Third Party Video Cards
 

Greetings All,
Who makes the best video cards? Because its from a third party does that really alter or change the core innards of a card? I have seen many, many different makers of cards and I was just wondering who was the best and who to stay away from? eVGA, Gainward, Crucial, Vision Tek, Sapphire, etc. Just wondering. Thanks for any input, info, etc.

The card must meet ATI/Nvidia spec to be produced and get a license for the design. The only difference between different manufactures that I can see is the cooling system and the card "look", everything else seems to be standard.

It's the chipset that basically defines performance, and it's the manufacturer that basically determines features and add-ons. All of my experience is with nvidia and gainward, but mostly because I liked nvidia's driver development in the past and Gainward's feature sets of their cards (including extra software, cables, etc.)

If you wanted a good ATI chipset, I'd go with ATI or Sapphire as manufacturers.

If you want a good NVIDIA chipset, I'd go with just about any of them. There aren't any unreputable NVIDIA manufacturers, but I can say that I've had good experiences with PNY, AOpen, and BFG.

-Lasereth