Aftermarket GPU's

[yudhi108]

EDIT: This thread may actually be about reference vs non-reference GPU's. I wasn't aware of the terminology when I made the OP.

 

Ok, I do know that they suck and are liable to burn up. I have never bought an aftermarket GPU before, but I am thinking about it right now. I'm just thinking that if I want to upgrade my GPU every year or every other year, then maybe I'll benefit from using aftermarket GPU's.

 

I know the new r9295x2 is a fantastic GPU that actually sucks because it gets too hot, not enough heat control etc. I know it's not advisable to get because it won't last long etc., but what if I don't mind upgrading next year? I could get a brand new one of those aftermaket, for like 1k. I haven't seen any aftermarket titan z's tho which is the GPU i kinda want right now.

[FMod]

I'm not sure if you mean "aftermarket".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermarket

 

Since there's no distinct primary market for desktop computer parts, there's no distinct aftermarket either, the two are one and the same. Pre-built PCs come with the same components at best, and usually the cheapest and the worst ones.

 

Or if you mean "second-hand", but a second-hand GPU is obviously the same as a retail one.

There's nothing about R9 295x2 that's not going to last - it's just very noisy if you set it to maximum performance mode, and it requires a big PSU, that's all. Not very practical for these reasons.

[Amyr]

I think he generally means second-hand market.

 

It all depends on the seller imo. If he cares, product will be clean and just as he promised. If he is a douche, you might get some headaches.

And generally when you buy a CPU or GPU, it is good to make sure that the first owner didn't push it too far at high clocks with high voltages. That just decreases the lifespan. It's also better to buy products with active warranty service.

[yudhi108]

I didn't mean second hand. I mean cheapper brands like sapphire. Same r9295x2 was $1000 for the sapphire and $1500 for the Nvidia EVGA or w/e it was on amazon. I was told this is because the "aftermarket" (the term was used to me) GPU's are usually more likely to break (cheaper parts?) or burn up.

[Amyr]

Sapphire is no cheap brand at all. They are actually one of the best partners of AMD. Just like EVGA being one of the best partners of NVIDIA.

 

And if that was what you meant, it is generally "better" to buy those GPUs, instead of reference design. They offer much better cooling and much more room for overclocking. Also better design, although I really like reference NVIDIA blower.

[FMod]

I was told this is because the "aftermarket" (the term was used to me) GPU's are usually more likely to break (cheaper parts?) or burn up.

That was incorrect. Also, the terms of the art are "reference" and "non-reference", so I'll use them from now on.

 

In general, most video cards today use reference PCB (the board with electronic components).

 

Non-reference PCB are almost without exception better than reference PCB. Reference PCB are built to the lowest price point that feasibly supports the GPU... if you're lucky. GTX570 was notoriously built below that price point, resulting in reference cards burning up at an unusually high rate. All non-reference ones used GTX580's or better power circuits and were free from the problem.

 

The cheapest cards you find use reference PCB with non-reference cooling.

Same electronics, different fan. You don't get a better PCB in cheap cards, but you get the same PCB. Non-reference cooling ranges from ~as good as reference to a lot better. So, in short, at worst you're getting the same product, other times a slightly better one.

 

 

 

Very very long ago, making a video card used to be pretty simple, and ATI and Nvidia just sold the GPU chip, not the whole card. Everyone was free to design what they wanted and there were some cheaply built non-reference cards. This gave ATi and NV a bad rep, so they came up with reference designs as a minimum baseline. Third party manufacturers aren't permitted to go below that baseline in quantifiable ways set by the manufacturer. As such they can only make the same or better, not worse.

[yudhi108]

Ok, so Sapphire is good. Got it. That actually helps me a lot. What about XFX? Sorry for just throwing another name brand out there when you specifically said it's about reference vs non-reference but it doesn't exactly say "reference" or "non-reference" as a system spec when looking at the different GPU's online. If you don't mind, there's these two video cards I was looking at:

 

SAPPHIRE 295x2

 

XFX 295x2

 

The Titan Z I was hoping to get for about 1100 already has bids up to 1175 and 3 days left so I won't be getting that one (price will probably go up to 1250-1300). I'm considering one of the above cards now as I can sell my current 780 for $400 or so. Selling that and buying a new 295x2 will give me more bang for my buck rather than spending 500 bucks on a new 780 for SLI (right?) Especially with Skyrim i think. So, for about 4-500 bucks (8 or $900 for the 295x2 minus the money I'll get selling my 780 = 4-500), I'll be getting a great video card that should easily smash Skyrim and any game with 4k graphics for the next year or so. All the comparisons I found on google showed the 780TI sli to be better than a 295x2, but I didn't find any comparisons with the regular 780 I have in SLI vs the 295x2. If I can get a titan Z for about 11-12 I will, but am considering the 295x2.

