Choosing when to upgrade and which graphics card to go for is just half the battle, there’s also the not insignificant choice of choosing from potentially dozens of variants from AMD and Nvidia’s graphics board partners. I myself had this last year when I decided to buy a GTX 970, having to pick my way through all the different cards from the likes of MSI,Zotac, Asus and more. Some, like EVGA, can even have three or four different variants of what is essentially the same card.
What usually ends up happening is you pore over the reviews, looking for which is the cheapest buy, or offers the most bang for your buck, or just go all out for performance.
Without doing some hefty research there’s practically nothing to discern between the brands, aside from looks. Some run faster than others of course, while others have more advanced cooling. Some have coil whine, some run hot, and some are even half the size of others. There’s even things to consider outside of the graphics card itself. EVGA has its step up program for free upgrades, while some have practically non-existent repair and returns facilities.
When buying your graphics card do you make sure you seek out the very best version there is? Or are you brand loyal? As soon as there’s a new graphics card do you look straight for your favourite manufacturer? Let us know why below!
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Are gpu's built-in cooling fans better than heatsink pipes? (considering a lil noise is not too much of a problem)
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I gave XFX a shot this go round. Big mistake, NEVER again.
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What was wrong with it?
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I guess a 390 with a slim cooler is not the card you want.
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Used to be MSI, but ASUS has won me over the past couple years..
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EVGA for me :)
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I'm jealous of you processor lol. Great rig, buddy. What do you do with all that power?!
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I know he does sound with it.
I do 3D rendering, photo and video editing with mine.
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OH Nice! I'm doing music production, video rendering and soon starting video game designing. Sometimes I wonder if I should had gone with a 2011 mobo and compatible CPU. Not undermining the 4790 in any way, I love it for both gaming and the mentioned task ^ My fault was going with a none OC CPU. Though to be fair 4.0GHz is appropriate for just about anything. Thanks for the info, your rig is outstanding lol
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Well, I went with the 8-core specifically for video. I'm a very impatient man when it comes to waiting for rendering jobs (wasted time, in other words). High clocks at 4.5-4.7GHz also allow me to do everything else to a superb degree too. So that was why I chose the 5960X.
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music, videos, batch image processing, virtualization, make games and plenty other things which are actually more resource demanding than most games,
but I also play Witcher 3 for ex., 2560x1440 ftw:3
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That's awesome man :D
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4K 100+ fps and 5K 60fps here tho :D
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Xquatrox 4K and 5K are uninteresting for me, only upgrade worth considering for me would be some curvy 21:9 to unite my speakers on the desk, but dang even those 3440x1440 cost like my GTX980Ti (800$-ish)
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I bet you said the same about 1080p and 1440p gaming back in the day...
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if I remember well I did say same about 1280x1024, now when I think about it I probably skipped 1080p and went for 2560x1024 and then 3840x1024, then went for 2560x1440,
honestly I never really appreciated 16:9 ratio, because it's too narrow to put multiple windows side-by-side and unnecessarily too wide to watch something in the middle, golden ratio is said to be 3:2 and 16:9 is like 3.55:2, oh and cinemas are 21:9 anyway :))
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Cinema is 2.35:1 or 2.39:1, to be precise. I went to uni for that crap xD
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You guys have monster PCs, just sayin' xD
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Why thank you, kind sir! :)
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I was rendered useless,limp and impotent while reading Xquatrox's specs. My confidence has evaporated and my children won't even play with me anymore. I found my wife salivating while looking at his rig on his profile page
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Oh my!
Had a right laugh I did xD
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msi all the way
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lol msi is winning lol i love msi especially there military class 4 810G parts/gaming stuff witch what i have now my fave is MSI all the way with AMD powered chips its never steered me wrong
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ASUS!
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My favs are
ASUS
MSI
GIGABYTE
EVGA
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EVGA, for their warranty and their fan system acx 2.
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If it's an AMD card.. Sapphire.
if it's Nvidia than EVGA.
MSI might have the list on the survey.. but EVGA have better warranty..
international and some cards get an extended warranty from 3 to 5 years only by registering the card on the website.
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Yeah MSI leads :DD
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I actually dont know much about this so i guess im just gonna go with "no vote".
But my preference is the cheapest option or the best bang for buck ,that sorta stuff. Im satisfied with that.
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Yeah. I also have a little experience but with the experience I have, I'd go for Gigabyte coz it gives "Bang for Bucks".
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Well, everyone has their own preferences, i mean, i bought this Galaxy 750 Ti last year, simply because it was the only one that they (the shop) had, and i wanted a new GPU ASAP, so i couldnt wait for other manufacturer's GPUs.
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That happened to me once when my MSI GTX660 died after a week of watching movies and hardcore web browsing. I guess youtube pushed the card to it's limits. Went to bestbuy and the only card they had was a pathetic 4gb EVGA Nvidia 740
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"YouTube pushed the card to its limits"
What. The. Hell!!!
How did that even happen?!
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The biggest problem in India is that majority of cards can't make their way to India. We only have those cards available in market like GT210, Radeon 5450 and with cheap brands like Zotac, Forsa, etc. But now the situation is improving. Online stores are keeping better cards but it's still a long way down.
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Asus's DCU II cooling was very effective, but quite loud. Dunno how things changed in the StriX series. My MSI is tho pretty quiet.
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It's fairly quiet on my 980 strix but at about 70% it becomes noticeable, my sound system drown it out completely but with out that it would drive insane
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Once i chose EVGA and it stayed this way for all my cards so far.
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I've used Asus, Zotac, Gigabyte and (currently) MSI. No problems (I know people who've had Zotac trouble tho); I only discarded them for upgrades. All were different models so can't really compare. Asus was the quietest (610 Silent Edition) and MSI loudest but with best performance so far (1080/50/High/Shadow of Mordor).
I think people like MSI for reliability; & packaging and design's cool.
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ASUS was my first, but I doubt I'll go for one next time. Always liked the look of MSI cards.
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I use whichever gives me best bang for buck from each generation but I usually aim for the higher end partner cards. I have an MSI R7950 Twin frozr 2 BE but I am looking forward to the EVGA GTX 1070 Classified or if prices drop, maybe just the MSI Gaming X or even the EVGA FTW
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Galax Hall of Fame...FTW
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so many "HIS" in pic but nowhere at poll ?
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Which ever is the cheapest one ofc! In my country the branding is soo expensive! EVGA GTX 950 costs more than the cheapest GTX 960 (Palit) ! WHAT A NO BRAINER!
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Quite a few people from Bulgaria seem to say the same thing (mostly about overpriced tech). Shame!
Maybe it would make sense to shop in the EU using ebay? No customs in the EU, you'd only pay the shipping, which might end up being much cheaper when buying a card from, say, Latvia. Have you looked into that?
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Yes I have, in most cases, its not so much cheaper and you don't get any warranty, if something happens. I know MSI, EVGA and Gigabyte have a national warranty, but just thinking about how much I'm gonna wait until they even check it...