Now that the price gouging on the HD3870 cards is easing up I'm considering replacing my 1950XTX. I've always been a brand whore and so I always bought the ATI -branded cards rather than the partner products, but that is no longer an option with the HD3000 series cards, so I have a question or two...
I don't want to end up ventilating the GPU heat into the case, don't mind a dual-slot design, and I'm trying to keep overall power and heat in check so I'm figuring on sticking close to the reference design. I'm just wondering how folks here feel about the various brand options in that category and their respective merits, i.e. Diamond, HIS, VisionTek, GeCube, Sapphire, etc. Quality of the hardware? Support?
Also, in this multi-vendor scenario what's the story with drivers? AMD/ATI continues to maintain their own drivers, and each partner vendor has their own drivers. Which would I or should I use, and why?
Thanks for any advice,
-B
I don't want to end up ventilating the GPU heat into the case, don't mind a dual-slot design, and I'm trying to keep overall power and heat in check so I'm figuring on sticking close to the reference design. I'm just wondering how folks here feel about the various brand options in that category and their respective merits, i.e. Diamond, HIS, VisionTek, GeCube, Sapphire, etc. Quality of the hardware? Support?
Also, in this multi-vendor scenario what's the story with drivers? AMD/ATI continues to maintain their own drivers, and each partner vendor has their own drivers. Which would I or should I use, and why?
Thanks for any advice,
-B