Does the brand really matter?

[Removed User 345456]

Oops. Sorry I should have searched.
That's good to know, Sapphires have always served me well. Not sure anyone does great with warranties anymore and most are only 2 years it seems?

Yeah that's what I was saying earlier regarding paying a lot of money for a good brand yet only 2 years warranty

That's why I'd rather pay extra for asus (personally) and get 3 years, msi and gigabyte iirc do 3 years but F gigabyte and msi cards tend to be around the same price as asus but often lack a metal backing plate and aren't test proven as good and louder (and I like msi - have 2 motherboards, butI wouldn't have an msi card)

I personally would give the Powercolor a swerve for that price/warranty.

You really don't want to arse about with sending it back for a week to be proven you're not lying then after they say "yeah you're right it's F'ed... We're now gonna send it abroad for upto 28 days total for them to tell us what you told us and we told them, and then after that they might fix it and send it back and leave you waiting longer or refund/offer a replacement" CBF with all that personally...

 

[humbug]

You don't have to pay a premium for one with a 3 year warranty, i've just linked the Sapphire Pulse for £740.

 

[Aretak]

Yes, brand does matter when things go wrong. It's good if the company has a UK RMA, for instance.

Gigabyte and Zotac are the only companies left with a UK RMA base for graphics cards to my knowledge. All the rest go abroad, either to mainland Europe or Asia.

 

[humbug]

Hardware Unboxed make good tear down reviews on GPU's but he said he was going to refuse any AIB sent 7900XT's because he didn't like the initial price of the MBA version, i think that's a very poor excuse for something else that's going on.... but ##### those weasels here's tech supports tech support Windel instead, a very cool a straight guy so i'm going to give him the forum post instead.

Sapphire Pulse 7900XT.

 

[lemming3k]

Yeah that's what I was saying earlier regarding paying a lot of money for a good brand yet only 2 years warranty

That's why I'd rather pay extra for asus (personally) and get 3 years, msi and gigabyte iirc do 3 years but F gigabyte and msi cards tend to be around the same price as asus but often lack a metal backing plate and aren't test proven as good and louder (and I like msi - have 2 motherboards, butI wouldn't have an msi card)

I personally would give the Powercolor a swerve for that price/warranty.

You really don't want to arse about with sending it back for a week to be proven you're not lying then after they say "yeah you're right it's F'ed... We're now gonna send it abroad for upto 28 days total for them to tell us what you told us and we told them, and then after that they might fix it and send it back and leave you waiting longer or refund/offer a replacement" CBF with all that personally...

I thought all warranty repairs were like that though? Anything I've RMA'd before has taken about a month to come full circle.

Tbh if it failed I'd be tempted to argue at those prices it isn't fit for purpose. Harder to argue for cheaper cards, though I still think they should be covered for longer. Seems like an area where things are lagging behind, especially with all the right to repair laws and push towards things lasting longer again. RAM and PSUs tend to be covered so where's the pride in making GPUs to last?

I suppose this is why I wondered if it mattered. Though there are some definite component duds out there we all seem to have difference experiences in general. My Nvidia 980ti is an MSI and seems fine. AMD I've only had Sapphires with one failure after many years. My last 2 boards were Gigabytes. IIRC the first was DOA but the replacement is over 11 years old.

Are you looking at this one?

Powercolor Radeon RX 7900 XT MBA 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Powercolor Radeon RX 7900 XT MBA 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Don't, just no..... what is that even doing there with a 1 year warranty?

This one....

Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Much better cooler, 3 year warranty and cheaper, that is a good card by any measure.

Yeah that was the Sapphire I was looking at over the weekend. Didn't expect it to go back up so quickly.
The powercolor was a Hellhound on another site. Could get a discount on either XT or XTX but the XT barely comes out cheaper than the Sapphire. XTX on the other hand comes out cheaper than any others I've seen. Red Devil is available for a bit more but not sure my PSU could cope and not sure it's worth paying another £65 when I've already talked myself up from a 6950XT lol. A hellhound XTX would probably be amazing though.

 

[Gibbo]

Sapphire!

 

[humbug]

On the PSU it depends on more than just the GPU, some CPU's can pull 200 watts vs 100 watts for another one at similar performance and that alone can make or break GPU choices with existing PSU's.

But i do find that quite often people think they need more powerful PSU's than they actually do, especially when they are reading PSU recommendations on the GPU specs page, which to cover their own back always assume the readers PSU is junk level, which if you're buying $500+ GPU's they shouldn't be, at least.

I mean to take it to the most extremes if you have a 400 watt GPU and you give the rest of the system 200 watts a decent 750 watt PSU is ample, people quite often think they need a 1000 watt PSU for a high end GPU, no you don't

 

[lemming3k]

On the PSU it depends on more than just the GPU, some CPU's can pull 200 watts vs 100 watts for another one at similar performance and that alone can make or break GPU choices with existing PSU's.

