nVidia Graphics Card Reference Guide

[kram 2.0]

After going through several inquiries, I've determined that it would be beneficial to all to list out all the generally favored companies from the nVidia Third Party Manufacturers. Reason being - Unlike ATI, who has strong/strict quality control on their products from manufacturers, nVidia has left it loosely upto the manufacturers for the making of the cards - some are stable, some aren't. Some OC well, some don't. Some have HUGE (I mean huge) HSF on their chipsets, some don't. So in order to incorporate some of these factors, I have here several STEADY nVidia Third Party Manufacturers...having done a fair amount of research.

NOTE - Just because these cards are listed in their "stable" or "instable" category does not necessarily mean they will ALWAYS be that way...unlike PSUs, graphics cards have a fluctuation in amount of goods and bads. If it's lilsted in the "instable" category, the majority experience have been that it was instable.

Good/Stable Cards
MSI
Chaintech
Gainward
LeadTek
eVGA
AOpen
Creative
VisionTek
PNY

Often Instable/Problematic (doesn't mean always)
BFG
XFX
ECS
Gigabyte

NOT enough Information to Determine
Asus
Abit
Albatron
Rosewill (Newegg)
ELSA


Now, some of you may have some questions as to how I compiled this list...as I said, most if is Googling. I visited other forums on what they had as their experiences (Dev Hardware, Rage3d, etc.) and looked at a few reviews. I should mention I put Asus in the unsure list because their manufacturing has changed into the hands of ECS...the infamous computer manufacturing company. Before then, it was a quality graphics manufacturing company - outputting one of the best in the market. For the ATI side, I'd say you'd be safe but nVidia side remains questionable.

Some of the manufactures have better OC'ing than others. That varies from time to time on what chipsets and such so there is no way to adequately cover that. Some of the companies listed above also have discontinued their manufacturing...such as MSI and VisionTek - they have switched their manufacturing over to ATI (go figure - go capitalism!).

By the way, I modeled this off of bigandy's Power Supply Reference Guide.


Hope that helps,
kram

[juicelooser]

Nice list--thanks

[OLLY89]

Yeah Thanks

[rustywood]

after rma,ing two gainward gt,s one a golden sample you might want to put it in your problematic column,i went to a evga and guess what no problems!!

[Tin]

Albatron makes some killer nVidia cards, among the best OCers out there. Gainward isnt too bad, but as of late i have heard many horror stories about their 5900XTs and 6800GTs crapping out.

EDIT: Visiontek is the sister company to BFG, so their quality should be similar.

[Yuanji]

i'm not so sure of BFG being on the unstable list. I've heard that they usually are very nice and OC very well.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Tin Canary Albatron makes some killer nVidia cards, among the best OCers out there. Gainward isnt too bad, but as of late i have heard many horror stories about their 5900XTs and 6800GTs crapping out. EDIT: Visiontek is the sister company to BFG, so their quality should be similar.

Yes - but looking at numerous sources, BFG is indeed a company suceeded by Visiontek. Visiontek went bankrupt back in 2002. The staffing and marketing is different...however, the manufacturing is done by another company called Mitac based in Asia. Mitac was originally offered partnership with nVidia but they refused to base their company in the US. Their overclocking abilities are set aside from their stability (X-bit labs).

So in that sense, the manufacturing is totally different from that of the Visiontek cards. The selling and marketing should be similar though. Gainward is generally accepted to be a good brand...though some do have bad experiences with it. I will say this - even with good manufacturers, there will always be periodical defects...just like I've seen WD HDDs of the late, and Gainward cards



kram

[encryptedbit]

heh u kno ur stuff

[spyder003]

I would add PNY to the "Don't bother" list... *shudders*

[kram 2.0]

(Noting date of first post)

kram

[spyder003]

Originally Posted by kram8806 (Noting date of first post) kram

Lol, thanks.

[Moose on the Loose]

I'm not a fan of the mother company of XFX, but here in Europe XFX is what you find 80% of the times in stores for nVidia cards, and there are very few bad reviews about it. Same for Gigabyte cards. I think this matter is very subjective Thanks for the post anyway.

Moose

[GraemeM]

wow my 6800GT is EVGA, I thought XFX or BFG were supposed to be better. But waht's the difference between them even? Just quality, or is there anything else? With ATI you can buy a card made by them I believe, but with nVidia you can only buy their chipset, with teh card being made by other companies, is that correct?

[Yuanji]

nVidia doesn't manufacture their own cards, just chipsets. eVGA is i think the official distributer for nVIdia

[fedz]

I think this thread is worth a sticky, thanks Kram.

OK. I've been using XFX cards recently. They seem to have revamped the whole deal. They seem to be better built and more reliable, and they make VERY good 6600GT's. Their customer support is also top notch. I think they really belong to the top group. So do Gigabyte, they tend to make solid cards with good (slightly loud) HSF's. However, Gainward have been doing poorly recently. Their customer support also somewhat lacks in quality.

