Which Nvidia distributors make the highest quality GeForce 7 cards?

[x-Max]

Interesting replies.

Im thinking of getting the eVGA 7900 GTX EGS. The sales rep at eVGA said its the reference Nvidia card and that only the heatsinks and or fans are different from the actual Nvidia reference card.

This leads me to a major question: Who manufacters what? What parts are manufactured by Nvidia, and what remaining parts are done by their distributors.

Im confused about this because ive heard different opinions on this. Some say that only the fans and heatsinks are handled by the distributors, while others say that the distributors also decide on what quality capacitors, memory, and filters to use. Im not sure if the eVGA rep was being totally honest.

Because if its just the fans and heatsinks that are manufactured by the distributors, then they will all really be made up of the same quality. But if its more than just the heatsinks and fans, then the cards can vary quite considerably.

So confusing. I just want the card that has the highest quality. But I don't think its possible to know. I say this because there is the company and then there is the particular product from that company. So a company like BFG may put more quality components into one product but not for another product.

Hmm..What do you guys think?

[johnnyis42]

nvidia manufactures the GPU and the distributors either manufacture or source manufacturers to make their products.

i wouldn't trust eVga simply because of some of the things i read about a line of cards they had a few years back. it's a long story between them and hardOCP (the same guys who exposed the phantom console for what it was and won the lawsuit against them when infinium sued after the article went to print) and i have never seen eVga come back to redeam themselves for their misleading overpriced gimick of a product.

that being said, i'm guessing there is some truth in that most manufacturers have to use almost identical products in the manufacture of the card because there isn't much of a choice. nvidia's reference design is in place to ensure nvidia's name isn't dragged through the mud by some greedy manufacturer trying to cut corners on cheap parts, so it's less likely they have much a choice in what parts are used in the end.

the quality of the actual manufacturing, on the other hand, can always be called into question, as poor QA can have an imact on the final product as well. you can pay semi-skilled workers to do a decent job, or pay more experts to consult and ensure you're getting the best you can possibly muster in a product. these 2 choices will have an effect on the final products price as well, and should have an impact on the quality.

i remember about 3 rears ago a few cards were using poor filters, and you could mod your card by simply ripping off some of those tiny capcitor things to improve 2d output of the card. it was about 50-50 on whether or not it helped, and i think alot of it boiled down to what quality the monitor was whether that mod had an impact or not.

so yeah... if you're going to drop $500+ on a card, i'd go for the one with the best warrenty, plan and simple, as it will most likely perform as well and look as good as other cards using the same chip at the same specs since nvidia sets the minimum standard there. everything else is basically numbers, clock frequencies and what not, to consider in the final price.

[x-Max]

Its a good point you make with Nvidias reference design being in place to ensure its name isn't dragged down by some greedy manufacturer trying to cut corners on cheap parts.

And i have heard that just about all the parts on the card are really the same as the Nvidia reference card, with the exception of the fans and other cooling systems. Of course the overclocked cards may be different, but i would stick with the reference designs since im interested more in quality and stability than that extra performance.

But i wonder. What about getting a retail/factory overclocked card, which would have better quality components to handle such high clock speeds, and then actually underclocking or downclocking the card to the reference clock speeds. Wouldn't this make the card even more stable since its running reference clock speeds on a card designed for overclocked speeds.

Of course, the only drawback is that your paying for more. Not to mention the fact that the fans and heatsinks may be the only parts on the card that are different between the reference and overclocked versions.

Also, with warranties, who cares if the card breaks down.

But anyhow, something is pulling me towards eVGA. Any buddy has something to say about that. I would take BFG, but it comes with a blue LED lighting on the fan, which is something i dont want. I like to work in a dark room on video editing like work, and for this reason i dont like the extremely bright blue light that comes from the card.

So eVGA seems like a good choice.

Of course, i may be fussing over nothing here. They may all be the same bloody thing when it comes to quality.

[johnnyis42]

Originally Posted by x-Max

Of course the overclocked cards may be different, but i would stick with the reference designs since im interested more in quality and stability than that extra performance.

yeah, that's where you really think a difference would be had in the parts.... but as i understand it the capacitors, filters, etc, are there for signal routing and filtering and since they are reactive parts and not discrete components, they don't have the pitfalls of silicon switching with regards to being run outside of their specified frequencies. also, back to the referneces design, they are probably more than decent anyhow.

this goes back to the engineering and QA team behind the design of the end product. i'm going to say that the more QA testing and design of a good QA program that goes into the process of releasing the part to the retail world is going to determine the output of overclicked parts. just like anything else in the mass producing IC world (memory, processors, etc) some parts may run better and faster than others above the speeds they were designed to run. so an active quality testing to determine which parts meet those specs and which do not will probably have a bigger effect on the reliability of those higher end products than the parts actually used to put them together. of course using inferior parts won't help, like what was mentioned with the nvidia reference design, they are more than likely using the same quality of parts they would be to tweak the chips to higher performance anyhow.

