What GPU brands do you rely on?

[ViviTheMage]

right now ... EVGA and XFX are the bees knees

 

[Fallengod]

But I prefer ASUS, MSI and Sapphire for the overall quality of their products.

Not to be offensive at all but MSI and sapphire equated with "quality" gave me a good laugh. Try RMAing with MSI and Sapphire sometime...probably change your opinion.

To be fair, to each his own. Obviously experiences differ.

 

[Soundmanred]

XFX

 

[trollolo]

ok cool, so let's keep the ball rolling. is there any good reason to go above 1 GB of VRAM on a video card? (single monitor)

 

[hdfxst]

I've had good luck with sapphire,but i never had to rma so i can't comment on that

 

[Zanovar]

XFX used to be good. Now a lot of people are having problems with their 'lifetime' warranties not being honored, not to mention they use lower-quality components than reference at times to cut costs while not telling anyone about it. I think they're a dishonest company; therefore, I wouldn't recommend them (for now). In any case, there's few companies that have use these practices.

what information are you basing this on?lower qualty components?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

what information are you basing this on?lower qualty components?

Look it up, it's everywhere. Many people have been complaining about it. The main problem is with their 5(6)770. They also use crappy coolers on 6800 series AMD cards. In the past they also used low quality capacitors for NVIDIA cards.

Why go with them, anyway? It's not like they're the cheapest sub-vendors.

 

[Aikouka]

No. You do have to check the model numbers of the cards you buy though. Ones that end with "AR" have the lifetime warranty. Ones that end with "KR" have a 3 year warranty, and you have to pay an extra fee to get it extended to lifetime.

Thanks for the correction.

ok cool, so let's keep the ball rolling. is there any good reason to go above 1 GB of VRAM on a video card? (single monitor)

Based purely on Anandtech's benchmarks (6950 vs 6950 1GB)... there's really no difference:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/331?vs=293#

Although, I do recall hearing that some newer games tend to favor more than 1GB of RAM. Personally, I just went with a 2GB card. There's a fairly sizable cost difference, but oh well.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Thanks for the correction.



Based purely on Anandtech's benchmarks (6950 vs 6950 1GB)... there's really no difference:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/331?vs=293#

Although, I do recall hearing that some newer games tend to favor more than 1GB of RAM. Personally, I just went with a 2GB card. There's a fairly sizable cost difference, but oh well.

You WILL have a marked benefit in CrossFire at resolutions 2560x1440 and higher with 4xAA/16xAF, so if you use these very high resolutions it can pay off.

 

[peonyu]

I never had to RMA a card, but a friend RMA'd a EVGA and according to him they were extremely painless to deal with. And to top it off he received a Gtx480 to replace his old Gtx285.

So if I had to pick a Nvidia vendor its a no brainer - EVGA.

AMD - I dont know. Though all but 1 of my AMD cards have been Sapphire and the cards tolerated overclocking well [and voltmodding].

 

[Rhezuss]

Not to be offensive at all but MSI and sapphire equated with "quality" gave me a good laugh. Try RMAing with MSI and Sapphire sometime...probably change your opinion.

To be fair, to each his own. Obviously experiences differ.

No offense taken and like you said, to each is own.

Every cards I owned, in spite of the brand, have been good to me.

I would still buy those brands anytime.

 

[Smartazz]

I've owned eVGA and XFX cards from Nvidia and AMD, but I've never RMAed any of my cards.

 

[pw38]

You WILL have a marked benefit in CrossFire at resolutions 2560x1440 and higher with 4xAA/16xAF, so if you use these very high resolutions it can pay off.

Yeah I went with the 1GB 6950 from Sapphire because I only play at 1080p and I don't ever see myself going above that (plasma as main monitor in living room). If I do eventually multi-GB cards will probably be the norm so it won't matter anyway.

 

[apoppin]

i have been evaluating a few cards from each camp and Galaxy seems to offer a nice innovative design with their cooling and they have a 3 year warranty now and a phone number you can call. Of course, EVGA is top notch.

