I don't know much about the ATI card companies; could anyone tell me what companies are good to buy from that have good warranties and customer service
My top choices in order would be:
Asus
Visiontek
HIS
MSI
Gigabyte
XFX
Sapphire
Powercolor
Diamond
Asus is my #1 choice because I never had a problem with it but it also costs a lot more but it's worth it to avoid problems with other partners. Visiontek is very solid in my opinion, I have about 4 cards and never had a problem. I was able to do 790/1100 with a Visiontek 4870 512MB, I would've bought 2 4870 1GB if Visiontek made them but they have released 4890's. Besides Asus, my second choice would be Visiontek 4890 1GB. HIS would be my next choice because they have nice coolers to keep the GPU cool. Never really had problems with HIS.
MSI would be my next choice, I once had an X800XL that failed but I talked to tech support and they were nice enough to respond promptly and I RMA'd the card and got a new replacement promptly. While many despise Gigabyte and it may not be the best overclocker I still have to say it's a solid product that they release. Even though I had problems with Crossfire 4870 1GB I was able to resolve it through tech support. It took me a week talking to tech support to get my Crossfire working with a new bios. In the end the support to solve your problem matters. As long as the company has a solution to the problem I could care less what people think about Gigabyte.
Many people swear by XFX and their life-time warranty and how great XFX is. I think they are okay however my adventures didn't go to well with Crossfire XFX 4890 1GB. After I took the heatsink off to apply an MCW60-4870 waterblock the card stopped functioning. It worked fine with the stock heatsink but after I took it off hell broke loose. As for Sapphire they're okay but it wouldn't be my prime choice because they tend to move away from reference designs. As for the Vapor X I never tried any card with it but I use water over Vapor X anyday. One of the Power Color I had didn't work too well, don't remember which card but it died after about 2 years. As for Diamond, I never owned any Diamond cards but from what I have read there seems to be a lot of unsatisfied users with Diamond so I tend to stay away from them.
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