Confused my all of the different brands.

[vonfeldt7]

Confused by all of the different brands.

I'm looking at some video cards....and I'm starting to get really confused by all of the different brands that offer what looks to be (essentially) the same thing.

For example someone was saying that the "2900xt" is a good card, so I look into it, and come up with many different brands such as Sapphire, HIS, Asus, Diamond, Gigabyte, Gecube, Ati, etc.

Now my question is: Whats the difference between all of these? I (sorta ) understand, but not fully. Do they all use the same GPU core or something made by ATI, but everything else is different, or is it the other way around? Or...am I just totally off?

Can someone please help me with this..and maybe reccommend a few good brands, thanks.

 

[PC eye]

Some makes are better then others and see less problems. You will see a difference in core speed like 800mhz on an MSI model over the Sapphire or HIS seeing 600mhz. The memory clock will also be higher as well. That is one exaple of the HD 2600XT currently out. The video processing unit(VPU) will be the exact same on the cards despite brand. What one brand then offers is based on how well it was designed. And of course quality as well as performance. A cheap brand with a faster clock is not so reliable just due to having a faster core. The above exaople on one make proven reliable so far. Sapphire is also a good brand but simply has a slower core.