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Radeons - Sapphire or MSI

Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2015
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6,480
I would avoid Sapphire if you're thinking about possible problems. Their RMA will take ages and will be a lot of hassle. MSI is okay but will also take quite a bit. Gigabyte is the best for UK by far. Avoid PowerColor like the plague, their cards are good but their everything else.. ugh, and I say that as someone that's currently using one of their cards.

7c0z.png
 
Associate
Joined
1 Mar 2014
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2,419
Just avoid the MSI with Twinfrozr.

As AMDMatt mentioned you can't go wrong with any of these.

MSI 290X Lightning, Sapphire 290X Vapor-X, Power Colour PCS+ 290X, Sapphire Tri-X 290X.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Mar 2010
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13,008
Location
Under The Stairs!
I would avoid Sapphire if you're thinking about possible problems. Their RMA will take ages and will be a lot of hassle. MSI is okay but will also take quite a bit. Gigabyte is the best for UK by far. Avoid PowerColor like the plague, their cards are good but their everything else.. ugh, and I say that as someone that's currently using one of their cards.

7c0z.png

Depends where you purchase from, some etailers send them back to manufacture, some replace from stock/refund.

OcUK stopped selling Powercolor/XFX for a long while until gibbo got arrangements in place(just after 290 launch) that sorted out the poor turn around.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Nov 2007
Posts
408
The cooler on the Lightning is a semi-failed design - assuming it's the same as on the GTX 780 iteration. The small yellow fan doesn't contribute anything towards keeping the card cool, and it's the main culprit for potential problems; it's not unusual at all for this decorative fan to develop very irritating rattling acoustics. You can unplug the fan without affecting the 2 others, though. Also noteworthy is the fact that this cooler DOES NOT work anywhere near to its otherwise lofty potential in vertical orientation (think Silverstone FT-/RV-series cases); not a fault of MSI's per se but they could consider using sintered heatpipes.

The Vapour-X and Tri-X New Edition come with double ball-bearing fans, a very smart design choice with an eye on enhanced longevity, also in the typical, horizontal orientation. I don't have a first hand experience on these so can't comment on the acoustic characteristics of these fans. The Lightning cooler (on GTX 780) sounds smooth in low RPM -as long as all the fans are healthy- but apparently it's not among the more elegant-sounding solutions in real-life user scenarios when mounted on a Hawaii core.
 
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Permabanned
Joined
12 Sep 2013
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9,221
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Knowhere
I'd avoid the MSI 290x gaming cards (Black and red Twin Frozer models), Some (not all) suffer from heat issues, I have one which does and after getting it I researched it and found it is quite common, so common in fact that Overclockers weren't interested in letting me return it even though it was hitting 94 degrees on a regular basis. Asus DCUII's are the same, Sapphires seem to be the best versions of the 290 and 290x.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2015
Posts
6,480
Depends where you purchase from, some etailers send them back to manufacture, some replace from stock/refund.

OcUK stopped selling Powercolor/XFX for a long while until gibbo got arrangements in place(just after 290 launch) that sorted out the poor turn around.

Yeah, forgot to mention, that's more for when you're out of the retailer's warranty. Obviously if you're within the retailer's warranty then they'll handle it for you. I think it's for about 1 year or so.
 
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