Video Card - Brand Name Vs No Name

[Dave]

I'm trying to put together a gaming machine (for games like FFXI Online,
EASports games 2004-5, CounterStrike) and am looking for a good video card.
I can save a bunch of cash buying a 'no-name' card that has the same chipset
as a 'brand-name' card (such as an ATI Raedon or NVidia GeForce). I know
that I can use the official drivers with the no name cards, but what I don't
know is this...do you suffer any performance difference buying one of the
no-name brands, or is it only the chipset that matters?

Secondly, what's your opinion on the best chipset right now? I'd like to
get a 256 card, but if the price is too steep, I'll go with a 128.

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions.

 

[Werner Huysmans]

Tough question !
The chips on the card are made by ATI or NVIDIA, so why would there be
differences ?
Because, the signals must get to your monitor, so the quality of the
components around the chip might lead to quality differences in the image.
This being said, I admit that I do not pay attention to the brand, and I
look at the Chip ! I only noticed some minor quality problems when using an
integrated chip on a mainboard which I used on its maximum refresh rate.
Nowadays the refresh rates are no longer an issue, the limitations are in
the monitor (e.g. a TFT works at 60Hz !!)

 

[~misfit~]

Werner Huysmans wrote:

******Top posting fixed*****

Tough question !
The chips on the card are made by ATI or NVIDIA, so why would there be
differences ?
Because, the signals must get to your monitor, so the quality of the
components around the chip might lead to quality differences in the
image. This being said, I admit that I do not pay attention to the
brand, and I look at the Chip ! I only noticed some minor quality
problems when using an integrated chip on a mainboard which I used on
its maximum refresh rate. Nowadays the refresh rates are no longer an
issue, the limitations are in the monitor (e.g. a TFT works at 60Hz
!!)

As you said, the GPU is the same, it is the other components on the card
that can make a difference. Such as the RAM chips. I always go for the 'name
brand' video cards. The reason being I am on such a low income (invalid's
benefit) that I can't afford to take chances on large (for me) purchases.
The extra 10-20% you pay for a name brand can be looked at as insurance.
Secondly, there is pretty much no reason to buy a 256MB video card, other
than bragging rights. I'm yet to see a review that shows a significant
improvement over 128MB. In fact, in some tests the opposite is true, the
256MB cards are actually slower. Go figure!

 

[larrymoencurly]

I can save a bunch of cash buying a 'no-name' card that has the
same chipset as a 'brand-name' card (such as an ATI Raedon or
NVidia GeForce). I know that I can use the official drivers
with the no name cards, but what I don't know is this...do you
suffer any performance difference buying one of the no-name
brands, or is it only the chipset that matters?

I've never bought a performance graphics card, but my SIIG Aurora TNT2
M64 caused slow horizontal ripples in the picture unless the memory
clock was slowed below its default speed. I don't think that this was
a matter of the monitor because I tried two brands and several scan
rates, and another brand TNT2 M64 card (Fry's sometimes featured it
for $30 after rebate, has a donut coil with thick wire wrapped through
it for a voltage regulator) wouldn't do this under any circumstances.
I don't know the cause of the problem, but I suspect it was related to
the layout of the circuit board, something that definitely caused
problems with some sound cards I had.

I used to buy Inland brand sound cards based on the CMedia CM8738 chip
because they were cheap ($4-8) and gave less noise than other cheap
cards. Then the circuit board design was changed to get rid of a
short ribbon cable for the analog game port, and the new cards gave
noticeably more hiss and the joystick would show jitter even when
perfectly still. This wasn't just a sample defect because I tried a
total of six new cards, and when I compared the old and new circuit
boards I found that the old ones had a filter capacitor for a voltage
input pin of the sound chip, and some of the signal traces were
surrounded on both sides with ground traces, probably for shielding.