Which is best?

[thedeathclox]

For AMD graphics units, which would you say is better in terms of quality, durability, features, and performance (generally). The ones I know of are Asus, MSI, Powercolor, XFX, Saphire, Diablotek, and Gigabyte, or reference AMD original? As I said a second ago, Quality, Durability, Features, and Performance wise generally, which brand is the best way to go? I currently own an MSI ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB, and just recently ordered a Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 6770, and saw MANY different brands. I chose gigabyte because it was the same model, had good reviews, and was less expensive than the Asus counterpart. Which brand has the best reputation (factually or in your opinions) for all of the above?

Also, I am absolutely NOT interested in their reputation with Nvidia cards, or suggestions for Nvidia cards. I dont hate Nvidia, I just preffer good ol' AMD.

 

[drums101]

Asus usually takes the cake in my book as being the top end in all of the above categories.....most vendors these days do a good job when it comes to quality. I would say powercooler and diablotek (they make graphics cards??) are the lower end followed by sapphire..... xfx msi gigabyte and asus are all really good brands

 

[thedeathclox]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814505025

Yeah, i've seen a couple refferences to Diablotek GPU's. Blew my mind too, man XD.

Thats an awesome response. Anybody else have an opinion? Personally, I trust Asus a lot. Ive used many products from them, but never personally owned a significant piece of hardware from them until now. I recently selected Asus as my brand of choice for motherboards. Almost got the asus GPU, but the price was ENORMOUS compared to that of Gigabytes offering. Again, even more opinions would be great aswell, or elaboration on your choices.

I read here and there that a lot of people dont overly love powercolor and sometimes end up with cards that either will NOT overclock or overclock poorly. You may, of course, correct me if im wrong.

 

[rdc85]

I'm fond of HIS cards.... Their cooler works well and they cheap around here......

 

[vmem]

sapphire is the premium brand for AMD cards. they generally measure up to the quality of MSI or ASUS cards (and sometimes exceed them). I was recently informed a sapphire direct CU 7850 do not have ANY heat-spreaders on the memory chips or the voltage regulators and feel that ASUS is just riding on their reputation and slipping...

the special thing about sapphire is their toxic and atomic editions of AMD cards. they take it much farther than any other vendor and really make extreme editions of AMD's flagship cards (just check sapphire toxic 6970 or the up comming 7970 toxic). the only company that comes close are ASUS's ROG edition cards

 

[thedeathclox]

I'm fond of HIS cards.... Their cooler works well and they cheap around here......

I had forgotten about HIS.. you have one right now thats of AMD architecture? Whats your general idle and or load temps? Curiosity.. the Gigabyte one I ordered has a massive fan and heatsink. Its an ugly beast, but a beast none the less.

 

[unksol]

sapphire is/one of AMDs main partner(s) as I understand it. they are supposed to work more closely with them. I have/had one of their 6950 toxics, very good card.... until the cat kicked a full cup of tea directly into the case side fan on Wednesday....

 

[vmem]

Asus usually takes the cake in my book as being the top end in all of the above categories.....most vendors these days do a good job when it comes to quality. I would say powercooler and diablotek (they make graphics cards??) are the lower end followed by sapphire..... xfx msi gigabyte and asus are all really good brands

sapphire is/one of AMDs main partner(s) as I understand it. they are supposed to work more closely with them. I have/had one of their 6950 toxics, very good card.... until the cat kicked a full cup of tea directly into the case side fan on Wednesday....

wondering cat killed a video card

am really looking forward to the 7970 toxic for a crossfire

 

[thedeathclox]

sapphire is the premium brand for AMD cards. they generally measure up to the quality of MSI or ASUS cards (and sometimes exceed them). I was recently informed a sapphire direct CU 7850 do not have ANY heat-spreaders on the memory chips or the voltage regulators and feel that ASUS is just riding on their reputation and slipping...

