When it comes to ATI cards I always stick with Sapphire. They are the
largest 3rd party maker of ATI cards and they even make some of the ATI
branded cards, so I know I'm getting a great card.
If you're concerned about VisionTek, I suggest you look up some reviews on
the card you're looking at and see what's been said about it. JLC
Note that almost all the high-end cards (X1800, X1900/1950) are made by
a 3rd-party contract manufacturer, usually Celestica in Toronto, then sold
to the various board vendors like ATi, Visiontek, Sapphire, Powercolor, etc.
to stick their labels on them.
For the lower-end cards that Visiontek actually manufactures by itself, the
workmanship is solid.
Visiontek also offers lifetime warranties on all its video cards from the
Radeon 9250 and up.
I had a Visiontek X700 Pro, and had no problems at all with it. Its
currently used in a lab machine for Vista testing.
A couple things to look at when choosing a high end card; cooling and
drivers. I replaced my x700 with a Sapphire x850 XT, a great fast card.
But I had occasional cooling issues with it. It did have a big fan and
took up two slots. I replaced it with an X1600 XT made by HIS,
specifically because it came preinstalled with one of the best cooling
systems on the market: an acrtic cooler. It isn't quite as fast as the
x850, but all of my cooling issues are history.
In terms of drivers for the card itself, you can use ATIs driver, or
the Omega drivers for every card. One advantage of the Sapphire and HIS
cards is that they come with overclocking utilities as well. I don't
use them, given my heat issues, but if you have a well cooled case it
might help you gain a little bit of performance.
James
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