Does the brand of graphics actually matter too much?

[finch96]

I get that they can be higher clocked and cooled better quieter. but is it really worth extra money or is the cheapest non-reference design good enough?

[kalniel]

I get that they can be higher clocked and cooled better quieter. but is it really worth extra money or is the cheapest non-reference design good enough?

We can't answer that for you - depends on your own criteria.

[virtuo]

One thing that might make you consider one brand over another is the after-sales support. I've seen some horror stories of people having big problems returning faulty cards with some companies.

[fma965]

Just stick with a known reliable, and personally used brand, Like most of my cards have been sapphire cause i know what i am getting from previous usage

[nniitt]

If it's all reference design, different brands mean different after-sale service, nothing more and nothing less.
If it';s non-reference design, then cards made by different brands may use different design (PCB design, VRM design and cooler design). All these have something to do with the performance.

[minicale]

If going Nvidia the reference cooler is great so its not that big a deal but if your going amd then I would definetly go for an aftermarket cooled card.

[Dooms]

As other people have said. Reference cards is all about aftermarket support (why I will always buy EVGA when going green).

Non-Reference you have clock speeds, coolers (temps & noise), memory modules (some brands clock better than others), colours, etc which if left completely at stock make small differences but if you are planning to overclock at any point then it starts making all the difference.

[kieranovicci]

If the brand doesn't matter, how come the MSI version of a card might be £30 more than the Asus version?

[mikeo01]

If the brand doesn't matter, how come the MSI version of a card might be £30 more than the Asus version?

Overclock settings, the "brand name" and probably different uses of VRAM. Plus you'd probably pay for the alternations of the PCB and cooler

I like reference cards

[wolfsSpirit]

i stick with MSI board and card , mainly because MSI made promises that msi cards on msi board would have "certain" advantages above other brands.
Whether this is true or not.. who knows lol

[Sneaky2008]

The brand does kind of matter, for example when it comes to GPUs I only really buy Asus or MSI.

[Darision]

I dont know if its just me but ive always preferred Nvidia over AMD, as for the maker of the graphics card, i went with Asus as they made a cheaper model of my graphics card than the other companies.

[Wolmack]

Can't go wrong with Asus, they also have excellent customer service.

[Ttaskmaster]

I tend to look at user reviews, benchmarking scores from a variety of people, forum posts about common problems and end up going with whatever my gut and wallet tell me.
I've always had Asus kit and been very happy, but based on the above I ended up going Nvidia this time, with a 780 Lightning rather than my usual AMD and am utterly delighted. Being MSI, it matches my most recent board too.

Beyond the practicalities ascertained researching each card, it seems the biggest reason to choose one brand over another is to fight forum wars over who is better.
That is mostly it.

[chezney]

Plus one for reference cards for me. Although if the card was particularly loud in reviews then I will pay the extra for a good cooler.

[Lee H]

I've always gone for the twin frozr cards from MSI.

Solid capacitors for better overclocking as I like to thrash my cards to within an inch of their lives. However, this time around with the GTX 770 I've got, I've not clocked it 'yet' as I'm still too busy playing a few xbox one titles to load the PC up now.