Question about graphic card manufacturers (GTX 560).

[Howard Moon]

Hello MMOChampion!

I am considering building myself a PC for the first time in a long, long while (last one I built was a Pentium I).

I am shopping for a graphics card, and by searching for "GTX 560" I came across a number of brand names. I always thought GTX 560 was Nvidia's model number? There are graphic cards from brands like MSI, Asus, Zotac, Gainward, GigaByte, and more. There is also one called "EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX560", which I assume is the official one from Nvidia? Do the other companies just take an Nvidia chip and make their own graphics card with it? If that's the case, which one is recommended? I would probably get the EVGA one since that's the one listed by Chaud, as far as I can tell. Is there any big difference between the different brand names which I should take into account, other than quality? Any other advice regarding the purchase of my graphics card would be appreciated.

[OhpUldum]

The differences are generally the clock speed of the video card and the cooling used for the video card. A general favorite of this forum is the MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 560. The MSI card has a higher clock speed than the others and has far better cooling. Downside is you pay a little bit more for the card but the cost / performance ratio is awesome.

[haxartus]

The chip is from Nvidia. These companies often offer different warranties, different cooling, custom PCBs and etc.

[Lickmun]

I never had good luck with EVGA, every EVGA card I had died after a year or two. And I found out too late the warranty is only for 1 year unless you register the card within 30 days of purchase. I've been using XFX and they seem to make a quality card.

[Howard Moon]

Interesting, thanks for the replies so far. I see this is not going to be as simple as I thought ^_^

[Uggorthaholy]

I never had good luck with EVGA, every EVGA card I had died after a year or two. And I found out too late the warranty is only for 1 year unless you register the card within 30 days of purchase. I've been using XFX and they seem to make a quality card.

I love my EVGA card, it's fast, the cooling is great, and certain models have a lifetime warranty, so long as you register the card... and who wouldn't?

@ OP - NVidia makes the chips, the other manufacturers make the cards, cooling, etc. EVGA does some nice things, like stock overclocking, but MSI has the single best cooling solution with the Twin Frozr.

Make sure you get a 560Ti

gpu – Twin Frozr GTX 560 Ti – $239.99

[Howard Moon]

After reading some reviews, seems the MSI is quite a bit louder than the EVGA. How loud is "loud"? I usually have loud music playing, or on vent with my headset so I'm not too concerned, but I don't want to feel like I'm flying a helicopter

[Asera]

nVidia makes the actual GPU package, eVGA, MSI, etc put the GPU on a board with components and a cooler. Most of the time they follow a reference design from nVidia.

ATi/AMD does the same thing, although ATi used to make their own cards.

[Uggorthaholy]

After reading some reviews, seems the MSI is quite a bit louder than the EVGA. How loud is "loud"? I usually have loud music playing, or on vent with my headset so I'm not too concerned, but I don't want to feel like I'm flying a helicopter

TBQH, you probably won't notice it most of the time over case fans/music/etc.