Puzzling Video Card Manufacturers

I have a question about graphics cards. I am planning to get a new one for my computer. I have been searching around the net and I have found some really good prices. The only thing is, the cards with the good prices seem to be manufactured by some no name brand, or it is what they call "house brand". I am assuming this means that they made it themselves. I am just not clear about this. Nvidia makes great video cards. But, all their video cards are sold by other companies. I have seen the same card sold by 3 different companies and they all look different and have different prices, yet it says they are the same card from nvidia. I dont understand. How can one card, be sold by 3 different companies, and look different, but it is still the same card. How does this work? Are they the same card, just made by different people. Did the companies by these parts from nvidia and put them together or something? Do the more well known companies make better cards, or are they all the same? Should I just get the cheapest card I can find of the particular card I want? Or, should I go with a more expensive manufacturer and pay more?

Could anyone that understands this please explain it to me? Thanks.

#7615

Sorry, I can't help but I believe this post belongs in the Hardware section of the forums. Good luck!

#7616

Ya, thats right. Sorry, just not used to the abundance of new sections to post in.

#7617

yeh I know what you mean. Oh the selection!

#7623

There are different brands, Nvidia and Ati, etc. If you notice, an ati brand card is worth a lot, the best one of 128mb, i beleive is the 9700 worths about 300 to 350 usd, which is a lot. The thing is that the "other brands" use the chipset of that video card, I think they pay the company to get chipsets or the technology to make them.

If you compare a "Build by ATI" and a "Powered by ATI", you will notice that the build by ati gets support from ATI, and the powered get support by the manufacturer that uses the chipset. You will notice there is a difference in prices, and I think it is more reliable to get a built by card, than a powered by.

This is very common in electronics, you can get a XXX modem that uses a lucent chipset, but that doesnt mean that lucent manufacutured the modem, it only has the chipset, it is powered by it. I think this happens in other hardware and electronics, you will be surprised to look samsung mice, some of those are bought from a asiatic company, and added a samsung seal, Samsung doesnt make the mice.

You will be surprised by the quantity of hardware that exists that uses chipsets made by other companies, the reals comanies products are more expensive, and they offer a better support and service. I think the word for this is OEM, but im not that sure. If you have the money, I would recommend to go for a "BUILT by", rather than a "POWERED by". The built by are more reliable, and offer better support, plus sometimes there are drivers problems, and the video card might not work in a new OS version, because the CD provided doesnt include drivers for newer versions, and if you get a built by, it offers new drivers avaible form their webpage, and maybe more features. If you check a "BUILT by ATI" it has tv output and more, and a powered by, only offers a monitor output, no more, althought they have the same chipset model.

Hope this info helps, im not a lot in this a lot, but i think it transmits the idea.

Good Luck

#7632

Actually ATI supports both 'Built by' and 'Powered By' cards...

In an interview with Terry Makedon, ATI Senior Product Manager...

Ati seem to be vastly improving driver support in the last year, how do you feel right now about the current state of support an ATI customer will receive?

[Terry Makedon] I feel that ATI's support is top notch in the graphics industry bar none. We have a large dedicated staff of customer support specialists and have reduced our turn around time for customer support to record levels. Furthermore we support all our partner cards, in other words it doesn't matter if you buy an ATI branded retail card or say for example a Hercules, Sapphire, or Visiontek card you still get ATI tech support. We are also very accessible to users whether it be in interviews like this, or even having employees help people out in the various forums.

whole interview here...

http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php...=&threadid=8369

#7642

well they do support them. but they offer generic drivers, so if you loose the drivers provided by the oem manufacturer, and use the generic drivers, you might loose some characteristics of your videocard. Ati makes a great job on providing support for powered by card, I own one, but I dont know about another electronics manufacurer that does the same.

#7644

Ya, I just ordered an nvidia geforce ti 4600, currently their best card out. This thing is beefy. But, the actual board looks a lot different than other models I have seen. It says OEM and retail box. I'm sure it will work fine. And plus, you can return it within 10 days of shipment if you dont like it. Also if anything is defective they will replace it at no charge. Anyone can download free nvidia drivers off of their website. I'll just download the latest drivers if they dont provide me with any, which they probably will because it is in a retail box. Thanks for the help guys. I'll let you know how the card works out. Also, one more thing. I read at gamespot.com that most graphics cards of the same chipset, manufactured by different companies will virtually perform the same in benchmarking tests and so-forth. So I am not worried!

EDIT: Any extra information that anyone knows would be helpful.

#7647

Hi,

If you're going for a Nvidia card, you may want to consider getting one of Gainward's "Golden Sample" cards.

These cards generally have faster RAM and better cooling than most other manufacturers version of the same card.

The combination of faster RAM and better cooling allow the Golden Sample series of card to actually overclock faster than most other manufacturers cards.

I bought a Gainward Golden Sample card about a year ago and have been *very happy* with it.