and yes, cooling solutions would definitely be the main concern here. in fact, that was the eVGA contraversy... they sold geforce card (can't remember if it was a 4 or FX/5 series card) that had a "high performance" heat sink on it, adding $50 to the cards price. in testing, it was shown that the heat sink they had designed was no more efficient than the nvidia reference heat sink.

granted this is not the case for all cooling solutions, and in fact many of the after market coolers are no better than some of the higher end manufacture's stock solutions, while some are absolutely incredible in how well they work.

i'd say, very similar to how stock car racing has rigerous standards thus putting the cars on an even "stock" playing field and thus only adjustments in suspension and aerodynamics are allowed to get an edge, in the video card world the coolers and fancy designs are what give these high end cards the edge in the market. just look at how many reviews have begun to consider noise as a factor with video cards, recognizing that air flow efficiency can beat out fan RPM's in cooling performance, thus making 2 identically featured video cards a world apart in real world use.

[buckaro]

Well, to be quite honest with you, to find the real answer to this you would have to look at %'s of how many cards are returned under warranty. Whichever company has the least either has the worst customer service and never take returned products, or they are the best quality wise.

Remember no two cards the same exactly, however much standernisation takes place, but also remember most company's find the best design in the first place, and then when a product is completed they stress test it under heat and pressure. I know gigabyte mobo's are put under quite high temperatures in a purpose built test facility at the factory and have 3Dmark01 or 03 run over and over so that they know their product isn't broken. Nothing worse than sending out a batch of your product to find their all broken.

Another thing is, if a company gets a slightly below standard batch of materials they may just use them so that they don't have to stop output and close the production line until the non faulty materials come through. In this case you could have a whole batch which will go faulty, or if your lucky it will be a component that won't matter.

To say which company is best is near impossible, after all, no-one else has your card, it could be yours is the one faulty one or the whole batch is faulty, its kinda down to luck IMO.

[johnnyis42]

Originally Posted by buckaro

Another thing is, if a company gets a slightly below standard batch of materials they may just use them so that they don't have to stop output and close the production line until the non faulty materials come through. In this case you could have a whole batch which will go faulty, or if your lucky it will be a component that won't matter.

right, well this is where a rigerous QA program comes into pla, because if the bad batch of product comes in, idealy it will not pass the QA tests.

and yeah, unless you get information from the company that they may regard as a trade secret, there really isn't a truely objective way to tell whether their product fails more than others.

another factor is 3rd party shipping.... here's an example of that:

it is well known amongst american military personnel overseas that the contracted shipping companies who bring the PX/BX/NEX product to the stores overseas are the cheapest labor around. all kinds of electronics arrive at overseas exchanges completely broken, as the first time i bough a video card when stationed overseas and had to exchange it 3 times, never thinking much about the nearly identical dents in each box. come to find out, when you see something like that where the same product has identical damage to its container, it usually means the crate it was in was dropped. sometimes it damages the product, sometimes not.

returning a damaged card to a retail outlet for damage in shipping is not the same as returning a damaged card to the manufacturer under warrenty, and different retail stores have different deals with the OEM on how to redeam losses such as these.

so we're back to the warrenty again, being probably the most telling fact about a product as to how the manufacturer stands behind their product.

[buckaro]

johnnyis42 got it it in one IMO. Just go for whatever cards the cheapest, but from a trusted supplier who has a good standard and speed with repairs, incase shipping doesn't do your product any good.

[x-Max]

Sorry about that guys. My email was no longer sending me notifications of your replies. That is why i wasn't responding.

Anyhow, the good news is that i purchased and recieved the eVGA 7900 GTX EGS and it works perfectly without any flaws. In fact, if i must say, the card is beautiful! The fans and heatsink on the card, which of course is probably the same on all makes from the varying distributors, make the card look like a mini tank.

But why did i go with the eVGA 7900 GTX EGS?

Well, first off, i chose the 7900 GTX for its performance. But i chose the 'EGS' version from eVGA because of what i read on their site. Here is the link.

eVGA Product Editions Explained

Unless eVGA is lying about the certification of the quality of the EGS version of their cards, which i think only applies to the 7900 GTX, then that is a solid enough reason for me to pick that card.

But thanks to all you for supporting me in whatever way you could. Although i sort of figured it out on my own by doing research, your replies are still appreciated. And i hope that the link and my feedback may be of help to anybody looking for quality assurance on a card.

Max