Phazoner :
Gam3r01 :
Even though you are going through the effort to provide all this info, its highly irrelevant to this discussion.
Yes, historically they had a marginally higher failure rate, but this is not an valid indicator of the current market.
Personally, a 2% higher failure rate for superior cooling and noise is certainly worth it, considering they all have similar warranty periods anyway.
Sapphire is the same manufacturer that can keep an R9 290 under 60C at load with under 50% fan speed, that is easily worth the extra "risk".
All and all, its just your opinion with data from old sources, you really cant go wrong with either choice.
Additionally, your dismissal of HIS without doing research does not bode well for your argument, they are one of the longest standing partners with AMD:
http://www.hisdigital.com/us/about.shtml
I'm not who decides if it's irrelevant or not, is the user who doesn't know what to buy, and you shouldn't just ignore that. A 4% failure rate even being a low percentage isn't a really low value, you're just daily buying twice participations in the lottery of hardware failing by buying a Sapphire than buying a MSi.
And about HIS, they don't even sell in Spain, and when researching about graphics cards in international forums I've never seen that brand mentioned, I don't know if in your country that brand is popular or something but internationally it seems almost unknown.
Ive had 2 cards fail ever in what Id consider an unacceptable time/ use duration.
Both were MSI models.
In that context (If I followed your rules) I should never ever recommend MSI again ??
However I just consider that bad luck on my part,admittedly its pushed me to steer clear of MSI products from now on (one of the RMA's was an absolute nightmare) but I woudl never push a sweeping generalisation that theyre cheap & prone to failure just on my own experience.
To put HIS into context
http://www.hisdigital.com/un/award.shtml
Their IceQ models of the old hd7*** series & r9 280/290 series cards were amongst the best on the market,the iceQ cooling was phenomenal on these cards,look at pages 8/9/10 on that link.
I have a 7950 that is still working absolutely fine.
Vice versa a powercolor 7870 xt myst & a turboduo 280x,both some 6 years old still working fine & they too are a brand many consider lower tier & lower quality - the turboduo is imo one of the best 280x models ever produced,certainly better than the asus dc2 which was regarded as the best model ,oddly apart from the Sapphire Toxic which was 100% the top card in its class.
Im running a Sapphire Pulse rx 580 at the minute,14 months old , not a single issue with it, Sapphires cheapest twin fan model & still insanely quiet & very very cool running.