 

Now I have to think about the 295x2 vs gtx980. I think the 980 is faster, but the 8gb Vram is kinda sexy. A lot of people will say 8gb is unnecessary and they are right. In fact, I'm running even games like witcher 2, dark souls 2, metro 2033, all with ultra maxed out graphics seamlessly already with my 3gb780. But, I actually can, and certainly will, push that 8gb to it's limit if I get it.

 

EDIT: Just found THIS THREAD where these GPU's are refered to as "aftermarket". However, I'm not arguing that reference vs non-reference isn't a more appropriate conversation/terminology. I'm still learning about all this. I did quite a bit of research before putting my first rig together, but I'm surprised how much there is to learn about this.

 

Also, as an aside, sorry for the two posts in this forum about the GPU's, I thought they were different questions, and a couple days apart so I didn't think to just add a new question to my old thread. I will consider that possibility next time, especially in a forum like this one that isn't very busy. There certainly are other websites and forums for hardware questions, but I like asking hardware stuff here because I trust this community and I know you're gamers like me interested in the same games. I had a bad experience in the chat room here the other day, but other than that I've only had good experiences on Nexus. I really appreciate everything everyone in the Nexus forum community does. Not trying to be cheesy, but thanks

[Reynard131]

 

I was told this is because the "aftermarket" (the term was used to me) GPU's are usually more likely to break (cheaper parts?) or burn up.

That was incorrect. Also, the terms of the art are "reference" and "non-reference", so I'll use them from now on.

 

In general, most video cards today use reference PCB (the board with electronic components).

 

Non-reference PCB are almost without exception better than reference PCB. Reference PCB are built to the lowest price point that feasibly supports the GPU... if you're lucky. GTX570 was notoriously built below that price point, resulting in reference cards burning up at an unusually high rate. All non-reference ones used GTX580's or better power circuits and were free from the problem.

 

The cheapest cards you find use reference PCB with non-reference cooling.

Same electronics, different fan. You don't get a better PCB in cheap cards, but you get the same PCB. Non-reference cooling ranges from ~as good as reference to a lot better. So, in short, at worst you're getting the same product, other times a slightly better one.

 

 

 

Very very long ago, making a video card used to be pretty simple, and ATI and Nvidia just sold the GPU chip, not the whole card. Everyone was free to design what they wanted and there were some cheaply built non-reference cards. This gave ATi and NV a bad rep, so they came up with reference designs as a minimum baseline. Third party manufacturers aren't permitted to go below that baseline in quantifiable ways set by the manufacturer. As such they can only make the same or better, not worse.

 

 

 

 

What is the display resolution you are aiming at ..? The primary difference in the Titan part to part was memory controller bit depth, and VRAM Density.

 

Titan series cards are going to be reference coolers. All video cards are produced at Foxconn TW to re brander/partner specifications.

[obobski]

I didn't mean second hand. I mean cheapper brands like sapphire. Same r9295x2 was $1000 for the sapphire and $1500 for the Nvidia EVGA or w/e it was on amazon. I was told this is because the "aftermarket" (the term was used to me) GPU's are usually more likely to break (cheaper parts?) or burn up.

 

I think I see part of the confusion, seeing the R9 295X2 at $1000 from those brands. There was a price drop recently to $999, so all 295X2 should be $999 or under. Sapphire and XFX are two of the best choices for AMD-based cards, and have been for a number of years. As far as I know XFX still offers a lifetime warranty on the card, I don't know about Sapphire.

 

I agree on non-reference boards tending towards quality, to a point. One thing that can be obnoxious is finding replacement coolers - for example I have a non-reference HD 4890 (Powercolor PCS) that will not mount the standard 4870/4890 cooler because of the placement of some components. That also can make some full-coverage waterblocks not fit. Otherwise it's a fantastic card (and the stock cooler on it isn't bad; I'm just using it as an example).