For the AMD cards, Diamond is pretty solid. And i have recently got my hands on a couple of HIS cards that were pretty nice; the 6770 was quiet and overclocked nicely. And Gigabyte had a really nice passive HD 6770 design.

i think the name brands are all pretty good. Sapphire irritated me with their $15 RMA "processing fee"; i don't know if they still extort that from their customers or not.

 

[Anarchist420]

EVGA, but I have an Asus reference GTX 460.

I can't speak for ATi, but a lot of ATi's reference designs are awful because they come with terrible fans (small and sleeve bearing).

Reference nvidia coolers are quite good IMO, especially once you replace the stock TIM w/ AC MX-2.

 

[Red Storm]

XFX.

You'd be surprised how much easier it is to sell a card when buyers know it comes with a legit lifetime warranty.

 

[Anarchist420]

ok cool, so let's keep the ball rolling. is there any good reason to go above 1 GB of VRAM on a video card? (single monitor)

Probably, because when more games start using more/better textures and higher precision depth and color buffers, then 2 GB will be a good idea.

Say a game uses 4x AA, 2 color and 2 depth targets always, and the render targets are RGBA16FP with a 32 bit FP Z-buffer + 8 bit stencil and the resolution you play at is 1680x1050, then the back buffer alone will use:
[1] [1680x1050 x 4 x 2 (64 + 40)]/8
That's ~180 MB right there for a good back buffer alone although it's probably a little bit less than that because of compression. If you want true triple buffering, then that's another 180MB. The highest quality textures should be at least 640MB, and a lot of shader usage should eat up at the very least another 128 MB of graphics RAM.

So, that's quite a bit more than 1024MB and for people who like to game at unnecessarily high resolutions (2560x1600), then that would eat up about ~(1.5, 2)x as much graphics RAM as 1680x1050.

Then calculate a front buffer:
1680x1050x24

That's only about ~5.5 MB there.

[1]
[res x msaa samples x render targets (RGBA+Z buffer)]/8

 

[exar333]

After paying $650 for an 8800GTX From eVGA and getting screwed over because I forgot to register the card within 30 days, I will never buy from them again. The card never worked right, but it was kind of hard to tell with nVidia's awful Vista drivers. It's not like the registration date even matters when they give you a lifetime warranty anyway. :\

I usually buy XFX now as they're one of the few companies that provides a decent warranty and it's transferable to a second party. I've got a 5870, 6950 and a low-end 5450 from XFX, and all of them work rather well.

You didn't register the card, that's your fault.

Is the double-lifetime warranty a 'sham' as well because XFX REQUIRES you to sign-up within 30 days (sound familiar?) of purchase? Don't believe me? Check their site: http://xfxforce.com/en-us/features/doublelifetimewarranty.aspx

 

[exar333]

Generally if you buy better quality cards, they are only available from the better companies like XFX or eVGA. By better, I mean good-quality coolers, higher-speed and/or quality RAM, additional features, and better-binned GPUs for both speed and power.

if you are getting 'vanilla' cards, stick with the companies that have a good warranty reputation. Sometimes a 'great deal' is just that and you 'throw the dice' on a lesser-known company. That isn't always bad.

 

[chihlidog]

XFX used to be good. Now a lot of people are having problems with their 'lifetime' warranties not being honored, not to mention they use lower-quality components than reference at times to cut costs while not telling anyone about it. I think they're a dishonest company; therefore, I wouldn't recommend them (for now). In any case, there's few companies that have used these practices.

I tell this story a lot, but I feel like it's worth telling over when the subject comes up.

I sold an old 4850 on Craigslist. The buyer had a rig thrown together with lower end stuff and used stuff, so I suspect his PSU may have been the culprit here, but somehow the card started BSODing on him. He called XFX, they told him to send it in. I had forgotten to give him my registration number, so I emailed it to him, he transferred the warranty to himself, and sent it.

