What is the best GPU manufacturer?

[Manical]

I created this thread just for fun, I'm kind of curious to know and maybe hear your opinions? Some think that Zotac is one of the worst or the worst GPU manufacturer.

 

[welly321]

Zotac isnt bad. I think they get a bad rap because of theyre notoriously annoying fans but besides that, they are fine cards.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Well yeah, Zotac is no Galax HOF or anything. But probably a smidgen better than unknown brands off Temu.

 

[Event Horizon]

Correct me if I'm wrong but last time I checked Zotac does not provide bios updates for their cards.

 

[natr0n]

the one that has the least rma

I think evga was.

 

[Ruru]

I've always liked Gigabyte, both AMD and Nvidia based cards from them have always worked like charm for me.

 

[dirtyferret]

the best board partner is the one that gives me the best performance for my dollar. I've owned a few zotac cards and never had an issue with them. Probably owned more gigabyte than any other partner along with Asus, XFX, EVGA, MSI, Crucial (when they made cards), PNY, Palit, etc.,

 

[Lew Zealand]

I've had continual good experiences with MSi products and I only buy mid-grade or lower GPUs, and the same goes for Sapphire Pulse. All good value for money, usually MSRP or less.

 

[dirtyferret]

Some think that Zotac is one of the worst or the worst GPU manufacturer.

Zotac is no Galax HOF or anything

Just an FYI, Zotac is probably the largest video card manufacturer in the world... well the company that owns them. PC Partner owns Zotac and Inno3D and Sapphire outsources their boards to them for production which is why people mistakenly think Zotac and Sapphire are the same company.

 

[Ruru]

Just an FYI, Zotac is probably the largest video card manufacturer in the world... well the company that owns them. PC Partner owns Zotac and Inno3D and Sapphire outsources their boards to them for production which is why people mistakenly think Zotac and Sapphire are the same company.

I was going to say that Zotac is for Nvidia what Sapphire is for AMD, but I guess that I was wrong.

 

[dirtyferret]

I was going to say that Zotac is for Nvidia what Sapphire is for AMD, but I guess that I was wrong.

I think that's why people think they are the same but perhaps there is a non-compete somewhere in their deal (not sure I'm not privy to it)

 

[Marcus L]

Sapphire/PowerColor

 

[ARF]

EVGA that got rid of the black-leather jacketed guy.

Sapphire, ASRock, MSI must be solid options...

 

[dgianstefani]

FE cards are top tier, ASUS TUF also very good, but it's hard to go wrong these days.

 

[Sarajiel]

Personally, I don't have a favorite manufacturer, but at the moment I'm quite happy with my GALAX RTX 40 cards. Got a half dozen of them from 4070 to 4090, and they are quiet, fast, and you can permanently disable the RGB crap without needing to run any software in the background.
On the AMD side of things, I still have an ASRock 6800XT card in use. I really like that their bling-bling cards come with a dip-switch to disable RGB.

Just an FYI, Zotac is probably the largest video card manufacturer in the world... well the company that owns them. PC Partner

Are you sure?
ASUS had about 12x the revenue of PC Partner in 2023 according to their annual reports.
PNY manufactures a huge chunk of the workstation cards for nVidia, a segment that has about 3x the revenue for nV compared to the whole revenue of PC Partner.
Not to forget Palit that also owns Gainward and GALAX (except China). Sadly, they aren't publicly traded, therefore their revenue is hard to come by, but I remember news reports from a couple of years ago that they surpassed ASUS' GPU segment. Might have changed back over time, though.

 

[gffermari]

AMD reference cards by miles the worst.
Zotac, Palit, ASUS, PNY, MSI, all excellent to me. Never had issues.

 

[Marcus L]

AMD reference cards by miles the worst.

on what basis? your opinion? gotcha

 

[Ruru]

on what basis? your opinion? gotcha

I guess he means the build quality. Their coolers are pretty meh though.

 

[Marcus L]

ASUS had about 12x the revenue of PC Partner in 2023 according to their annual reports

Am sure most of their revenue comes from other aspects of their company, most notably motherboards, monitors etc, generally they are the most expensive GPU AIB based on nothing more than the brand name

I guess he means the build quality. Their coolers are pretty meh though.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review - Disrupting the GeForce RTX 4080

Navi 31 is here! The new $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this review is AMD's new flagship card based on the wonderful chiplet technology that made the Ryzen Effect possible. In our testing we can confirm that the new RX 7900 XTX is indeed faster than the GeForce RTX 4080, but only with RT disabled.

www.techpowerup.com

58c core/73c hotspot seems pretty damn good to me

Ofc they don't slap a fan on the front and one on the back in between a George Foreman grill in between or take up 4.5 PCI slots, so I can see why that maybe meh cause moreeeee thiccness and size is better

 

[oxrufiioxo]

There really isn't a best or worst becuase generation to generation that can change wildly.

Also best is subjective... Best PCB/Build quality, best value, best warranty support, best cooler, best high end, best msrp card etc can change and isn't always the same aib.

It also can vary greatly depending on tier of gpu. All the 4090s are pretty good but all the 4060/4070s are not for example.

Keep in mind there are people out there willing to spend 4090 money on a 4080 strix that will never come anywhere near to being as good as a 4090 FE just to have a strix so even person to person what they consider best can vary greatly.

