Is there really much difference between different manufacturers Video Cards?

philosofool

Senior member
Nov 3, 2008
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I think I'm going to get a 4GB RX 480. This will be for some gaming. I love Very High/Ultra settings, but as long as it's mostly smooth, I can stand 40 fps. I think the card will do great for 1080p, and should do many games in 1440 when I upgrade my monitor before 2018.

Here's the main question though: is there any reason to think that I would get $25 worth of value from a Saphire Nitro+ as opposed to an MSI Armor? I'm not going to bother with overclocking. It just seems like the MSI card, $25 cheaper, is a better buy. A 1% increase in clock speed is never, ever going to get noticed.
 

PrincessFrosty

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Feb 13, 2008
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Typically very little, they take reference boards and mostly stick with that, the biggest difference is the cooling solutions they apply to the card, these can vary a lot and that decides how cool it will run, how silent and how much overclocking headroom you'll get. It's not that uncommon to see pre-overclocked models crop up but the base overclocks are normally tiny and not worth worrying about. Very occasionally you'll see models with more memory or with different power/VRM setup but that's extremely rare and more on the high end cards where enthusiasts are looking for extreme overclocks.
 

Ranulf

Platinum Member
Jul 18, 2001
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Yes and no. From what I've experienced with the 480 cards, not really. I wouldn't pay the extra money again for a Nitro though after the card I've gotten.
 

daxzy

Senior member
Dec 22, 2013
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Really? Back in the old days, when everything was based on literally the same reference design that was true. But recently, I don't think so. Look at the EVGA debacle with improperly cooled VRM's. Or take the Gigabyte G1 and MSI Gaming X RX 480 review from guru3d.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/gigabyte-radeon-rx-480-g1-gaming-review,1.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-radeon-rx-480-gaming-x-review,1.html

MSI advantages:
8C temp delta @ load (81C vs 73C)
~87 Mhz Core clock delta @ load (1303 MHz Core vs 1216 MHz Core)

Same load power consumption and fan noise. Whether or not it's worth the price? Answer is probably not. Different manufacturer's have rebates and sales now and then, and you should just pick whatever's cheapest. Although there should be a few cards on your "do not purchase" list, namely the Gigabyte RX cards.
 
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Bacon1

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Feb 14, 2016
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Go for the cheapest, "good" option. So company that has a solid cooler (look up reviews) and good warranty. And then yes, some companies have good deals on their 8gb cards and others have great deals on their 4gb ones constantly, so it just depends on the day which is the "better buy".
 

tviceman

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Mar 25, 2008
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Load temps and fan noise will be your biggest tangible differences. Some AIBs push their GPU voltage hard or use unnecessarily large power delivery systems (both of which raise power consumption, which in turn affect temps and noise).
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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Really? Back in the old days, when everything was based on literally the same reference design that was true. But recently, I don't think so. Look at the EVGA debacle with improperly cooled VRM's. Or take the Gigabyte G1 and MSI Gaming X RX 480 review from guru3d.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/gigabyte-radeon-rx-480-g1-gaming-review,1.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-radeon-rx-480-gaming-x-review,1.html

MSI advantages:
8C temp delta @ load (81C vs 73C)
~87 Mhz Core clock delta @ load (1303 MHz Core vs 1216 MHz Core)

Same load power consumption and fan noise. Whether or not it's worth the price? Answer is probably not. Different manufacturer's have rebates and sales now and then, and you should just pick whatever's cheapest. Although there should be a few cards on your "do not purchase" list, namely the Gigabyte RX cards.

1 misstep should not be that big of a deal. That is the first problem of its kind in years. They made a mistake, and they altered their new cards to fix the problem, as well as offered either a self fix or RMA fix for those with a problem. Let it go. That one problem isn't going to happen very often, as in, you'll likely see something of this nature once in 5-10 years and you won't know until the problem is exposed.
 

DisarmedDespot

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Jun 2, 2016
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1 misstep should not be that big of a deal. That is the first problem of its kind in years. They made a mistake, and they altered their new cards to fix the problem, as well as offered either a self fix or RMA fix for those with a problem. Let it go. That one problem isn't going to happen very often, as in, you'll likely see something of this nature once in 5-10 years and you won't know until the problem is exposed.
Still, it's an example of how the same manufacturer can have varying quality in their products. EVGA's usually a gold standard, but I'd really, really avoid their stuff for this gen. To some much less-extreme examples, Sapphire's 390 Nitro was considered one of the best, while their 480 Nitro is kinda mediocre, and Asus's 390 Strix had crap cooling while their 480 seems fine.
 

bystander36

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Apr 1, 2013
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Still, it's an example of how the same manufacturer can have varying quality in their products. EVGA's usually a gold standard, but I'd really, really avoid their stuff for this gen. To some much less-extreme examples, Sapphire's 390 Nitro was considered one of the best, while their 480 Nitro is kinda mediocre, and Asus's 390 Strix had crap cooling while their 480 seems fine.
That's an example of a single mistake, which has been corrected. As long as you look at the reviews of a card, and no red flag come up, there isn't a lot of difference between them. The difference between the good and mediocre is barely noticeable on most cases. As long as you aren't looking at reference cards, you should be fine.
 

Triloby

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Mar 18, 2016
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Performance wise, there really isn't THAT much of a difference between aftermarket vendors. They will usually have higher factory overclocks on their GPU core and memory compared to others, but the differences between other OC aftermarket cards utilizing the same GPU aren't that massive. A factory OC MSI RX 480 is no more faster or better than an OC ASUS RX 480, or one from Sapphire and XFX. If you're gaming at 1080p and 60 FPS, you won't notice much of a difference between vendors since the RX 480 can easily go above 60 FPS in many games at 1080p except a few. Although at 1440p it might matter, but you can always turn down a few graphical settings if necessary.

