video card manufacturers-do they make a difference????

[iwantanewcomputer]

I'm looking at a radeon 9800 pro. Some sites list a powercolor or saphire radeon 9800 pro as having 380MHz core speed with 674 MHz memory speed. ( http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-238&depa=0 )

others just say Ati radeon.... so i'm thinking ati made the actual card, but these just say"RAMDAC Clock Speed - 400 MHz" (http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10343929&loc=)

is the second with 400MHZ "ramdac clock speed" any better?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Made by ATI cards are manufactured by Saphire. The main difference is cooling solution and looks for the different manufacturers. Personally, I like the Asus cards even though they are more expensive.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

do you know what they mean with the different speeds?

 

[Corporate Thug]

no real difference. may be just in warrenty/RMa

 

[BenSkywalker]

The core speed is the speed of the GPU- the chip that is important on your graphics card(it does pretty much everything). The RAMDAC is responsible for converting the digital signal to an analog signal(that's all it does). The faster the RAMDAC the higher the resolution/refresh rate it can handle converting(oversimplifying a bit here). If you are running DVI you don't even use the RAMDAC on a board(well, unless you are running a dual monitor setup with one CRT but I digress).

You could have a 900MHZ RAMDAC paired with GPU running @100MHZ or vice versa- they are two seperate measurements although AFAIK all of the 9800s have 400MHZ RAMDACs(core speed will change based on which particular model you get).

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Made by ATI cards are manufactured by Saphire. The main difference is cooling solution and looks for the different manufacturers. Personally, I like the Asus cards even though they are more expensive.

The Asus nVidia GeForce4 MX I bought way back was completely unusable via VGA. It was sooooooo blurry.

 

[biostud]

there can be differnces in 2D quality, but which are good and which are bad I don't know.

 

[TGHI]

Sometimes there is a difference. Some manufacturer use different RAM types (Hynix, Infineon, Samsung) and it can affect not only the performance, but also how well it overclocks.

 

[Markfw]

Powercolor cards are cheap. I have had problems with my 9700pro I got from them. The Sapphire cards are fine.

 

[Triforceofcourage]

I have been running a gigabyte radeon 9600 pro for a month without any problems at all. Seems like a very solid card to me on the cheap. Only cost me $135.

 

[WobbleWobble]

I would imagine ATI's RMA process would be a lot simpler than Powercolor or Sapphire.

 

[howdyduty]

I think the main difference is in the post-sale encounters such as warranty or tech support or RMA. So yes, there can be a difference.

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Powercolor cards are cheap. I have had problems with my 9700pro I got from them. The Sapphire cards are fine.

Powercolor's cards cost less, I don't know that cheap is accurate though. I've have a 9600 Pro that has been running 24 X 7 rock solid for quite some time now....

 

[dripgoss]

I've had luck with the Sapphires. I went from a 9500NP, to a 9800NP (Samsung 3.3ns RAM OC'ed past Pro speeds) and now I'm building another gaming box for my wife and will most likely use a 9800 Pro from them. Also thinking about the Ati AIW 9800...

 

[JohnPaul]

Some vc makers actually intentionally overclock their cards slightly. It is not a bad thing, and it gives a slight performance boost. I guess they figure that the people buying their cards are of the geek persuasion and will be overclocking them anyhow, so they just help them along. That is likely why you see a slight difference in MHz ratings from different manufacturers.