Sapphire vs Powercolor?

[charles555]

What is the difference of this brand and why sapphire is more expensive than powercolor? I want to buy HD 7770 but i dont know what brand to buy.

 

[unknownofprob]

Hi and welcome to the forums!

Sapphire will have the better cooler, and has a much more known reputation, Power color are meant to be cheap and more affordable, for better competition.

All up, get the Sapphire, i am also quite sure it has a greater warranty period over power color

 

[DiabloDoom]

Powercolor isn't new :S they've been out for like 15 years.

Powercolor make inferior boards and have been known to cut corners. Their electronics don't bring the same quality most others do and you will probably be looking at a 15-30% performance loss compared to the top cards.

 

[unknownofprob]

15-30%, not even nearly true. All the suppliers use the same chip, just mainly have a different cooler.

 

[DiabloDoom]

Well, I have a PooperCrapper R9 280x, and judging from my Fitestrike mark, and other peoples Firestrike mark that also have a PooperCrapper, it performs poorly, even OC'd to 1200/1600, I'd easily say it's around 15% under performance range from the top tier cards. I bet the lesser models such as R7's would be even worse.

PooperCrapper are cheap for a reason, their cooling isn't the only thing that's subpar, they've even been known to put in half the bus lanes needed for the bit rate in cards years ago.