by Axloz post of a few days ago.
Simple question- how much faith do you put in high end brand name graphics cards, versus the standard brands or even generic boards?
Personally I am extremely picky about the specific brand I purchase from.
Primarily that comes straight down to 2D visual quality, and quality of manufacture.
Overclocking is a small factor, but in my experience generally depends significantly more on the yield of the chip then on sheer cooling, or voltage or any other tweaks the individual manufacturer may apply.
Having decently high rated DRAM is somewhat important though.
But even then, overclockability of the DRAM can depend as much if not more so on voltage and trace layouts then the actual rated speed of the DRAM.
2D visual quality, and quality of manufacture is where I put the most weight in terms of which graphics card of any given chip to purchase.
Personally I'd never dream of trusting to the generic brands.... regardless of how cheap they may be, I've never found them to be worth a damn when it comes to long term reliability. Most of the time they seldom last even their warranty period.
The lower end brand names like MSI/PNY/e-VGA\Abit etc arent too bad, respectable reliability and generally decent RAM.
2D quality is almost always lacking in my experience though, reliability is generally solid for at least a few years though.
Nonetheless, I've virtually always found myself more then willing to pay an extra $30-50 for a better brand... even if that means buying a weaker graphics card then I might be able to get from a more typical manufacturer at a similar price point.
VisionTek, and Leaktek I've always held in high regard. The same holds true for ATi's own graphics cards.
I've seldom found them to slouch in terms of quality... even if they arent usually as good as some in terms of overclocking. VisionTek especially tends to fall behind in overclockability.
Gainward is a viable option as well, and especially attractive as their not as costly as the other "high end" brands while retaining the visual quality, overclockability and at least part of the quality of manufacture.
Unfortunately... their RMA/tech support stinks, and quality of manufacture while better then most isnt quite as good as some others.
They were once known primarily for overclocking, but even there their latest boards havent been as impressive as they once were.
Hercules/Guillemott once held the lofty position as one of the most reputable manufacturers, but ever since the latter days of the GF2 they've taken a sharp dive in quality.
Their GF2 Ultra, MX400, and GF3's never impressed me in terms of visual quality, or reliability.
Their GTS had the quality of manufacture they were once known for, but lacked the visual quality.
Overclockability has seemingly become poor at best from most of their boards... even the ones that have very highly rated RAM.
A typically costly brand that is now little better then the average.
Its unfortunate, as their parent company Guillemott certainly still posesses a number of extremely talented employees.
Nor do they lack the resources necessary to manufacture an impressive board.
The desire to do seems to have disappeared however.
PNY/MSI, and recently Saphire hold the crown for the more mainstream vendors.
While not approaching the quality of Leadtek etc, their quite good for most.
All of the above, expecially PNY have improved with each generation in terms of quality of manufacture. Overclockability... at least with PNY/MSI if not so much for Saphire is also quite good.
MSI/PNY don't quite posess the image quality of some of the more repuatble brands however, Saphire while lacking the quality of manufacture generally manages pretty good 2D quality though.
An outlier that is worth mentioning is AOpen.... they get precious little attention in the 3D field but they have both the resources and the talent to design an extremely solid board.
Sadly, similar to Guillemot they've never shown the desire to do so.
Overclockability is occasionally remarkably good though, and they are most definitely the only manufacture I have ever seen to open up the BIOS for tweaking.
Indeed, on occasion they've gone so far as to allow users to alter the voltage seen by the GPU and DRAM.
There's my quick roundup of my opinion on a few manufacturers. How do the rest of you view the debate between generic/stand brand and "high" end brand graphics cards?
Simple question- how much faith do you put in high end brand name graphics cards, versus the standard brands or even generic boards?
Personally I am extremely picky about the specific brand I purchase from.
Primarily that comes straight down to 2D visual quality, and quality of manufacture.
Overclocking is a small factor, but in my experience generally depends significantly more on the yield of the chip then on sheer cooling, or voltage or any other tweaks the individual manufacturer may apply.
Having decently high rated DRAM is somewhat important though.
But even then, overclockability of the DRAM can depend as much if not more so on voltage and trace layouts then the actual rated speed of the DRAM.
2D visual quality, and quality of manufacture is where I put the most weight in terms of which graphics card of any given chip to purchase.
Personally I'd never dream of trusting to the generic brands.... regardless of how cheap they may be, I've never found them to be worth a damn when it comes to long term reliability. Most of the time they seldom last even their warranty period.
The lower end brand names like MSI/PNY/e-VGA\Abit etc arent too bad, respectable reliability and generally decent RAM.
2D quality is almost always lacking in my experience though, reliability is generally solid for at least a few years though.
Nonetheless, I've virtually always found myself more then willing to pay an extra $30-50 for a better brand... even if that means buying a weaker graphics card then I might be able to get from a more typical manufacturer at a similar price point.
VisionTek, and Leaktek I've always held in high regard. The same holds true for ATi's own graphics cards.
I've seldom found them to slouch in terms of quality... even if they arent usually as good as some in terms of overclocking. VisionTek especially tends to fall behind in overclockability.
Gainward is a viable option as well, and especially attractive as their not as costly as the other "high end" brands while retaining the visual quality, overclockability and at least part of the quality of manufacture.
Unfortunately... their RMA/tech support stinks, and quality of manufacture while better then most isnt quite as good as some others.
They were once known primarily for overclocking, but even there their latest boards havent been as impressive as they once were.
Hercules/Guillemott once held the lofty position as one of the most reputable manufacturers, but ever since the latter days of the GF2 they've taken a sharp dive in quality.
Their GF2 Ultra, MX400, and GF3's never impressed me in terms of visual quality, or reliability.
Their GTS had the quality of manufacture they were once known for, but lacked the visual quality.
Overclockability has seemingly become poor at best from most of their boards... even the ones that have very highly rated RAM.
A typically costly brand that is now little better then the average.
Its unfortunate, as their parent company Guillemott certainly still posesses a number of extremely talented employees.
Nor do they lack the resources necessary to manufacture an impressive board.
The desire to do seems to have disappeared however.
PNY/MSI, and recently Saphire hold the crown for the more mainstream vendors.
While not approaching the quality of Leadtek etc, their quite good for most.
All of the above, expecially PNY have improved with each generation in terms of quality of manufacture. Overclockability... at least with PNY/MSI if not so much for Saphire is also quite good.
MSI/PNY don't quite posess the image quality of some of the more repuatble brands however, Saphire while lacking the quality of manufacture generally manages pretty good 2D quality though.
An outlier that is worth mentioning is AOpen.... they get precious little attention in the 3D field but they have both the resources and the talent to design an extremely solid board.
Sadly, similar to Guillemot they've never shown the desire to do so.
Overclockability is occasionally remarkably good though, and they are most definitely the only manufacture I have ever seen to open up the BIOS for tweaking.
Indeed, on occasion they've gone so far as to allow users to alter the voltage seen by the GPU and DRAM.
There's my quick roundup of my opinion on a few manufacturers. How do the rest of you view the debate between generic/stand brand and "high" end brand graphics cards?
).... the 2d quality doesn't suck, i was actually surprised, i went from a Radeon to this, and i saw a slight quality drop.... at 16x12x85 though 
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