[CP5670]

If they do make the cards, then chances are all the other companies buy from them, so the quality would be identical. I think it's more likely that a few of the big motherboard companies do this. ASUS and Foxconn have been mentioned for both Nvidia and ATI.

There were several reports of Sapphire charging $15 for warranty service and requiring you to ship to a Hong Kong address a few years ago, but they're supposed to be better now.

[pecenipicek]

I keep hearing about how ECS have cleaned up their act in recent times, but I'm still not inclined to trust them. In part because they operate in the cheap and nasty end of the price spectrum, but mostly I suspect because I'm old enough to be familiar with the kind of **** they used to pull when they were PC Chips: http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html

didnt know that ECS was PCChips... eh.

back when i bought that GPU, i also bought one of their mobo's, one of the first am2+ ones, when the first phenoms came out, and while it wasnt a very serious overclocker or anything, it was damn stable. When i switched over to Asrock P43DE and Intel E7500 i wept... Now that crap was unstable as all ****. In the end, sold it to a friend and got a Gigabyte MA78G-DS3H (rev 1.0, meaning faulty VRM's on CPU phases, meaning unstable voltages as you increase them in bios, meaning, you thought you raised the voltage by 0.125V while it actually raised it by 0.75V or the like, fixed in rev 2 of the same mobo) and AMD 7750 BE @ 2.7 GHz...

i'm still weeping for that ECS mobo and the old Phenom... performance wasnt anything special, but **** me it was rock-solid stable.








so yeah. still nvidia fanboy for GPU's, and Intel can go **** itself, as far as CPU's and MBO's go.



[edit] This mobo was the one i had from ECS

[Wanderer]

Might be that my experiences are rather limited to FS Open circles but ATI has done more than enough to leave a very persistent foul stench behind it. Like ATI with their 'clever' x1k series & VTF.. (or - possibly - the recent HD 5870 probs...)

[pecenipicek]

ATI never was that concerned or reliable with their OpenGL quality (excluding the FireGL series and such, but those arent for gaming, now are they?)



Nvidia was always a much better bet in regards to opengl , so yeah

[Mikes]

I'm actually not quite sure about this...

... but i doubt that all card manufacturers would use the same brand of capacitors for their card... and if they don't, well that would explain the huge differences that you see in reliability and longevity right there

Otherwise, even with a reference design, you could still easily have huge differences with heat compound, fan manufacturers and most importantly manufacturing PROCESS .

.... someone actually has to put these cards together. And it doesn't matter if it's actually done by a human or fully/mostly automated by a machine...  the quality of the manufacturing process will have a huge impact on the reliability of the final product.


The difference between ATI and Nvidia, frankly, is less important to me these days than the difference between card manufacturers.

I've had plenty of both Nvidia AND ATI cards that worked well over the years. (And as far as problems go i had my share with either company as well... the impression that stuck was, that one better be careful with new Nvidia products when their market position is too strong at that moment (the mobile GPU desaster with mass failing of inferior components comes to mind, as well as the rather infuriating memory/stutter bug in several cards of the 8800 gts series) and on the other hand....  that ATI is prone to push too hard for performance when pressed (which - for example - resulted in the rather grotesque heat/power/noise monster cards in the X2x000 series ... )

Lately tho, we ve seen very nice and comparable offerings from both companies with Nvidias Fermi and ATIs 4x000 and 5x000 series.


... in any case...  Nvidia or Ati isn't really the issue in my eyes; In the past both companys have had really nice and really crappy cards (Geforce 5x000 er series that's you for example lol)

however, more importantly, I've never had a heatsink part just fall off an EVGA or Sapphire card inside the case while playing a game... (I'm looking at you PNY LOL - and that was 3 weeks after purchase mind you.).

[Hades]

 that ATI is prone to push too hard for performance when pressed (which - for example - resulted in the rather grotesque heat/power/noise monster cards in the X2x000 series ...

Nvidia does this too, y'know (GTX 260, GTX 280, etc).

[CP5670]

however, more importantly, I've never had a heatsink part just fall off an EVGA or Sapphire card inside the case while playing a game... (I'm looking at you PNY LOL - and that was 3 weeks after purchase mind you.).

I think you just got unlucky. All of the professional Quadro cards sold at retail are PNY models, so their quality has to be at least decent. I highly doubt that there are any widespread reliability differences between cards (at least models with reference speeds and cooling), as they are all made by some third party company.

Nvidia does this too, y'know (GTX 260, GTX 280, etc).

Those cards are not that hot or noisy at all. The problem with them was the prices they were released at. However, Microsoft happened to have the original, huge cashback deal going on when they were released (it only lasted a day or two), which many people got in on. I got a 280 for half price back then, which I'm still using.

Better examples of this are the 2900XT and now the GTX 480 and 465. The X1900 line was very loud too, but it did at least have superior performance for its time.

[pecenipicek]

that ATI is prone to push too hard for performance when pressed (which - for example - resulted in the rather grotesque heat/power/noise monster cards in the X2x000 series ...

Nvidia does this too, y'know (GTX 260, GTX 280, etc).

with a very simple solution. peel off the coolers and replace the TIM. (on the chip only, dont under any circumstance remove the memory TIM pads.)


the downside is they use a lot of paste. like a whole pack of arctic cooling MX-3. the problem is the spacers between the card and the heatsink, resulting in approximately 2-3 milimeter distance between the chip and the heatsink, which has to be filled with thermal paste.


then again, its not like those cards are for "standard" users mostly. the expectany these days with high end cards is if you got enough money to buy them, you most likely have either the money to get enough airflow for them or enough money to get someone to do it for you.

[Hades]

Usually I'd expect the cards to use less power and generate less heat if I'm buying an expensive one. :\

[pecenipicek]

its actually quite the opposite, and it has been so for quite a while now.

[asyikarea51]

Is the ATI 5xxx series stable in FSO or are there any issues with it (minor, major, etc)?

Well that's another one for the green camp, sadly...

[Mongoose]

The fact that there are now kilowatt power supplies is sort of a scary thing.

[pecenipicek]

eeeh, its hard to get a rig that actually uses that much power on full-on power. we're talking triple/quadruple card setups, 6+ HDD's and some pretty extreme CPU's there (newest hex cores come to mind).


my rig, which isnt exactly a powersaver, drains on full load under 300W, so yeah. 90% of the time its around 120-ish W, and i definitely aint packing any powersaving components.

[QuantumDelta]

How do you know what wattage you're using?

[pecenipicek]

wattmeter pluged in the outlet from which the PC, monitor and speakers get their power?


connection is as follows outlet -> wattmeter -> extension cord -> PC, monitor, speakers.



and note, this utterly ignores the power consumption of individual components, i only get how much the whole thing guzzles, ignoring any efficiency thingamajiggies and such. the wall outlet is pretty much the best spot to get accurate measurements on the consumption.

[QuantumDelta]

*looks at cable sprawl under desk*
.....Yea that wouldn't work here, but I'd guestimate around 400-450 wattage on my box :<

[pecenipicek]

and? you tell me you have multiple extension cords coming in from different outlets?

just get an ordinary wattmeter of that type, find the outlet where its all plugged in and plug it in before the extension cord.