differences in video card makers?

[Bud]

im loking at buyong a 9600xt. i see ati, asus, and saphire all make thier own. Whats the differnece between the 3.

[csimon]

I am very happy with my sapphire (not 9600xt but)at this point ...they have probably the largest selection.

[keto]

Bud, it varies from model-to-model how much the third party vendors vary from the chipset manufacturer when rolling out "their version" of a particular card. AFAIK Asus usually does the cooling a little differently and has a big software bundle but charges a price premium. ATI usually has zero bundle but a price premium due in large measure to their 'name'. Sapphire usually follows reference design very closely and uses good quality components but at a slight discount. I have the Sapphire 9800XT, which looks and performs exactly like an ATI except the badging.

Best bet is to google for reviews on the specific model numbers from the manufacturers and do some reading up.

[Bud]

well the ati form is like 199 asus-190 saphire- 185 so i was confused cause they all run same speeds on spec. any ideas on which one i should get?

[leishi85]

depends on what each of them come with, if the asus one come with couple games, and some good software, then it's worth the extra 5 dollars that's if the sapphire one doesn't come with much, most of the times, the card itself, should be MUCH difference.

[SimGuy]

Sapphire is ATI's #1 OEM customer, which also helps produce ATI's retail Radeon cards.

Ever notice how Sapphire & ATI's cards are identical, short of the cooling unit and sometimes the choice of memory modules? Both follow the same reference design.

The difference? Negligable. Performance wise, at stock speeds, they are all identical. The choice of memory onboard the video card and the core revision determines how high an overclock you can get.

Asus's ATI cards usually come with exotic cooling solutions and mega software bundles (including full, retail games), but do cost more than the vanilla retail ATI cards or Sapphire cards.

Personally, I choose the one that you can get the best overclocks out of, and those carry Samsung memory modules.

[Geeky1]

My choice would be ATi or ASUS, simply because I've dealt with their tech support before.