Who makes reference cards?

[spandexninja]

If I buy a reference 670 from XFX or EVGA, is it made by one of those 3rd party companies or are all reference cards made by Nvidia / AMD?

For reference cards do 3rd party companies make any changes other than slapping their logo on it?

 

[lavaheadache]

I've heard that EVGA makes them sometimes. I feel like once upon a time I heard that Galaxy might have too, dunno..


I think for AMD it is possibly Sapphire

 

[Eureka]

I'm not sure who actually prints the boards, but the GPUs themselves are all fabbed by TSMC. If I had to guess, I'd say the resellers just buy the GPUs, contract directly with a print house, and then ship it. The designs should just be carbon copies of whatever AMD/Nvidia puts out.

 

[p_monks33]

XFX only makes AMD cards. Evga is a good option for reference GTX .

 

[spandexninja]

Alright thanks for the info. I'm planning on buying a reference Nvidia card the moment the 700 series comes out.

 

[blastingcap]

If I buy a reference 670 from XFX or EVGA, is it made by one of those 3rd party companies or are all reference cards made by Nvidia / AMD?

For reference cards do 3rd party companies make any changes other than slapping their logo on it?

The contract it out with one of the big Chinese firms. I suspect PC Partner for AMD, not sure about NV (Foxconn??). Then the rebadgers like EVGA slap their stickers on them and sell them to retailers like Amazon.

Nonreference cards can be subcontracted out too, or the big ones like ASUS apparently make their own.