 

 

Ok, so Sapphire is good. Got it. That actually helps me a lot. What about XFX? Sorry for just throwing another name brand out there when you specifically said it's about reference vs non-reference but it doesn't exactly say "reference" or "non-reference" as a system spec when looking at the different GPU's online. If you don't mind, there's these two video cards I was looking at:

 

SAPPHIRE 295x2

 

XFX 295x2

 

The Titan Z I was hoping to get for about 1100 already has bids up to 1175 and 3 days left so I won't be getting that one (price will probably go up to 1250-1300). I'm considering one of the above cards now as I can sell my current 780 for $400 or so. Selling that and buying a new 295x2 will give me more bang for my buck rather than spending 500 bucks on a new 780 for SLI (right?) Especially with Skyrim i think. So, for about 4-500 bucks (8 or $900 for the 295x2 minus the money I'll get selling my 780 = 4-500), I'll be getting a great video card that should easily smash Skyrim and any game with 4k graphics for the next year or so. All the comparisons I found on google showed the 780TI sli to be better than a 295x2, but I didn't find any comparisons with the regular 780 I have in SLI vs the 295x2. If I can get a titan Z for about 11-12 I will, but am considering the 295x2.

 

Now I have to think about the 295x2 vs gtx980. I think the 980 is faster, but the 8gb Vram is kinda sexy. A lot of people will say 8gb is unnecessary and they are right. In fact, I'm running even games like witcher 2, dark souls 2, metro 2033, all with ultra maxed out graphics seamlessly already with my 3gb780. But, I actually can, and certainly will, push that 8gb to it's limit if I get it.

 

EDIT: Just found THIS THREAD where these GPU's are refered to as "aftermarket". However, I'm not arguing that reference vs non-reference isn't a more appropriate conversation/terminology. I'm still learning about all this. I did quite a bit of research before putting my first rig together, but I'm surprised how much there is to learn about this.

 

Also, as an aside, sorry for the two posts in this forum about the GPU's, I thought they were different questions, and a couple days apart so I didn't think to just add a new question to my old thread. I will consider that possibility next time, especially in a forum like this one that isn't very busy. There certainly are other websites and forums for hardware questions, but I like asking hardware stuff here because I trust this community and I know you're gamers like me interested in the same games. I had a bad experience in the chat room here the other day, but other than that I've only had good experiences on Nexus. I really appreciate everything everyone in the Nexus forum community does. Not trying to be cheesy, but thanks

 

You do realize that the Titan Z and R295X2 are dual-chip designs, right? You don't actually get 8GB or 12GB or whatever of memory for the application to use; you get half of that (effectively) because they're (they = AMD/nVidia marketing) stating total memory for both GPUs. So it's like saying GTX 780 SLI is "6GB" of RAM - from the application's perspective it isn't, it's still 3GB. Not that Skyrim could ever approach needing that much memory (some other games may, but worry about them in the future when and if they come out).

 

Personally you couldn't *give* me another dual-GPU card (I've owned a few over the years); permanent multi-GPU is not a good thing imho (and at least with CrossFire, you can probably expect some issues in Skyrim), nor is the extra heat production. If you want multi-GPU, add a second card to whatever you already have. Price-to-performance wise, adding another GTX 780 to your GTX 780 would be better than 295X2 or Titan Z etc because a GTX 780 should cost under $800 in pretty much any circumstance. nVidia also (still) has better frame-pacing, which is something to consider with multi-GPU.

 

 

IMHO if you're really running everything you like without problems, leave well enough alone, put your money away, and wait until a game comes along that crushes your system, and then worry about upgrading. Things like Titan and 295X2 are an awful value proposition right now, because they're fairly dated (but that hasn't (and probably won't) "caught up" in pricing). If you really want to buy something new today, GTX 980 wouldn't be a bad choice, but the performance improvement over GTX 780 is not huge. Alternately the R9 290 and 290X are becoming very affordable relative to their performance, and could make an intresting multi-GPU system (you can almost do triple-GPU for the price of the 295X2, assuming your motherboard, PSU, etc will support something like that (actually that's worth talking about even in context of the 295X2, with its 500W TDP)).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Amyr]

There is no difference between that XFX and Sapphire card. Both are reference design.