the special thing about sapphire is their toxic and atomic editions of AMD cards. they take it much farther than any other vendor and really make extreme editions of AMD's flagship cards (just check sapphire toxic 6970 or the up comming 7970 toxic). the only company that comes close are ASUS's ROG edition cards

Interesting.. I just checked to compare some brands for any who are interested in what I got in terms of raw numbers. :3

All of the following brands made this card with their respective speeds: AMD Radeon HD6770. Please keep in mind, the Gigabyte model is NOT silent cell, its the D5

Asus: Core: 850MHz, Memory: 4000MHz
MSI: Core: 800MHz, Memory: 4400MHz
XFX: Core: 850MHz, Memory: 4800MHz
Gigabyte: Core: 775MHz, Memory: 4000MHz
Sapphire: Core: 850MHz, Memory: 4800MHz
HIS: Core: 850MHz, Memory: 4800MHz
Powercolor: Core: 850MHz, Memory: 4800MHz
Stock: Core: 900MHz, Memory: 4200MHz

Pretty interesting, eh? Im a little curious as to why everybody took AMD's reference card and knocked them down in clock speed and then for the most part boosted the RAM.

What makes me angry is that Gigabyte brought the core down from 900MHz to 775MHz FOR SOME REASON, and then cut off 200MHz from the refference, which isn't too terrible. But Why the hell did Gigabyte limit the card so darned much? >:I I'd say that from the looks of it, XFX and Sapphire in his case are the best options to go for. Though, on the bright side I've heard of people successfully overclocking their Gigabyte (GV-R677D5-1GD) up to 910, which means that its effectively 10MHz faster than the refference. Pathetic. Imagine what that refference card could do D: . Im willing to bet that the "overclocking" you do with these graphics cards are mostly phony values. I think its just companies that design the card to run at a faster speed, set the default down, and then let you turn up the speed dial back to full speed and this lets the user feel powerful, like they overclocked and are squeezing the jucie out of the card when, all theyre REALLY doing, is making the card run like it was designed to. This "overclockability" room lets them jack the price and market as a good overclocking card. Thats ofc IMO, but I think its pretty damend solid. On the other hand, RAM and CPU's I have NO DOUBTS what so ever that all overclocking on those are completely legitimate pushing of the limits. I feel kind of pissed off at all of the brands that take from AMD and re-sell with their own hardware. Especially Gigabyte. I heard that Gigabyte is amongst the best of them all, and the way they've manipulated the product kind of disgusts me. Depending on how this card "overclocks", and by overclocks I mean how well it comes close to running the real default speed of the core, and by the performance of the card, I might just abandon Gigabyte and stick to XFX, Asus, or Sapphire.

 

[unksol]

just for starters the stock clock on a 6770 is 850MHz not 900. and you can't just pick cards out at random. gigabyte also makes ones with clocks at 850MHz. no manufacturer just makes one model. it could be down clocked to hit a lower power profile, use a smaller cooler, be single slot, be fanless, be cheaper. in this case it was a cheaper card. you can't get mad at gigabyte because they have one lower clocked card. its not like they are hiding the clock and it always varies.

Your conspiracy theory on the other hand is, well, insane.

 

[vmem]

also, for lower end cards it's important to balance memory speeds with GPU speeds. if the GPU is clocked too high such that the memory can't keep up, the overall result is a slower card. This is why I believe many manufactuers down-clocked the 6770 to overclock the memory

 

[thedeathclox]

just for starters the stock clock on a 6770 is 850MHz not 900. and you can't just pick cards out at random. gigabyte also makes ones with clocks at 850MHz. no manufacturer just makes one model. it could be down clocked to hit a lower power profile, use a smaller cooler, be single slot, be fanless, be cheaper. in this case it was a cheaper card. you can't get mad at gigabyte because they have one lower clocked card. its not like they are hiding the clock and it always varies.

Your conspiracy theory on the other hand is, well, insane.