 

[dirtyferret]

Are you sure?
ASUS had about 12x the revenue of PC Partner in 2023 according to their annual reports.

Asus is huge, the are a top 5 personal PC vendor and one of the largest network vendors in the world and that doesn't even begin to get into their other business such as mobos, video cards, etc. I said PC Partner is "probably the largest video card manufacturer in the world" but as far as companies go ASUS is much larger but also broader in scope.

 

[ARF]

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review - Disrupting the GeForce RTX 4080

Navi 31 is here! The new $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this review is AMD's new flagship card based on the wonderful chiplet technology that made the Ryzen Effect possible. In our testing we can confirm that the new RX 7900 XTX is indeed faster than the GeForce RTX 4080, but only with RT disabled.

www.techpowerup.com

58c core/73c hotspot seems pretty damn good to me

After removing the fan assembly, we can see that AMD is using a very large vapor-chamber that has fins directly attached to it. There's no heatpipes in use.

Probably the only graphics card in the world without heat pipes, but actually one large plate acting as a vapour chamber with the heatsink directly soldered to it.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I can't there is a best in terms of GPU AIB company. I can say what I've experienced over time:

PNY - only card I had from them was a 7600GT (PCI) back in the day. Worked without issues.

EVGA - 7600GT (PCI, ran in SLI with the PNY card), a few 8800 models, GTX 570, RTX 3060, RTX 3080Ti. Out of those cards all ran or are still running without issues expect for the 3080Ti. About 3 months of using the card it outright just died on me. The replacement one from EVGA has been running flawlessly for the past 18-19 months.

BFG - GTX 280s in SLI. One had a fan die, replacement GTX 285 I was sent didn't work properly and by this time BFG closed doors. I got the card working by flashing the BIOS from my working 280. Ran the 280 and the flashed 285 in SLI for a couple years.

ASUS - GTX 3080 (worked great for me for 6 months till I moved to the 3080Ti model from EVGA)

Zotac - GTX 570 (ran it in SLI with the EVGA one), GTX 980Ti. Both models ran without issues. In fact the both models overclocked like crazy, better overclockers than any other GPUs I've used.

I don't recall the models from my AGP card days.

In terms of customer service I'd have to say EVGA based on my experiences.

 

[bonehead123]

But probably a smidgen better than unknown brands off Temu.

Hell, even a Rage 128 is better than the bottom-barrel, unlicensed, hob-gobblined, zero warranty/returns garbaggio that comes from that place

The best card for ME is the one that has the features I need/want, and just works OOB, no muss, no fuss...install the most recent drivers & the card & boom, instant workie workie !

 

[cvaldes]

There really isn't a best or worst becuase generation to generation that can change wildly.

Also best is subjective... Best PCB/Build quality, best value, best warranty support, best cooler, best high end, best msrp card etc can change and isn't always the same aib.

It also can vary greatly depending on tier of gpu. All the 4090s are pretty good but all the 4060/4070s are not for example.

Keep in mind there are people out there willing to spend 4090 money on a 4080 strix that will never come anywhere near to being as good as a 4090 FE just to have a strix so even person to person what they consider best can vary greatly.

It is probably the closest answer to reality: it depends. Build quality and features can vary over time and between tiers.

One thing for certain, Nvidia themselves have a very spotty track record on their Founder Edition cards. The cooler on my RTX 2070 SUPER FE is terrible and the fans are noisy; for a while it was under a full-length waterblock. That made it tolerable. Today it sits in the closet as a backup unit. But like the Sapphire Pulse RX 580 that it sits next to, both cards are just tired old GPUs that use way too much power for what they can do compared to modern silicon.

However the stock cooler on my RTX 4080 SUPER FE is great and I have no desire to mod the card. From what I could tell the Asus TUF Gaming coolers from the 30 Series (Ampere) were pretty capable, at least for the RTX 3080/3080 Ti. The Ada Lovelace TUF cooler looks about the same so I would expect pretty decent thermals and acoustics.

It's also worth pointing out that most of the AIB partners often have different product lines for the same GPU. For Asus I think it's ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, KO (maybe that has been discontinued), Dual, and probably some others like ProArt(?). Since the coolers and pricing are all different, they are all different value propositions.

I also have a couple of lower end EVGA cards. Too bad they are out of the GPU business. I paid full retail for one card, got the second at a hefty discount as a B-stock unit. EVGA's B-stock offerings were sometimes pretty good. I even got a bad one and they exchanged it without a hassle. EVGA's good customer service is sorely missed.

Today I'm particularly pleased with the cooling solution for my Mac mini M2 Pro (integrated GPU/NPU). It runs way cooler than my old Mac mini 2018 (Intel i7) despite having the exact same form factor and the M2 Pro's fan is barely noticeable even when the SoC is running flat out. From an acoustic standpoint, the Mac mini M2 Pro is the best computer in my house, way better than any of the Windows PCs.

Because of this big variability between GPU generations, manufacturers and even product tiers, it's imperative to read reviews and pick wisely. Being loyal to a specific brand isn't likely to result in getting the best version of any given graphics card especially when you look at a performance-per-dollar value perspective.