rate all graphics cards manufacturers in here

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Shayes

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among XFX, Sapphire, Asus, HIS, MSI, Gigabyte, VisionTek, Diamond, Power Color and others, which ones have you been most happy with and how do they rank among each other?

Only include in your rankings ones that you have experience with.

I'm a noob, so all i have experience with is an Asus HD 4870, and I am not very happy with it at all. I wouldn't recommend Asus at all.
 
Use the search feature. There was a very good thread on this a few months ago.
 
Asus, EVGA, XFX and Sapphire are the top tier in my opinion.

Asus has a 3 year stock warranty that only needs serial number on card to make use of. No registration or receipt required. Sapphire is the same except it's 2 years.

XFX and EVGA both offer lifetime warranty with XFX even offering a double lifetime warranty. Both require registration within 30days or you only get a 1 year warranty.
 
what about documentation and drivers and that kinda stuff. I was not happy with the installation of the drivers for the asus. many problems
 
Shayes said:
what about documentation and drivers and that kinda stuff. I was not happy with the installation of the drivers for the asus. many problems
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could you explain more about why you dont like your asus? theyre my favorite manufacturer actually. i never use their cds though. support.asus.com is way more useful.
 
ekuest said:
could you explain more about why you dont like your asus? theyre my favorite manufacturer actually. i never use their cds though. support.asus.com is way more useful.
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oh yea, the cd was way more outdated than the website.

but ive had several problems with the asustek support drivers. i dunno, maybe im doing something wrong, but i thought my hd 4870 would support 2 monitors, one of them resolution 2560x1440, the other 1680x1050. but its only showing 1680 as the max for both monitors. at first though it showed 1920x1080 as the max, and then i downloaded the newest drivers off asustek, and it changed to 1680 as the max, and i havent seen anything above that. looks to me that the newest asus driver screwed everything up, but i probably messed something else up
 
which brings me to the reason why i made this thread. i want a new GPU but i dont know what to do with this 100 dollar hd 4870. if i wanna crossfire this with another one, does it have to be a hd4870 also, and does it have to be an asus also?
 
generally you shouldn't downloaded the drivers from asus because they are a bit dated. Go directly to AMD and get them since they always have the newest ones.

Also Asus is not responsible for your driver issues. I would blame AMD for that since Asus is just a reseller.

You can crossfire any other 4870 with yours. Does not have to be asus or even have the same amount of RAM. But try to find a card with the same amount for better performance.

for your resolution problem... for such a high resolution you need to have a dual link DVI cable. Let me know if you already do so we can try other solutions. I've had a 4870 running two monitors with different resolutions with no problem so its not that it can't do it but some other factor.
 
I wonder if MSI has changed since they've been touting their military grade materials campaign for the 5xxx series. Their hawk cooling seems to perform quite nice too.
 
Sapphire told me to pound sand when the fan on my 9800 pro fan fell off. They also told me my temps on my 4850 were normal when it idles at 83 degrees celsius.
 
My best experiences were with EVGA.

I have had good experiences with Asus motherboards, never tried their video cards.

I have a sapphire 4890 which works fine but the core will not overclock AT ALL. Memory overclock is all right but has minimal impact on frame rate.

Experience with MSI is poor on motherboards. Their p6n-sli 650i board was the only 650i board to have trouble with dual core 8000 model processors.
 
could toss galaxy in there. i have had no issues so no need to ever contact them but, they have an active rep on the boards. that stands out imo.
 
If I had to rate the vendors you specified OP:
XFX > MSI > Asus/Gigabyte > HIS/Powercolor > Sapphire/Diamond.

eVGA - Best overall experience. Great RMA service within the USA, poorer from other locations (they didn't mark my return as a return so I was re-taxed with duties when my replacement card passed over the border. They credited me the difference in a future purchase so YMMV).

XFX - Solid fucking service. Fast RMA's easy to transfer your warranties, Lifetime+1 warranty is great to begin with. May use non-reference components to save money - this may limit your card's unofficial capabilities (overclocking).

