Rank your favorite manufacturer

[catatafish]

This is NOT a Radeon vs. Nvidia question. I've had good and bad experiences with both and it seems sort of even to me. Rather, I'd like everyone's thoughts on the manufacturers that make the cards. My criteria are 1) Performance (on average) 2) reliability 3) customer support. To give you an idea, I'm looking for the Infiniti G35 of manufacturers, not the Honda, not the Kia.

EVGA, Zotac, MSI, Sapphire, HIS, XFX, PNY, Gigabyte, ASUS.....(am I missing any?)

Feel free to rank them in tiers. I'm just trying to narrow down 2 or 3 that I should focus on. Then I'll look at the biggest bang for the buck that is under 10.5" long and supports 2 monitors for sure, and maybe 3. My initial impression from research is that ASUS and Gigabyte are the bulletproof ones, but I'm worried that I'm letting my impression of mobos skew my opinion. I understand that some companies can make one product great, but fail in others.

TIA!

 

[sunnk]

1)evga for nvidia.

2)sapphire for ati.

 

[alvine]

asus for motherboards, some cases
xfx or sapphire for graphic cards
silverstone for psu's
g skill for ram

 

[notrust81]

1 ASUS

I had an XFX, but i had to much heat problems with it.
So i'll never buy this brand again

 

[serialkiller]

for nvidia 1.evga 2.asus 3.gigabyte 4.msi
for amd 1.xfx and saphire 2.gigabyte 3.asus

 

[catatafish]

Thank you for the responses so far!

Funny, I never thought that different companies would be better depending on which card, but makes sense.

This is confirming a couple of suspicions I had.....that Zotac and HIS weren't very popular for what I'm looking for. And suprising me that EVGA, xfx and Sapphire are so well regarded.

 

[serialkiller]

mobo asus
ram corsair
psu seasonic
monitor dell
keyboard and mice logitech
speakers bose
headphones sennhisers
case coolermaster
cooler same
intel and nvidia
hdd wd
ssd intel and ocz

 

[sunnk]

1)evga because it has the better customer support and one of the most better brand for nvidia.

2)xfx for powerful built and warranty.

3)sapphire products is mine favourite because there products performs over the p[rice and gives better performance there products are cheaper.

 

[deadjon]

MSI - Look at all the reviews for the Recent Twin Frozr, Hawk, Lightning and Cyclone cards.

The Twin Frozr cards are the best of the best, top cooling and top overclocking.

I actually cannot fault them.

ASUS Mobos are classically better than their cards, but their cards are very good.

Gigabyte are cheaper than the other big manufacturers but most of the time at the cost of performance and cooling.

Ill take my vote for MSI and throw in a plethora of reviews.

6950 Twin Frozr II Review - http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r6950-twin-frozr-ii-oc-review/

560ti Twin Frozr II Review - http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/27/msi-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/1

560ti 448 Twin Frozr III Review - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_560_Ti_448_Cores_Twin_Frozr_III/

6950 Twin Frozr III Review - http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1796/1/

GTX 580 Lightning Review - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/42992-msi-geforce-gtx-580-lightning-review-18.html

All from Different sites - Different Cards, all pretty much flawless reviews.

Thats my 2 cents anyway

 

[de5_Roy]

based on personal opinion only.
gfx cards:
tier 1: amd - asus, sapphire, gigabyte, xfx. nvidia - asus, evga, gigabyte, msi
tier 2: his, some of msi and xfx.
tier 3: powercolor, biostar, elitegroup.
others i don't know about - palit, kfa, afox, diamond, zotac, pny etc.
current 'best bang for the buck' cards for single monitor gaming are radeon hd 6870, gtx 560ti, radeon hd 7750. for dual monitor e.g. 2x 1080p monitors: gtx 560ti sli, gtx 570 sli, radeon hd 6950 2 gb cfx, radeon hd 7950 cfx 2-3 gb vram in each cards.
motherboards, from top to bottom:
asus, gigabyte,
intel,
asrock,
msi,
biostar
ecs, jetway, foxconn.
listed foxconn and intel differently because of their own branded motherboards. don't know about zotac, sapphire and evga.

 

[CaedenV]

Thank you for the responses so far!

Funny, I never thought that different companies would be better depending on which card, but makes sense.

This is confirming a couple of suspicions I had.....that Zotac and HIS weren't very popular for what I'm looking for. And suprising me that EVGA, xfx and Sapphire are so well regarded.

HIS is a nobody, but I feel that Zotac is highly under rated on many of their products. Zotac is a parts assembly company and actually assembles the boards for many popular companies and only recently decided to try out their own brand. The problem with smaller companies like HIS and Zotac is not that their products stink; It is that they are not big enough to provide proper support in the event that something goes wrong. That being said my wife's PC has a Zotac Mobo and it has had no problems, and had great features for the price.

I will copy others here and say that Sapphire is the best for AMD/ATI, and eVGA for nVidia, but in my last build I actually went with a Sparkle GTX 570. The brand isn't exactly known for being great, but the card works wonderfully, and it was as cheap as a GTX560 after the sale and rebates so I went on a limb and went for it and could not be happier.

 

[jaguarskx]

I don't think I have a particular favorite. I bought from several brands but I think for AMD cards it's been mostly Sapphire.

For nVidia cards, probably Gigabyte.

 

[Dogsnake]

Asus
Antec
Corsair
HIS
Samsung
Intel
Noctua

 

[pacioli]

I Prefer EVGA for Nvidia Cards
Reasons:
1 - Lifetime Warranty on cards ending with -AR.
2 - Customer service - If it breaks you get a new card, hassle free, every time.
3 - Company size - they are the number one Nvidia card seller and can back up their products.

As far as AMD cards...
XFX for many of the same reasons as EVGA
Although... Sapphire cards have always worked well for me. I've never had a problem with one and they are cheap.

 

[ilysaml]

Sapphire.

 

[xtremegamer2da-max]

evga for nvidia
sapphire for amd

 

[jossrik]

For AMD cards, I like the XFX every time, also, they have good PSUs (actually seasonics I think)

 

[Rockdpm]

ASUS and EVGA for NVIDIA products
XFX, Sapphire, and ASUS, and MSI for AMD video cards.

Motherboards:ASUS
Case:Cooler master, Corsair, Antec, NZXT
Power Supply: Corsair hands down, Cooler Master+1
Ram: Most any
Hard drives: Western Digital Hands Down

 

[catatafish]

After countless hours of reading it looked pretty much like the more you paid, the more you got. There's also the issue of card size. I didn't want a super long card, and this may be a silly requirement, but I just don't like super tight fits in my case. So this fit the bill nicely and it comes with an overclocking utility that I can play with. "Mil spec" gets me every time . http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565

I tried really hard to find a 6950 but they were either too long, or too expensive. I looked hard at xfx, gigabyte, and sapphire but again, they were either $300+, or too long, etc. I found this to be the nice combination of performance/price/size/reliability. I really wanted a lifetime warranty but then I figured 3 years is PLENTY as I'm sure I'll be ripping apart my case for new components by then anyway.

These should do nicely for SWTOR and who knows, I may even give BF3 and Skyrim a whirl.

While all of you gave me a "best answer", I awarded the coveted prize based on what I ended up buying.

Thanks again everyone for your thoughts.

 

[catatafish]

Best answer selected by catatafish.

 

[sunnk]

this will be an good card for its price and not so long.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127578

for more cheaper and good performance this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125401

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey