Well, I have never owned or purchased an ATI card before, only Nvidia. As the 4870 and 4870 X2 draw near ATI is looking very good now and this GTX200 and 9800 GTX+ situation has soured me to Nvidia these days, not to mention their drivers not being updated after a point. I have no idea about the quality of any of these manufacturers, so I hope you can help me. Warranties and all are nice, but the customer support quality and the product quality are where I am really lost. I only buy XFX, Nvidia cards not just because of the almost totally non-restricting double life time warranty, but the customer support has always been the best I have ever had from ANY company. I am looking for a company like this from the ATI camp, and I do not care about the gimmicks the ATI manufacturers might have like EVGA's step up program. Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it since this subject seems to be almost impossible to research.
Sorry dont really know what to tell you. I have had ATI cards all my computing life, mainly Sapphire cards but my last couple have been HIS and my latest one is Sapphire again.
I cant relate to copasetic's reply about Sapphires customer support as I have never in 11 years or 8 cards needed it. The only manufacturers card I have had an issue with is power color but that was a case of the card dieing out side of warranty,(The only card that isnt still going might I add). Guess i may have just been lucky ?
The His ICEQ cooler is very good and quite, I get the turbo versions when I buy HIS they are solid and stable but are pretty much maxed out with little or no room for overclocking.
If someone said pick a card any card and you can have it free at the minuite it would be a HIS ICEQ TURBO 4850
Hope that helps in some way
Mactronix
Message edited by mactronix on 06-21-2008 at 09:59:51 PM
Well, I have never owned or purchased an ATI card before, only Nvidia. As the 4870 and 4870 X2 draw near ATI is looking very good now and this GTX200 and 9800 GTX+ situation has soured me to Nvidia these days, not to mention their drivers not being updated after a point. I have no idea about the quality of any of these manufacturers, so I hope you can help me. Warranties and all are nice, but the customer support quality and the product quality are where I am really lost. I only buy XFX, Nvidia cards not just because of the almost totally non-restricting double life time warranty, but the customer support has always been the best I have ever had from ANY company. I am looking for a company like this from the ATI camp, and I do not care about the gimmicks the ATI manufacturers might have like EVGA's step up program. Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it since this subject seems to be almost impossible to research.
It may be just the wording you are using (I suspect it is), but the manufacturer of EVERY AMD/ATI card is AMD/ATI. Company's like Diamond, MSI, Gigabyte etc., are distributors. It's the distributors who put pictures of chest heavy women, OC Terminator, Decimator, Beastmeister, etc. on the cards they distribute. It's their job! LOL!
I say manufacturer, because these companies do manufacture there cards from what I have read, but the basic design is from ATI. Anyway this is all incredibly helpful, thank you. I am curious about Diamond, because I have read that their Viper editions are usually very good overclocks and are stable, though I will definitely remember what has been said of the HIS Turbo series.
Edit: once again badge I find myself loving the avatar!
Message edited by The_Blood_Raven on 06-21-2008 at 10:23:52 PM
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What doesn't kill me only pisses me off!
nope, ATI design the gpu's and reference card design but do not produce anything.
true some companies just repackage the cards with only warranties and software add on's being different but it is not bought from ATI. they are an ip company only unless someone has some links to say otherwise.
Sapphire has an office (inside) their corporate office that handles their rebates. The company has an "F" rating with the BBB regarding honoring their advertised rebates. I would recommend not buying from Sapphire because of this.
That's what I said. Thanks for nothing. Go back to the stink of the forum.
No, thats NOT what you said. You said...
Quote :
The distributors order the boards from AMD/ATI. Then dress them up with their 'stuff' fans, stickers etc. and market them.
ATI and nVidia produce the GPU and referance design, a third party (or parties as the case may be) builds the chips and boards and sells them to the distributors, who place the fancy stickers and aftermarket coolers.
