Difference Between Graphics Card Brands e.g. Gigabyte/Sapphire/XFX e.t.c.

[redmist]

Ok guys. I've got a slight dilemma.
Basically, I'm extremely confused about which brand of graphics card I should get.

I'm looking to buy x6 5850's for LTC mining, and I have a guy who's doing me a great deal for them. However, the brand is PowerColor, and I've heard that they're often very faulty and that the cooler is terrible.

I've been recommended by various people to buy the Gigabyte version, because the cooling is pretty damn good. However, I can only see one Gigabyte 5850 on ebay, and the price is nowhere near the PowerCooler. Its too high for me.
So I've been contemplating a Sapphire version, but before I buy anything, I have a lot of questions I want to ask.
What I want to know is:

1. Which has the best cooling out of Gigabyte, Sapphire and XFX?
2. Which brand is second in cooling to Gigabyte? (as i'm more likely to go for this one as Gigabyte is too expensive)
3. I'm going to have to rigs. So can anyone recommend a motherboard that will take 3 of these cards? That is also fairly cheap as I'm buying two of them.
4. If I were to go for the PowerColor cards, how powerful would a fan have to be to keep them cool? (Bare in mind I'll be overclocking them, however they will be in my freezing cold garage)

Any help is greatly appreciated as I've been trying to figure out what to buy for almost a week now!
Thanks guys
-redmist

[1714881388]

1714881388

[Gator-hex]

Brand doesn't matter, it's the cooler that matters, try to get one with a dual fan it will have better cooling and will survive overclocking and running 24x7 better.

Failing that the Sapphire ones have a large single 92mm fan and 5 heat pipes running off to two large coolers. They are the best single fan models.

[redmist]

Brand doesn't matter, it's the cooler that matters, try to get one with a dual fan it will have better cooling and will survive overclocking and running 24x7 better.

Failing that the Sapphire ones have a large single 92mm fan and 5 heat pipes running off to two large coolers. They are the best single fan models.

Okay thanks!! Even though Sapphire has 1 fan, is there a massive difference between Gigabyte and Sapphire? Will most probably go for Sapphire then

[Gator-hex]

The only ones I had problems with are XFX they cut to many corners and make the fan/heatsink too small on their cheaper end models.

It's a ring heatsink that goes around the fan, but some times it's hidden behind a plastic cover, avoid those kind of coolers.

[crazyates]

My list of totally unscientific, unproven, and completely biased recommendations of GPU brands.

Good: Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, Sapphire, Powercolor

Bad: XFX, Diamond, HIS, Visiontek

[redmist]

My list of totally unscientific, unproven, and completely biased recommendations of GPU brands.

Good: Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, Sapphire, Powercolor

Bad: XFX, Diamond, HIS, Visiontek

Is that in order?
But I've hear so many bad things about PowerColor, and you say they're good?
Bare in mine I want to be mining with these 24/7 over clocked. Which would you recommend?

[DrG]

I have all of those brands except Powercolor.

Surprisingly one of the the most consistend cards I have are the Diamond 7970s - they're not voltage locked so I can undervolt or overvolt as I need, and the reference fan does a good job at cooling (although incredibly loud).

XFX Dual Fan cards are pretty good plus they come with a double lifetime warranty (transferrable) but yeah avoid the single fan XFX.  While my Sapphire 6950s are not as reliable as my XFX 6950s (I see "DEAD" a lot in CGMiner and now they need to be reflowed while the XFX ones are fine) - the Sapphire 6870s I bought 2 years ago have made me bank.

My only experience with Gigabyte are their 7970s which a lot of people seem to liek but I've had 2 die on me in separate rigs within 2 weeks of initial use.  The MSI 7970s Twin Frozers rocks!

[-ck]

I think the most valuable information is in the caveat from crazyates.

My list of totally unscientific, unproven, and completely biased recommendations of GPU brands.

You will only get opinions from people here. There is not much to objectively tell them apart, and some people have really good experiences with one brand while others have the exact opposite experience, and much is left to hearsay. Like, I hear a lot of people find their XFX devices don't allow much change in clocking or cut corners, while others say their warranty is great, double fans are good etc.

My own opinion: steer clear of XFX and HIS and maybe diamond. The rest seem okay. I exclusively buy reference model Sapphire because they seem reliably good while being cheaper than others, though I also had a rig where reference designs worked best for cooling.

[redmist]

I think the most valuable information is in the caveat from crazyates.

My list of totally unscientific, unproven, and completely biased recommendations of GPU brands.

You will only get opinions from people here. There is not much to objectively tell them apart, and some people have really good experiences with one brand while others have the exact opposite experience, and much is left to hearsay. Like, I hear a lot of people find their XFX devices don't allow much change in clocking or cut corners, while others say their warranty is great, double fans are good etc.