MSI - Never had an issue with their RMA service, and their products have been pretty damn solid in all of the instances I've used them.

HIS - Surprisingly good service for an ATI exclusive AIB. Three weeks from reception of my defective card to the new one. Card (4870, sig) overclocked great.

MSI - no complaints here. Similar to my HIS experience.

Asus - I've had some issues with Asus RMA's in the past (like a motherboard that came back from RMA with only the SMD components installed :rolleyes:) but most service for me has been great. I love Asus products, and I use them fairly exclusively (for motherboards, especially).

Sapphire - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Diamond - HAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
 
eVGA - excellant
XFX - excellant

No one else comes close to these two in terms of CS.

In the middle of the pack
Sapphire
HIS
MSI

At the bottom of the list, Diamond and PNY.

Have no experience with the others.
 
Sapphire recently dropped to near the bottom of my list. They use a third party to handle RMAs and charge a fee. *sigh*

Edit. Actually second to bottom. PNY is at the bottom because they took over 2 months for an RMA.
 
I find that EVGA is the cream of the crop in terms of quality, customer service, and if needed RMA's. Plus they have a great overclocking tool in Precision. They also have a great step-up program if you want to upgrade.
 
I would like to know how Sparkle and Palit compare to the companies listed in this thread.
 
Arcygenical said:
Diamond - HAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Because if you dont laugh you will cry. Worst customer service evah.

On the up side I have had to contact EVGA customer service twice. Each time left me with warm fuzzy feelings. :eek:
 
haadij404 said:
Asus, EVGA, XFX and Sapphire are the top tier in my opinion.

Asus has a 3 year stock warranty that only needs serial number on card to make use of. No registration or receipt required. Sapphire is the same except it's 2 years.

XFX and EVGA both offer lifetime warranty with XFX even offering a double lifetime warranty. Both require registration within 30days or you only get a 1 year warranty.
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This! Ur like my twin.
 
In terms of graphics cards I use pretty well XFX and EVGA exclusively, where possible. That said, with all these dealings with Foxconn (typically who XFX and EVGA will contract to), I'm thinking I should so some searching and see if the working conditions at Asus or Gigabyte (based out of Taiwan rather than main-land china) are any better. If they are, I might start trying to see who's partnering with who before purchasing a graphics card. I've also had an 8600GT from XFX die on me, which caused me personally some problems but I got a new 9500GT back from them in 13 days, so I'm satisfied with that level of service: the problem I experienced was apparently a design flaw. I don't really hold XFX at fault; shit happens, and this is the first incident of major shit I've seen, so I'm assuming its a one-off.

In terms of motherboards, I've had dealings with both Gigabyte and Asus and have found them to be nearly identical, and I'm fairly sure MSI falls under the same category, so its really just whos the most competitive. Asus was first out of the gate with the M3A-xxx motherboard, based on the AMD 770 chipset. The rev 1.0 bios was totally immature. I got burnt by that and pissed off a customer because of it. After my incident with the first-to-market-and-cheap M3A I'm a little gunshy of going with the absolutely cheapest version of any specific chipset.

As for RAM, crucial and corsair exclusively. I've had my customers and have been personally burned by OCZ so many times I have no interest in ever giving them my business: they simply push their packages too hard and have a higher failure rate accordingly. While everybody else in the industry uses the latest smallest Micron chips for their 9000MHz DDR3 OCZ just buys a ton of the cheap Qimonda stuff, plugs in a standard 1.8V 1600Mhz profile and says "it'l do 2000MHz at 2.2V". Too often: no it wont.

When it comes to power supplies I use Seasonic/CWT units on expensive builds and the corsair "builder series" on the cheaper ones. Before the "Builder series" I was using the cheap stuff from Silverstone or BFG. I've yet to have any problems with any of the Silverstone units so I really cant comment to the quality of their support, but of course Corsair is typical big systematic Corsair, and I'm hoping I wont have to find out what BFGs tech support is like now that BFG is no-more (RIP, was a great company, I hope these guys do venture into boutique laptops because I'd love to buy one).