A little over 2 weeks later he had a brand new 5750 and that was that.


This was just back in May. XFX is a good company in my book, and if all other things are equal, I'd choose an XFX over any other brand.

 

[Aikouka]

You didn't register the card, that's your fault.

Well, technically that's not correct. I did register my product, but not within this window. My issue with the 30-day requirement is that it doesn't seem to have a purpose. As long as I register with factual information, there's absolutely no difference at all!

I would have been able to register and get it fixed easily within the 30-day window, but such wasn't possible, because I had no idea the card was actually faulty. The drivers were so bad back then that you didn't know what was at fault. :\

Is the double-lifetime warranty a 'sham' as well because XFX REQUIRES you to sign-up within 30 days (sound familiar?) of purchase? Don't believe me? Check their site: http://xfxforce.com/en-us/features/doublelifetimewarranty.aspx

While they have a similar restriction to eVGA, you're missing one important clause that's in the fine print:

The limited hardware warranty for Graphics Cards lasts for a time period of two years.

If you register the product online at http://www.xfxforce.com/ within 30 days of purchase, your limited warranty will be EXTENDED for the duration of your life. Registration within 30 days of the date of purchase is a condition precedent to receiving the lifetime warranty.***

EDIT:

Although, that 30-day restriction of XFX's seems to be new. I don't recall seeing that when I registered any of the three aforementioned cards. I do wish XFX's site showed me my warranty information (time left, etc) for my registered cards. :\

 

[moriz]

Well, technically that's not correct. I did register my product, but not within this window. My issue with the 30-day requirement is that it doesn't seem to have a purpose. As long as I register with factual information, there's absolutely no difference at all!

here's the rather unpleasant truth with the 30 day requirement: it is to weed out stupid people who can't read/follow simple instructions.

otherwise you are right, there is no real purpose to the requirement. however, there's no real legitimate reason why you didn't register either, since it doesn't cost you any real effort nor do you have to go overly out of your way.

 

[notty22]

The 30 day stipulation does serve a financial purpose. Just like that demand on claiming rebate forms. They don't want people collecting on sales tactics(gimmicks) that they offered 12 months earlier to boost sales then. They plan on xx% being lazy, or not timely in getting those rebates.
Similar with a exceptional sounding warranty. Free working replacement for lifetime ? Wow , thats incredible, I buy that card because of that feature. But its not legally applicable until you register within a window.

 

[peonyu]

here's the rather unpleasant truth with the 30 day requirement: it is to weed out stupid people who can't read/follow simple instructions.

otherwise you are right, there is no real purpose to the requirement. however, there's no real legitimate reason why you didn't register either, since it doesn't cost you any real effort nor do you have to go overly out of your way.

Its purpose is like you said, to weed out stupid people who dont register. And the purpose besides that is to save money, didn't register ? Tough. We keep the $ and dont have to honor the warranty. Its a shady practice but nearly all video card companies do it.

But still it all depends on who you get in touch with over the phone. If you go the lazy route and try to RMA via the internet they will decline you asap if you didn't register, call on the phone and the rep might overlook it and tell you to register the card and call him back [friend's experience with EVGA right there btw, always call 1st].

 

[exar333]

Its purpose is like you said, to weed out stupid people who dont register. And the purpose besides that is to save money, didn't register ? Tough. We keep the $ and dont have to honor the warranty. Its a shady practice but nearly all video card companies do it.

But still it all depends on who you get in touch with over the phone. If you go the lazy route and try to RMA via the internet they will decline you asap if you didn't register, call on the phone and the rep might overlook it and tell you to register the card and call him back [friend's experience with EVGA right there btw, always call 1st].

I don't think it is there to weed out the 'stupid people'. I would argue it is there to prove YOU bought the card. Otherwise, it may have changed-hands numerous times after the sale date, and you could just claim you bought it.

It makes sense from a business sense (even if it can suck for a user), but it is very important to register any graphics card you get right away, to be safe.