Thanks for the snarky reply. Is it so bad to have your own opinion or thoughts on something? I didn't say im right for sure, I'm merely suggesting. I don't understand how you could just push me over like that and overlook the possibility of that. I mean, for a company saying that your card is overclockable,a dn letting the community overclock the crap out of your card certainly makes them look good, doesn't it. Anyways, whatever. I forgot that I am on the internet: the place where opinions get you shot in the knee and a knife to the gut.

Your comment on the power profile thing is interesting, except as far as I found Gigabyte at least has 3 Models of the 6770. 2 of which are the exact same card with a different style fan of the same size, different aesthetics. The 3rd is the silent cell which is supposed to be cool and quiet, and yet runs at 800MHz. Weird.

I CAN get mad at gigabyte. Why can't they clock it at 800MHz like the silent cell? Tests show that the GV-R677D5-1GD should Idle at around 31 degrees celcius, and ALL of their versions of this card reccomend at least a 450Watt PSU and take a 6-pin PCI-e power connector which, in a way, out rules the idea of a low power-profile card as it takes the same power as one of their own slightly faster cards for almost the same price. The difference was that I chose to have an actively cooled GPU rather than a passively cooled one. Also, the cooler is a whopping 100mm with a large heatsink. It also takes about 2 slots. The card retails for around $120 - $150. I don't think thats CHEAP considering that many CHEAP cards are around $50-$80. The 6770 Is one of the entry-gaming level 6xxx cards from AMD, not a mid-range and not a el-cheapo. So I think that Its perfectly reasonable to say that I would expect a more decent clock speed.

Though, I will say one thing. You were right, the source at which I found the core rate of 900MHz being original speed was wrong, which I suppose kills part of my arguement. Kudo's to you for correcting me. However, I still dont think it justifyable for a company to sell a graphics card for $150 and downclock the core by 75MHz, which, In the GPU world means quite a little bit. I also see that the default memory speed is actually 4800MHz effective memory speed, not 4200 which means I should apologise for the incorrect information again. However, that makes Gigabyte look like even more of an ass. They also downclocked the GDDR5 by 400MHz?! That's a significant decrease. Im not even sure if i could overclock that hard enough to get to the other cards's stock values.

Please don't just spit on someone, attempt to ridicule them and show them up. Try to be a little bit understanding, more respectful and more well-meaning. Were a community here at Toms Hardware forums. Someone of your rank should be aware of this. I don't mean to come off too strongly, but your last post felt a bit offensive and I don't overly appreciate that.

 

[thedeathclox]

also, for lower end cards it's important to balance memory speeds with GPU speeds. if the GPU is clocked too high such that the memory can't keep up, the overall result is a slower card. This is why I believe many manufactuers down-clocked the 6770 to overclock the memory

Ahh.. thats Informative. Though, Im still wondering why Gigabyte did this, and lowered the memory speed too. The 6770 isn't a low end card >.<. The 6350 Is a low end card. The 6770 is better than mid-level, and mid-level cards are quite decent. Though, I hadn't thought of how the memory and clock speed offset could slow the card. Interesting point, vmem.

 

[vmem]

Please don't just spit on someone, attempt to ridicule them and show them up. Try to be a little bit understanding, more respectful and more well-meaning. Were a community here at Toms Hardware forums. Someone of your rank should be aware of this. I don't mean to come off too strongly, but your last post felt a bit offensive and I don't overly appreciate that.

Please do excuse unksol, he's really knowledgeable about the hardware where it counts. anyway, as far as opinions go, I guess he just got a low opinion of you based on your theory. you're right, it's the internet, people talk more freely than in real life, and those of us who hang-out around here long enough more or less gets used to it... the truth is, people who spend enough time here starts seeing a pattern, and not a good one. all too often insane amounts of time are spent trying to get someone to replace a crappy 400W PSU when they're convinced their issues are because they don't have enough ram or something...

anyway, gigabyte's a good company, as far as their high-end cards go, those guys are pretty awesome. as a matter infact, they just got Tom's recommended buy on their 670 windforce. maybe they just screwed up on their 6770. anyway, I wouldn't write them off as a company. they make some pretty solid motherboards and video cards

 

[thedeathclox]

-deleted- Unnecessary post by myself.

