EVGA equivalent for ATI cards?

[arrpeegeer]

Since NVidia has been king for far too long (and I loooooooooooooved it), EVGA is also king as far as NVidia-branded cards, period.

Oh sure, people will mention other manufacturers...because they can, but EVGA > all.

That said, is there an equivalent company as godly as EVGA on the ATI side?

VisionTek? Sapphire?

I imagine since ATI has been so far behind for so long, maybe no real company moved that much stock to be considered better than another or is there an accepted leader?

Thanks

 

[eaglesfan]

VisionTek is my favorite ATI manufacturer

Lifetime warranty on some cards, and the only one that does ATi I am aware of.

Sapphire, I have owned 5 of with 0 problems. I got 2 9500non pro cards, and both soft modded, and lasted me about a year. No issues with customer service, etc...Although, lately, I have heard complaints about them.

I would still buy their product without hesitation though.


Im looking for a VisionTek 4800.

 

[mersonix]

Diamond = bad visiotek = best sapphire = acceptable anything else i'd stay away from.

 

[Asian PingPong]

It doesn't really matter, they don't make the cards, they just sell them. Get the one with the best price/support/warranty.

 

[Guest]

They dont make the GPU, but they badge them, maybe flash their own BIOS onto them, sometimes use different memory or cooling options.

But yeah the most important is the warranty that they offer.

 

[50bmg]

I am very happy with visiontek, so is my buddy. I am on my third Visiontek. My first visiontek was a X700 Pro. It lasted 3 years without a problem. These 2 new ones are performing perfectly.

Sapphire has aweful support. My only sapphire starting getting huge square blue spots win smoke, clouds and other textures. This started a day after the New Egg 30 policy was up. After 5 week, many emails and calls, Sapphire never responded. Thankfully New Egg RMA's my card for full refund. props to newegg. I will never purchase any sapphire product again.

 

[50bmg]

They dont make the GPU, but they badge them, maybe flash their own BIOS onto them, sometimes use different memory or cooling options.

But yeah the most important is the warranty that they offer.

Sort of. They dont make the GPU, ATI does. The first gen cards willbe made by ATI, but soon the vendors will start manufacturing their own cards with ATI GPUs. My visiontek, is an ATI GPU, but the card was built by Visiontek.

Visiontek has a great warranty.

 

[doomsdaydave11]

Since NVidia has been king for far too long (and I loooooooooooooved it), EVGA is also king as far as NVidia-branded cards, period.

Oh sure, people will mention other manufacturers...because they can, but EVGA > all.

That said, is there an equivalent company as godly as EVGA on the ATI side?

VisionTek? Sapphire?

I imagine since ATI has been so far behind for so long, maybe no real company moved that much stock to be considered better than another or is there an accepted leader?

Thanks

I am no AMD fanboy, but sorry but you are wrong about the NVIDIA always being king. Remember the x1950xtx? x1900xtx? Even stuff like the 9700 Pro. 2005 and ealier, ATi was dominating.


Well, back to the topic :
As far as I know, MSI is a very good ATi brand... Sapphire used to be, but now I've heard that they don't honor they're rebates and what not. HIS is also a good brand from what I have heard. Heard nothing but good things about VisionTek; Diamond is mediocre.

The only reason I say 'heard', is because I have only had a few ATi cards, and the ones that I've had were the actual ATi brand.

 

[arrpeegeer]

Well, ok I was a bit dramatic with NVidia being on top for so long...and frankly I'm probably venting my frustration with what MY expectations were for the 260 and 280, whether they were realistic or not.

And although I know they are moving those cards over the next few months to 55nm, possibly DDR5, etc. etc. I'm not going to wait and hope.

So now I might now have to strongly consider ATI once I see the real-life benchies for the 4870.

And of course I know that EVGA, Diamond, etc. don't make the chipsets/GPU, but they do add a myriad of factors that affect the performance of the card, however minor or major. And the quality of the build is also extremely important to me.

EVGA has a great warranty, awesome step-up program (am about to use it depending on what the 4870 does), and very good customer service and quality of product.

I don't think I'm alone in how I feel about that - at least if you ask other NVidia fans.

That said, I've been out of the ATI arena for so long I don't know who is condidered the best-of-breed.

 

[CSA_Myth]

I imagine since ATI has been so far behind for so long, maybe no real company moved that much stock to be considered better than another or is there an accepted leader?

Are you serious. ATI has been around A LOT longer than Nvidia and has been steadily gaining market share for the last couple of years and are predicted to take more than 50% of the market this year. Hell nobody even heard of Nvidia until they came out with the TNT chipset which was released somewhere around 2000(??).

As far as warranty, I'm pretty sure all ATI chipset cards have a 1 year warranty only. Why only 1 year I'm not sure.

NVIDIA, umm I miss my Riva 128, lol. I don't see the point in this; NVIDIA and ATI have been bumping heads since ATI dropped the 9700 that's when ATI really started making 3d cards... NVIDIA had already "Borged" 3Dfx and ATI was up to that point competing with Intel on integrated chips, and getting the add on board market with their All in Wonder Canadian video knife. Each has made mistakes and the other has taken advantage of that, NV FX5000 series ouch. That said NVIDIA has been on a roll with the 8800's so they have had the lead for a bit.

As far as the best ATI card maker it has to be VisionTek due to their warranty. As stated above most only support a 1 year warranty.

Limited Lifetime Warranty Products Covered:
ATI Based Retail Packaged "VisionTek" or "VisionTek Xtasy" Brand 3D Graphics Accelerators

3 Year Warranty Products Covered:
ATI Based Retail Packaged VisionTek RADEON 7K (PCI and AGP) graphics card B2 Black Box Packaged goods

 

[doomsdaydave11]

I miss matrox :/