And finally... cases... eh. I have yet to find anything I really like and am starting to think I should stop thinking $50 for a case will ever be sufficient and just use the $80 Lian-li cases from now on out. The CM Elite's front panel switch breaks, the Antec 300 has an awkward reset button and is huge... on and on. If someone wants to point me in the right direction for a small ~$50 sturdy Full-ATX beige box I'd be much appreciated.

edit: Oh and I've got a personal horror story with Sapphire (RMA approved... received... "its your fault"... sent back... "no it isn't"... re-approved... "we dont have a replacment in stock, would you like to wait?"), so I wont be giving them a nickel ever again.
 
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Shayes said:
to sum up that thread:

XFX best all around
Sapphire good product, bad CS
HIS bad CS, average product
Diamond good all around
MSI bad product
Power Color good
Asus good
Visiontek good
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Actually, it was one person saying MSI was bad, and he got his manufacturers mixed up with his claims about poor quality parts.
 
Sapphire sure as heck isn't top tier. Crap CS and charges for RMAs. Also, XFX has has some pretty crappy CS lately for quite a few users over on OCN. Only 2 companies I'd feel safe about going with are EVGA and Asus. Galaxy is working it's way into the top tier as long as they keep their great CS up.
 
A thought on MSI. I think they are an under rated company actually. I don't have enough experience with their customer service, but their motherboards and the 5xxx series of video cards are very good.
 
kd5ywa said:
Sapphire sure as heck isn't top tier. Crap CS and charges for RMAs. Also, XFX has has some pretty crappy CS lately for quite a few users over on OCN. Only 2 companies I'd feel safe about going with are EVGA and Asus. Galaxy is working it's way into the top tier as long as they keep their great CS up.
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im with this guy on xfx. they get all the buzz for their double lifetime warranty, but lately their CS has really sucked on a lot of occasions and even a triple lifetime warranty with bad CS is still worthless. i have never owned an eVGA card, but ive only heard great things and their lifetime warranty can usually be used down the line if you keep in contact with the original owner which is easy to do if you buy it used here on the forums. their eVGA forums are really good for support as well.

ive never had to rma a card with asus, but i have used many of their motherboards and 2 of their gpus and i have to say the few times i couldnt find what i needed on their website, i called and got to immediately talk to some really great CS representatives. galaxy is doing really great lately, especially since they have a rep here on the forums now so its easy to get in contact with someone who is knowledgeable and cares about us users.

the only gpu i had to rma was a sapphire, and i emailed back and forth with a really great rep for a few days, got an rma number, and it went really smoothly. idk if thats the norm, but it was less than a year ago and really couldnt have been easier.
 
I'm all about support these days, without that you are sunk.

Back in the summer when I went video card shopping, I picked out 4 vendors and called the 800 numbers on the box to see how fast I was connected with support.

XFX and EVGA I got US based support within seconds to 2-3 minutes. Diamond and a few others I'm forgetting, put me on hold or was on a wait queue.

I went with the EVGA product in the end. The support and RMA system is top notch provided you properly register your product within 30 days.
 
biggles said:
I would like to know how Sparkle and Palit compare to the companies listed in this thread.
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Sparkle's CS has a bit of a bumpy rep in the US early on, but recently most remarks for US tech seems favorable as long as you phone them, still complaints about not responding well to email.

Important is to use the Region specific site and not the Taiwan site. They have other sites in Europe and Asia to service those areas, though I think Australia may be out of the loop past the retailer.

They do have a Lifetime warranty on some cards, but it only applies if you register the card at their site to activate it within 30 days of purchase..
 
I have been exclusively ASUS for all my mobos, laptops and graphics cards, with the exception of a EVGA 8600gt a while back, what a terrible card it was in terms of anything media related (movie decoding, DXVA, etc...) that it was supposed to support. Constantly froze my system, replaced that with a 5870 (from asus) and I never looked back :)
 
Why such a thread? When everyone knows EVGA is superior.


EVGA> All.
 
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