 

[thedeathclox]

Best answer selected by thedeathclox.

 

[thedeathclox]

Please do excuse unksol, he's really knowledgeable about the hardware where it counts. anyway, as far as opinions go, I guess he just got a low opinion of you based on your theory. you're right, it's the internet, people talk more freely than in real life, and those of us who hang-out around here long enough more or less gets used to it... the truth is, people who spend enough time here starts seeing a pattern, and not a good one. all too often insane amounts of time are spent trying to get someone to replace a crappy 400W PSU when they're convinced their issues are because they don't have enough ram or something...

anyway, gigabyte's a good company, as far as their high-end cards go, those guys are pretty awesome. as a matter infact, they just got Tom's recommended buy on their 670 windforce. maybe they just screwed up on their 6770. anyway, I wouldn't write them off as a company. they make some pretty solid motherboards and video cards

Thanks vmem.. that helps ease some of my tension and puts a few things into perspective. I just get a little angry when people run me down without stopping to question why I said something in detail. Sometimes, I say something and assume other people make sence of it, like my little theory on GPU clocking. Anyways, thank you for that post. I wont give up on Gigabyte, and the card actually looks pretty good, I just felt a little jipped because they made theirs the slowest and I happened to buy this card without realising that Gigabyte had turned the GPU core down from 850 to 775 and I missed that detail. That and the ram downclock. At least its a few miles ahead of my current MSI 4650 MD1G.. nice card but needs to be replaced now.

 

[vmem]

download and install msi afterburner here:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

try cranking up the clocks for both the GPU and memory and see how far it can go before you crash in games. you'll most likely be able to at least get back to stock clocks

cheers

 

[thedeathclox]

To respond add to what I said before about the 6770 being a gaming card, not a low-end card, here's an example. We all know that Crysis 2 is a rediculously beautiful looking game, that is often used as a benchmark for your graphics cards. A 4650 1GB is capable of running Crysis 2 on "Advanced" graphics setting with a moderate resolution with a half-decent processor and ram at about 45 FPS without fraps. Thats playable on a mid-level card in a lower class GPU than the 6770 and 2 series back from the 6xxx series with less than half of the stream processors and only Direct X 10.1. I would say that the 6770 is a nice card, but when people get things like a 6850, they seem to forget that just because theirs is good, it doesnt make everything else slow. It just gives them an advantage. Thats all I had to say abou that.. ^^

 

[thedeathclox]

download and install msi afterburner here:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

try cranking up the clocks for both the GPU and memory and see how far it can go before you crash in games. you'll most likely be able to at least get back to stock clocks

cheers

I tried that with my 4650 MD1G and it only lets me go to 712MHz core and 550MHz memory. I dont have my 6770 yet, I get it on july 7th (its a birthday gift. Its wrapped and sitting in my moms room, lol. :I) However, AMD GPU Clock Tool works wonderfully, but when I overclock it up to 750MHz stable and 620MHz memory stable, the gpu runs SLOW and doesnt work right until I restart. Any Ideas?

 

[vmem]

could heat be an issue? also, it's known that when you overclock a card to or just past it's limit it'll be slower than if you had it at a lower clock

anyway, seeing as you're getting a new card in 6 days, I guess you have nothing to worry about.

 

[thedeathclox]

Well, actually the 4650 idles at 39 celcius to 41 celcius and under load operates at.. what, 46 celcius? It runs pretty cool. But I thought the point of overclocking was to breach the limits and go beyond for higher performance, not breach the limits only to make it even slower. Meh

 

[Mousemonkey]

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