My own opinion: steer clear of XFX and HIS and maybe diamond. The rest seem okay. I exclusively buy reference model Sapphire because they seem reliably good while being cheaper than others, though I also had a rig where reference designs worked best for cooling.

Thanks for all the advice guys.
I'm struggling to find any 6 5850's, so I think I'm going to go for some 5870's because the hashing rate is slightly better and there isn't too much difference between the price.

Do you think having a really good case with maybe 3 fans on it, should keep a rig cool enough?

[crazyates]

I think the most valuable information is in the caveat from crazyates.

My list of totally unscientific, unproven, and completely biased recommendations of GPU brands.

You will only get opinions from people here. There is not much to objectively tell them apart, and some people have really good experiences with one brand while others have the exact opposite experience, and much is left to hearsay.

That's why I gave my disclaimer. It's all relative.

But I've hear so many bad things about PowerColor, and you say they're good?

I've had good luck with them, and my favorite 5870 was a PowerColor. It has a reference cooler, tho, so maybe that had something to do with it.

My only experience with Gigabyte are their 7970s which a lot of people seem to liek but I've had 2 die on me in separate rigs within 2 weeks of initial use.

I love my Gigabyte 7970!

[rm187]

Another thing to mention, every brand uses different manufacturing. My opinion is brands like HIS, Powercooler, XFX are good, but their manufacturing, quality control, etc are lacking.

Different brands/model combination end up being the 'popular' brand of xxxx model.

As far as 5850's. I would spend the extra $10-20 on each card and get a 5870 Twin Frozr II. About 50~mh more then the 5850 but runs 10x cooler.

I have 3x MSI Cyclone 5850's running at 950mhz/600mem/stock volt getting 380mh @ 75f
I have 3x MSI 5870 Twin Frozr II running at 975mhz/300mem/stock volt getting 420mh @ 60f

[squall1066]

Whatever card is chosen, Reference fan design far exceeds cooling over non-ref models. I have used all makes/models, It really is the cooling/airflow of the case/ambiant temp that matters.

[hmblm1245]

Whatever card is chosen, Reference fan design far exceeds cooling over non-ref models. I have used all makes/models, It really is the cooling/airflow of the case/ambiant temp that matters.

I would agree in most of my tests; however, i would say that the 5830 and 5850 gigabytes are the easiest to cool if done right. those heat pipes allow for a side mounted 133 cfm fan in a closed case. no other fan is really needed and the stock gpu fans can be in the 40% range. all 4 (jammed right next to each other) are around 50 to 60C. without that side fan they will easily climb to 90C. That capillary action really works well with these cards.

[superfastkyle]

Reference Fans fail often. Sapphire fans fail often. Those are my biased opinions since I own a lot of sapphire and reference cards. Do not buy 5830's at this point no matter what. They will probably only last two months. Have some extra fan's ready. Reference are easier to find, and the reference design makes it easier to exhaust heat out of a room but they are much louder. They blow majority of the heat to the front of the card unlike the others which just blow out. I also have a couple powercolor cards that work fine.

[Roland68]

I'm using 3 sapphire 5830 since two years ... using the same fan without problems...

providing 300 mh/s each with temp steady at 75 deg C... I can push more but with more power consumption, and temp going hight ...

there is no value having the best hashrate ... for 3 months ...

[squall1066]

Fan life I beleive is down to use, My ref fans have lasted long, about 8 months at 70%, I do notice on my underclocked cards with lower fan usage, I have got cards over a year old still on original fan, One overclocked project with fan at 100% lasted 2 months, So it is down to how you use it.

[crazyates]

Fan life I beleive is down to use, My ref fans have lasted long, about 8 months at 70%, I do notice on my underclocked cards with lower fan usage, I have got cards over a year old still on original fan, One overclocked project with fan at 100% lasted 2 months, So it is down to how you use it.

There was a huge debate at one point whether a lower fan speed or higher fan speed would increase the life of a fan.

Some said that the actual rotations were what caused wear, and running them as slow as possible (to keep a steady temp) was best. Others said heat was the main cause for failure, so running them at 100% would get rid of more heat, and keep the fan itself cooler (not to mention the GPU itself).

Seems we finally have an answer?

[-ck]

I still don't think we have an answer but more anecdotes to support the practice encouraged by my cgminer code based on my opinion. I had 4 7970s that ran at 100% load 24/7 for 12-14 months with variable fanspeed up to 85% to maintain temperatures constantly targetting 72-75 (as per the cgminer defaults when --auto-fan is enabled). The GPUs did not have a single problem and most have since been sold for a nice return.