If amd.....what brand?

[azzazel_99]

So im a nvidia fan and have been since I left ati radeon x1800xt years ago. My favorite brand of card is the evga classified editions on the nvidia side but evga is nvidia only. Some of the new radeon cards are impressive and have a nice price to them these days. Question is who makes the overall best card? I use a msi motherboard right now in my computer and msi has shown to be of top notch quality thus far. I also know asus makes superb quality stuff as I used to use only their motherboards and even now own a asus laptop. Gigabyte I have never owned any of their stuff but from reading about them they dont seem to bad. If I went to a radeon card and wanted the same quality I get out of my evga stuff as far as longevity, reliability and stable overclock ability who would I choose? Im not 100% I wanna jump ship here as I might still wait for the maxwell stuff from the green team but im curious. Msi and Asus sure seem to make some too notch stuff.

 

[StarBG]

I prefer Sapphire but others may prefer other brands, it depends on your opinion.

 

[boogalooelectric]

Besides the two brands you mention, Gigabyte windforce editions are high quality. Sapphire also has good cards and good warranties.

 

[laviniuc]

the sapphire r9 290 and 290x custom cooler cards are launching these days maybe you manage to pick one. sapphire has always been one of the closest partners amd/ati has.

each manufacturer will have advantages and disadvantages...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-third-party-round-up,3655.html

these types of reviews (there are more for other card models) will help you pick a favorite i guess

 

[huilun02]

Get this one

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/sapphire_equips_r9_290_and_r9_290x_with_tri_x_triple_fan_cooler.html

 

[wdmfiber]

Asus is arguably the best. Their direct CU II cooler is good.
But the quality argument is just a myth. Everyone but TSCM is a "middle man". Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company "pumps out" the chip for: Nvidia, Radeon GPU's, Apple, ect...

And ppl complain about driver from everyone.

 

[azzazel_99]

I generally expect 3 years max in my gaming rig and maybe a few more once I throw it into my spare pc out of a video card. I do like the ability to overclock the card once it starts to become a "old" or "older" card to keep up with the newer games and to buy me extra time before upgrading. So that being said the 290 or 290x cards look nice but if I decided to buy one I want it to be from a great company that doesnt cheap out anywhere and stands behind their product like evga does. I dont want to have to worry about something failing or having to change out thermal paste or any of that mess. I dont hear nearly as much about sapphire as I do asus msi and gigabyte. They seem to be kinda the key players.

 

[huilun02]

EVGA deals almost exclusively with Nvidia graphics cards. Nothing but focus. Which is why they are able to get such good reputation.

Sapphire does the same with AMD GPUs.

 

[boogalooelectric]

Sapphire is sort of the counterpoint to EVGA, they typically only do AMD GPU's and have a legacy of providing good quality cards.

 

[StarBG]

The toxic cards from Sapphire are nice 😛 .

 

[azzazel_99]

Ah ok I didn't really think about that. From reading though sapphire uses the reference pcb and just does its own cooling. How does that fair compaired to asus or msi with their custom pcb's?

 

[azzazel_99]

I'm guessing their toxic model would be the equivalent to evga's classified edition cards?

 

[bystander]

What makes EVGA great is their customer support and RMA process. I've never dealt with RMA from any brand but EVGA, but they did impress me there.

As far as general overall brands go on AMD's side. My favorite card was from MSI with the Twin Frzr II (it's been updated since).

 

[azzazel_99]

Evga is kinda whats keeping me with nvidia. I love their classified edition cards I mean my gtx560ti classified is playing bf4 on high with over 55fps steady normally sits at 60-65 but i know I want to max it out on ultra and be getting well over 60 at 1080p. The 770 and 280x are out of the question for me as I want the 290 290x 780 780ti. Just not sure what side of the fence I want to. My old radeon x800pro was an amazing card up against halflife 2 and my x1800xt aside from being noisy was a good card too. Once I went to my 8800gts I've been with nvidia ever since.

 

[boogalooelectric]

Evga is kinda whats keeping me with nvidia. I love their classified edition cards I mean my gtx560ti classified is playing bf4 on high with over 55fps steady normally sits at 60-65 but i know I want to max it out on ultra and be getting well over 60 at 1080p. The 770 and 280x are out of the question for me as I want the 290 290x 780 780ti. Just not sure what side of the fence I want to. My old radeon x800pro was an amazing card up against halflife 2 and my x1800xt aside from being noisy was a good card too. Once I went to my 8800gts I've been with nvidia ever since.

I am kind of the opposite,

I have been loyal to ATI/AMD cards going back to the old 9700 Pro, that was a great budget friendly card and I never looked back.

I have tried cards from Power Color, ASUS, Sapphire, Diamond and Gigabyte and the Sapphire and Gigabyte cards have been very good. The ASUS card had to be RMA'd, the Power Color's fan had to be replaced after a year (with a zalman gpu cooer) and the Diamond was ok. The best two brands in my experience was Sapphire and Gigabyte.

But recently I inherited a GTX 570 (a Gigbyte model) and I love it.

 

[azzazel_99]

I dont know maybe when the maxwell come out the current cards will drop in price and I'll have a better idea.