Anyway, here's my list

Good/Stable Cards
Prolink
MSI
Chaintech
LeadTek
eVGA
AOpen
Creative
VisionTek
PNY
XFX
Gigabyte

Often Instable/Problematic (doesn't mean always)
Gainward
BFG
Asus
ECS
Rosewill (Newegg)
Dabsvalue/Arianet/Ebuyer

NOT enough Information to Determine
Abit
Albatron
ELSA

Abit seem to make good ATi cards, their X800pro is a great overclocker, so I would consider putting them in the 'good/stable' group. However, I've yet to hear about their Nvidia cards so I'll leave them where they are for the moment.

BFG are also dubious, I've heard good and bad, but too much bad to put them in the 'good' group.

fedz

[kram 2.0]

I put MSI and eVGA on the top of the "stable" list as they seem to be the best and the most used out there. I just passed by a MSI GeForce 6600GT with VIVO at 200 USD - a pretty darn nice deal and it rated to be stable - a hard deal to give up if you're looking at a GF6600GT.

Asus has some rumor of being manufacturered by ECS...dunno if that's true.


kram

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

Originally Posted by kram8806 Asus has some rumor of being manufacturered by ECS...dunno if that's true.

Well apparently part of the production is meant to be done by ECS now: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...907051724.html Some of Gigabyte's cards appear to be made by Foxconn as well.

[Force Flow]

Just as a sidenote, XFX is made by Pine

[Hi Ho]

Just because some of the Asus cards are manufactured by ECS is no reason to put them on the bad list. I doubt Asus simply said "make these cards" without laying down guidlines and quality specs. I haven't heard of anyone having problems with Asus cards. I have, however, heard many horror stories about XFX.

[sigmaseven]

Guess I was lucky with my XFX card then..... or maybe I wasn't....... who knows, the performance may not be what it should be, but I just don't know about it.

[Yuanji]

XFX is only good if you are looking for a good OCing chip. it's sorta a gamble. you either get a good card or you don't. eVGA makes cards that are almost as good as OCing as the XFX ones tho and eVGA is a much more reputable brand

[Force Flow]

Personally, I would much rather have a stable, quality card and attempt to OC it, rather than have a known faulty card, get lucky and have it work, then on top of that, try to push it beyond what it's supposed to do when the tolerance level is so low, it's iffy that it will work at normal speeds.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Force Flow Personally, I would much rather have a stable, quality card and attempt to OC it, rather than have a known faulty card, get lucky and have it work, then on top of that, try to push it beyond what it's supposed to do when the tolerance level is so low, it's iffy that it will work at normal speeds.

So would I. I would be the last to take a chance with any card - OC'ing comes second to actually having the card work all the time.

kram

[rustywood]

Originally Posted by fedz I think this thread is worth a sticky, thanks Kram. OK. I've been using XFX cards recently. They seem to have revamped the whole deal. They seem to be better built and more reliable, and they make VERY good 6600GT's. Their customer support is also top notch. I think they really belong to the top group. So do Gigabyte, they tend to make solid cards with good (slightly loud) HSF's. However, Gainward have been doing poorly recently. Their customer support also somewhat lacks in quality. Anyway, here's my list Good/Stable Cards Prolink MSI Chaintech LeadTek eVGA AOpen Creative VisionTek PNY XFX Gigabyte Often Instable/Problematic (doesn't mean always) Gainward BFG Asus ECS Rosewill (Newegg) Dabsvalue/Arianet/Ebuyer NOT enough Information to Determine Abit Albatron ELSA Abit seem to make good ATi cards, their X800pro is a great overclocker, so I would consider putting them in the 'good/stable' group. However, I've yet to hear about their Nvidia cards so I'll leave them where they are for the moment. BFG are also dubious, I've heard good and bad, but too much bad to put them in the 'good' group. fedz

have to back fez on the gainwards, had two in one month ,both 6800gt,s. one a golden sample,both crapped out due to heatsink/graphic artifacting problems,but to be fair ive also had two evga 6800,s crap out to one had a bad dvi connection the other ,s memory went snap as soon as i installed it and booted it up,on my 5 6800 card an evga.

[Yuanji]

Originally Posted by rustywood have to back fez on the gainwards, had two in one month ,both 6800gt,s. one a golden sample,both crapped out due to heatsink/graphic artifacting problems,but to be fair ive also had two evga 6800,s crap out to one had a bad dvi connection the other ,s memory went snap as soon as i installed it and booted it up,on my 5 6800 card an evga.

hmm mabye nVidia doesn't like you guess you just have really bad luck with 6800GTs

[fedz]

I've heard a lot of horror stories about XFX's 'FX' range (nvidia 5--- series) but their latest cards seem to be good, especially the 6600GT's.
Rustywood - that really is bad luck!!

fedz

[digitalfreedom64]

.

[Hi Ho]

You would get more replies by starting a new thread. The Radeon 9600 Pro outclasses all the Nvidia cards in that price range. It is a very good card. The Nvidia FX series cards aren't good performers and the GeForce 6000 series (6600, 6800, etc.), which are excellent performers, start at $200.

[fedz]

Vanilla 6600>9600pro and retails at much less than $200. The 6600GT is probably the best value card now.

fedz

[vödka]

I built two systems using the XFX nVidia 6600, and the both worked great without any problems. Not to say they all will, but I have had good luck with them and would buy that brand again.