The only thing you should be looking at are: temps, noise, and price. From what I've heard, Sapphire's Nitro card isn't that great at temps or noise but it is cheaper than the others while MSI's Gaming X variant is both cooler and quieter, but also a little more expensive. I don't know about PowerColor's or XFX's variants, but I do know that Gigabyte's version of the RX 480 is pretty lackluster.
 

DisarmedDespot

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Jun 2, 2016
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That's an example of a single mistake, which has been corrected. As long as you look at the reviews of a card, and no red flag come up, there isn't a lot of difference between them. The difference between the good and mediocre is barely noticeable on most cases. As long as you aren't looking at reference cards, you should be fine.
A single mistake, yes, which needed to be corrected by additional thermal pads and higher RPMs on the fans. EVGA's done well to do their best to fix the issue - but I'd still avoid them for this gen. When you have the choice between EVGA's versions which needed to be fixed and every other hardware vendor's that didn't, which would you choose?

I'm not saying EVGA is bad now, but I'd still avoid them for this gen. Next gen may be a different story.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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Because they're all built on the same reference card, I would collect fewer reviews to read, or settle on a card and then find the reviews about it before pulling the string. I was able to find things in Egg customer reviews that indicated minor things to avoid with a card of particular manufacture. For instance, certain ASUS models for the GTX 970 had instances of coil whine reported by multiple customers. So I bought the MSI cards.

This time around, I really-really-really wanted smaller cards -- cards of shorter length. I had seen such cards for the 970. I wanted a 1070 card, and there were two choices -- either the Gigabyte or the Zotac Mini cards. Couldn't find any major complaints on the reseller customer reviews. I was surprised as to how cool it runs, since it has only one fan and not the reference-design barrel type.

The lab review I saw for the GTX 1070 card cited a feasible overclock to 2,062 Mhz for the core, and something above 8,800 Mhz for the memory -- with the latter possible at 9,000+ for some cards. I cite that review because other overclocking guides and reviews have used different points of reference to describe their overclocks. One reviewer mentioned "2,152 Mhz" which was really the highest point on the curve of clocks vs voltage on the graph, but this doesn't describe what the card will do in the benchmarks. So I find the Gigabyte Mini OC acceptable with a setting of (2,125 in reference to the latter number) and 2,050 Mhz -- the more relevant point of comparison. I can run the memory to 8,830 Mhz.

The difference I might find in another card in the wider field of options is insignificant to what I can do with this Mini.

But there ARE differences in cards of varied manufacture, other than the built-in "OC" settings if they ship that way.
 

bystander36

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Apr 1, 2013
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A single mistake, yes, which needed to be corrected by additional thermal pads and higher RPMs on the fans. EVGA's done well to do their best to fix the issue - but I'd still avoid them for this gen. When you have the choice between EVGA's versions which needed to be fixed and every other hardware vendor's that didn't, which would you choose?

I'm not saying EVGA is bad now, but I'd still avoid them for this gen. Next gen may be a different story.
Once they added the thermal pads, they is almost no difference between their cooler and the next. I'd still buy EVGA now, as their fix solution does the job, and their warranty department is unmatched. I don't think I'd buy a used EVGA card of this gen, as you don't know what you are getting, but the new cards are fixed.
 

Dribble

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Aug 9, 2005
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There are differences beyond o/c and fan noise. The sort of thing that can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and you want to look out for is coil whine (annoying buzzing sound) - for example I would hope those that claim "military spec" components (whatever that means) wouldn't suffer from it while as a cheap and cheerful card might?

Anyway simplest way it to not buy anything without doing your research and at least seeing a few reviews of it where you'd hope people will point out stuff like that.
 

fleshconsumed

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Feb 21, 2002
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Performance wise they should be the same as long as the cards do not throttle. The only real difference is cooling solution which determines noise, temperature, and in extreme cases whether the card will throttle itself or not.

I'm a big fan of MSI Twin Frozr RX480 if you can stretch your budget a bit. It has zero RPM fan feature when idle, its default load temperature target is 72 degrees as opposed to 80 for the Sapphire/PowerColor, and despite lower temperature target it is still quieter than PowerColor (not sure about Sapphire). The Twin Frozr RX480 is currently on sale on newegg and there is also another $15 MIR which further reduces the price difference.
 

Ranulf

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Jul 18, 2001
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I think almost anything is quieter than the default fan/temp curve of the sapphire nitro.
 
May 11, 2008
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OP, if you are not going to overclock, the gigabyte gaming G1 RX480 is a fine card. Despite all the FUD it works fine for standard use.
If you are going to overclock, the MSI seems to be a very good choice because of the larger and better cooler.
And it is good to take the 8GB version if you can spare it. It never hurts to have more RAM.
 

bononos

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Aug 21, 2011
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Here's the main question though: is there any reason to think that I would get $25 worth of value from a Saphire Nitro+ as opposed to an MSI Armor? I'm not going to bother with overclocking. It just seems like the MSI card, $25 cheaper, is a better buy. A 1% increase in clock speed is never, ever going to get noticed.
One of the Nitro's selling point is that spare fans can be sent out and replaced easily instead of having to return the whole card for warranty.
 

DamZe

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May 18, 2016
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The XFX AIB cards seem to have great cooling/boost performance, power consumption and OC potential. I don't know what they did, but they seem to stand out from the rest.
 
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Ancalagon44

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Feb 17, 2010
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The difference comes down the cooler, which affects the temperature of the card as well as the amount of noise that it generates.

For that reason, I don't consider reference based cards worth it. However, that doesn't mean that you need to purchase the most expensive card with a custom cooler either. Inexpensive third party design cards do the job just fine.