ASUS does have a strong presence in the Nordic region.
However, eVGA, at least in the Northern American scene offers full lifetime warranty, no questions asked (iirc) and their famous step-up policy; If a stronger/newer card have been released within X aimed at the same marketshare, you can replace it. I forget if you pay a token fee or not.
I'd really compare XFX with eVGA, personally - albeit preferring the former, as they do also make decent aftermarket cooling solutions.
i7-4770k - GTX 780 Ti - 16GB DDR3 Ripjaws - (2) HyperX 120s / Vertex 3 120
ASRock Extreme3 - Sennheiser Momentums - Xonar DG - EVGA Supernova 650G - Corsair H80i
build pics
I've owned a few on both sides, each have had small issues but nothing ever serious. Just seems to people with bad experiences raging,"AMD SUCKS" or "NVIDIA SUCKS".
When something does arise with say a driver its usually fixed fairly quick with the next set of drivers.
CPU: i5 6600k @ 4.5Ghz Motherboard: Asus Z170-A RAM: Corsair Lpx 16gb GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 PSU: EVGA 650W M.2: Samsung 960 EVO 500gb SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB Monitor: BenQ GW2765 27" Mouse: Corsair Harpoon RGB Keyboard: Corsair K63 Headset: Sennheiser Game One
Never had a problem with AMD drivers and I have been using AMD/ATI since the ATI Radeon 9200 days. My 5770 was great for drivers, never had an issue and my 6870 has yet to run into problems with drivers either. People who say AMD has bad drivers are just Nvidia fanboys or they had one bad experience which was more then likely caused by more then just the drivers and it made them hate AMD forever. Suffice to say I have never owned an Nvidia card and my reason being that they are out of my budget when I build systems. I like AMD because they offer quality performance at a great price, and even if they forever remain inferior to Nvidia, the price is as much the driving point of sales as the performance is.
---------- Post added 2012-07-04 at 07:18 PM ----------
It's all a preference, but when it comes to quality cooling with AMD cards, you pretty much can't go wrong with Asus, Gigabyte, Sapphire and XFX, though most users tend to avoid brands like Powercolor and HIS because their coolers are sub par.
I think MSI is a solid choice as well.
I'm inclined to agree with you Noct on EVGA. Most of EVGA's cards seem to be reference cooling on a reference PCB, although most companies do use the reference PCB. It really feels like they've dropped the ball over the past year or so. The warranty is nice, but most good companies offer a warranty that is more than sufficient for how long you'll probably use their cards for before upgrading. Hell, XFX has a double lifetime warranty so you can resell and transfer it to a 2nd owner.
Oh, I believe there is a Flash issue that is resolved by disabling hardware acceleration. Not sure if that is what was being referred to, but thought i'd mention it.
I'll chime in with my experience as well.
Cards I've owned:
GeForce 3
GeForce 6800
2x GeForce GTX 8800 ultra (woo, I had no expenses then!)
GTX 460
Radeon 4850
Radeon 5670
Radeon 6790
Radeon 6770
The -only- issues I've ever had with drivers were with the 460 and PSODs. The -only- issues I've had with faulty cards were with the 6790 (it was just poorly designed by the card maker).
i7-4770k - GTX 780 Ti - 16GB DDR3 Ripjaws - (2) HyperX 120s / Vertex 3 120
ASRock Extreme3 - Sennheiser Momentums - Xonar DG - EVGA Supernova 650G - Corsair H80i
build pics
XFX is arguably on the same level as Sapphire. They're AMD exclusive for the most part, aside from them making GT 520s, 210s, 430, and the like for whatever odd reason.
Their double down (DD?) are one of the best cooling solutions available right now for AMD outside of MSI Twin Frozrs.
i7-4770k - GTX 780 Ti - 16GB DDR3 Ripjaws - (2) HyperX 120s / Vertex 3 120
ASRock Extreme3 - Sennheiser Momentums - Xonar DG - EVGA Supernova 650G - Corsair H80i
build pics
Triple down with the lifetime warranty! Although they did start limiting which models can get the lifetime warranty. It's down to only the Double Dissipation series and model numbers ending with 'R' for the 7000 series. All cards below the 7000 series are able to get a lifetime warranty, though.
As a whole, Nvidia has provided better drivers and faster fixes and updates than AMD/ATI. This does not fit as of late. AMD seems to have picked up on their driver quality considerably lately. The same cannot be said for offering processor support for windows. The Bulldozer architecture should have been a bigger improvement than it was, but the software simply does not support the design. I've heard that could be fixed soon, but you only get one first impression.
Quite often, the difference between an idiot and a genius is simply a matter of success rate.
Well... umm... only the US matters?
(Note: I sometimes forget during a post about my international brethren. The above comment was intended as humor. I don't actually believe that only the US matters.)
Frankly, ATi's drivers were pretty bad a lot of the time. Once they were picked up by AMD, they got much better. Right now, I'd say it's a coin toss on whether AMD or Nvidia will have the next faulty driver.
Yeah, well, if XFX had the life-time warranty in Europe, or even just in Germany, they would have got 350 euros from me when I bought my 7950. As it is, however, they did not, so my money went to Gigabyte instead.