All the best,

Grusic

#7669

Not to start a flame war...

But the Radeon 9700 Pro owns the ti 4600...

Hell the 9500 Pro get pretty close to the ti 4600

at a much lower price...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/radeon9500-9700/

Personally I cannot wait for the next radeon...

R350 core, .13 micron, 256bit bus, 128mb DDRII.

looking at a march/april release...

Coinsides with Nvidia's Geforce FX (NV30) release.

sure its also 13. micron and has 128mb of DDRII.

but its only a 128bit bus... gonna hurt them in the end.

#7678

Any rumors on when the NV35's coming out?? I've heard it will follow in the Parhelia's footsteps with a 512-bit GPU and a 256-bit memory bus similar to the one that's gonna be used in the R350....

BTW I have a Gainward GeForce2 Ti "Golden Sample" Video Card and have been very happy with it.....one of the most overclockable cards I have ever seen....I took it from the factory default of 250/400 to 270/500 with no trouble at all and no mods whatsoever and just 3 fans in the system

A slight mod on the GPU and RAMsinks and having a fan blow air across the RAM chips took it to 290/530 completely stable without voltage mods (didn't try modding the voltage yet)

Oh yeah and I tested the stability of the card too....ran 3Dmark2001 SE continuously for 6 hours....no lockups whatsoever..

I'd say go for a Gainward card....they are simply too awesome...

Siddharth

#7680

I agree with mageguru, nvidia is loosing the market against ATI, ati's radeon 9700 is selected by techtv as the best video card, and perfect for gifts, in http://techtv.com/toptwenty . Plus it was selected by Doom III, and since they willl be the new gaming industry standard, they are going up. Nvidia is beign like microsoft lately, i hate the demos and games saying, best played in Nvidia card, I dont have one, so I dont care. I would get an Ati radeon 9700 if I would have the money and a motherboard that supports the agp 8x.

#7694

Hey, thanks for the info guys. Ya, I know about the faster Radeon cards at much lower prices, but I can't help but wonder, "How stable are these cards?".

I believe it is called the Geforce FX. Which I had looked into. It is supposively the next generation in video graphics cards. It will probably be awsome, but you know what the price tag on that thing is gonna be for at least a year from its first release?? It will be at least $400 big ones, probably more! I'm not gonna spend that on my video card. The ti series are gonna last a long time, and especially the ti 4600 will be PLENTY for at least another 3 years. Sure, the new FX cards will be cool, but I think I'll wait for their price tags to come down, and for some developers to develop some games that require that kind of power. Cause, right now theres not gonna be much that requires that hardware for at least another 3 years. For that time, this ti 4600 card will have more than enough power to keep my games runnin smooth.

#7696

you can tun games with any gamecard that supports it, but it is better to run with a better card, it gives better graphics and run smoothly, you can run games with a simple one, but as new games come out, they will run everytime slower and non smooth, it is better to get a good videocard from the beggining, just a recommendation, from my own experience

#7698

Yes, essentially that is what I'm doing. I have decided to go with the biggest, beefiest nvidia card there is. I am not wily wallying here. This card is big time. Infact it will out do all of my friends nvidia's. Obviously you can run any game on mostly any card that will support it, but the question becomes will it run smooth; smooth enough to play the game the way it should be. And that is virtually running the game with no hiccups at all. That is what you want when you play a game. The frame rate must be high enough to bare also. My question is not really should I get a really good card. Obviously that is a given; the better the card the better the gameplay.

#7700

good luck with your new card.

later

#7726

The Big Question here was who made what. ATI makes both the chips and the cards. As of last year they went back to selling chips to second party manufactures to compete with NVidia. NVidia doesn't build cards per say. They develope and make the reference cards and the chipsets then they have the chips made for them and they distribute them, the chips and the reference design to second party manuactures for them to build. The various manufactures can either use the reference design or they can modify it to there own uses. Thats why there are so many different versions of the same NVidia cards out there. ATI was smart to adopt this plan as it was the only way they could keep up with NVidia'a manufacturing partners. Its all pure numbers.

Now we can get into a big pissing war over what card is better. The ATI Radeon may be faster and have a few more features then the present NVidia cards do but that will change in the near future. I personaly use the NVidia simply because of compatibility. I use an work on open source astronomy program called Celestia and it compleatly is supported by NVidia based cards. ATI cards don't work well with it do to the way ATI wrote the way OpenGL accesses the pixel and vertex shaders. The shaders are there but they can't be aceessed. Of course part of this is due to the fact the creator can't afford an ATI Radeon 9700 card but also because he is contracted to NVidia. So even with all the power the ATI Radeon 9700 has it can't compete with the old TI 4600 under at least this program and I am sure there are many otheres out there as well. I personaly will move on to the NVidia GeForce FX as soon as I can afford one.

Hope this answeres the original question better.

#7895

to make it short:

i would certainly take a NVIDIA !

good luck,

moby

#7903