ATI GPU Manufacturer comparison? Diamond ok?

[nate714]

Hey I'm not particularly experienced buying ATI cards, the last ATI I used was the radeon 9700.

My question is which brands have the best warranty, upgrade programs, customer service, etc. I loved evga and xfx for nvidia cards.

I'm looking to buy a 5850 from a local retailer to take advantage of a quick easy return policy, unfortunately frys only carries a Diamond HD 5850 at the moment. Has anyone had any experience with them? I didn't even their warranty info on newegg.com.

 

[TheViper]

XFX also offers ATi cards.

Sapphire is another popular manufacturer.

Diamond is middle level, I suppose.

 

[nate714]

thanks, I did a search (after posting, yes I know sorry!) and saw that saphire and xfx rated best on one poll. visiontek was also mentioned a bit. I guess a good follow up is does anyone in the Orange County area knows of a retailer that carries something besides Diamond? lol.

 

[leon2006]

Diamond card are extremely good/reliable....Never had an issue with Diamond and Visiontek Card.

My XOC 4890 is OC at 1GHZ Core with no Issue or no voltage MOD required.

The main issue with Diamond is mediocre warranty. If for whatever reason your card fail your in a lot of trouble. You pay for shipping and the coverage is only 1 year.

For the amount of investment its not good to have 1 year of warranty.