But i do find that quite often people think they need more powerful PSU's than they actually do, especially when they are reading PSU recommendations on the GPU specs page, which to cover their own back always assume the readers PSU is junk level, which if you're buying $500+ GPU's they shouldn't be, at least.

I mean to take it to the most extremes if you have a 400 watt GPU and you give the rest of the system 200 watts a decent 750 watt PSU is ample, people quite often think they need a 1000 watt PSU for a high end GPU, no you don't

That's why I went with an 850w gold EVGA for this build as it seemed an unbreakable level of headroom. Never imagined I'd be considering a GPU recommending 900w though. I usually build the most economical options for good performance since the gains above that tend to be outweighed by the cost. Obviously I'm having some kind of mid-life crisis....

Thinking about that 1 year warranty, that wouldn't be legal within the EU. I suppose it's one of those laws we haven't adopted since brexit though.

 

[JediFragger]

Powercolor and Sapphire are apparently Tier 1 AMD partners

I'd say Sapphire are even above PC, have seen PC have some high hotspot issues with their higher-end cards this gen but nothing from Sapphire (obv ignoring the Ref card issue).

 

[TrojanWhore]

Oops. Sorry I should have searched.

No worries, just thought I'd link it in case you hadn't seen that thread

That's good to know, Sapphires have always served me well. Not sure anyone does great with warranties anymore and most are only 2 years it seems?

It's only the MBA (reference) Sapphires that are 2yr I think, the aftermarket options (pulse, nitro) are 3yr.
Similarly, for powercolor the MBA are 1yr, but the aftermarket (red dragon/red devil) are 3yr..... 1yr on the MBA is shocking at that price, but Gibbo said he's queried this with them and they won't move...

I'd definitely go Sapphire personally at £700 for the pulse I can't see it getting any better in the short term (hence me buying one!), hopefully they'll be able to do that price again soon!

 

[mattyfez]

I have a powercolor red devil RX480 that's retired to the bedroom pc, and a sapphire pulse 6800xt in the main pc.

Can't say I have any complaints with either.

 

[Removed User 345456]

I thought all warranty repairs were like that though? Anything I've RMA'd before has taken about a month to come full circle.

Tbh if it failed I'd be tempted to argue at those prices it isn't fit for purpose. Harder to argue for cheaper cards, though I still think they should be covered for longer. Seems like an area where things are lagging behind, especially with all the right to repair laws and push towards things lasting longer again. RAM and PSUs tend to be covered so where's the pride in making GPUs to last?

I suppose this is why I wondered if it mattered. Though there are some definite component duds out there we all seem to have difference experiences in general. My Nvidia 980ti is an MSI and seems fine. AMD I've only had Sapphires with one failure after many years. My last 2 boards were Gigabytes. IIRC the first was DOA but the replacement is over 11 years old.



Yeah that was the Sapphire I was looking at over the weekend. Didn't expect it to go back up so quickly.
The powercolor was a Hellhound on another site. Could get a discount on either XT or XTX but the XT barely comes out cheaper than the Sapphire. XTX on the other hand comes out cheaper than any others I've seen. Red Devil is available for a bit more but not sure my PSU could cope and not sure it's worth paying another £65 when I've already talked myself up from a 6950XT lol. A hellhound XTX would probably be amazing though.

A rival company that we're not allowed to mention on here, offer the same 3 year warranty on all asus gpu's, if it is faulty after 6 months of purchase, they simple send you out a replacement that you get next day delivered for free as soon as they've tested it themselves which only takes 1-3 days.

They also arrange for DPD to collect it from your house next day as soon as the RMA is reported...

I've actually had a hdd off them this year arrive DOA I rang them 5 mins after it being delivered and testing it with the click of death, they got the driver to turn around and collect it, it got back the same day, the tested it the next day and sent me out a brand new one, so within 48 hours I had another. Can't beat that service!

No waiting for the manufacturer to test it and 28 days wasted...

 

[Removed User 345456]

No worries, just thought I'd link it in case you hadn't seen that thread


It's only the MBA (reference) Sapphires that are 2yr I think, the aftermarket options (pulse, nitro) are 3yr.
Similarly, for powercolor the MBA are 1yr, but the aftermarket (red dragon/red devil) are 3yr..... 1yr on the MBA is shocking at that price, but Gibbo said he's queried this with them and they won't move...

I'd definitely go Sapphire personally at £700 for the pulse I can't see it getting any better in the short term (hence me buying one!), hopefully they'll be able to do that price again soon!

The Nitro might be but the pulse and anything below that definitely is not 3 years, as I asked when I was tempted by a 7900xt... Those pulse cards also are no quieter/no better at coil wine than the base sapphire according to every review I've red, even on the shop feedback on here. Seems pointless. They don't seem to cool it any better either, just are tarted up for more money. Love sapphire though, but i'd take the above mentioned warranty from asus/other supplier over this 28 day messing about.

Yeah I mentioned in another thread how ridiculous the AMD 1 year warranty is on the 6950xt. Disgusting isn't it!

 

[Toxile]

The only graphics card failure i have had over the years was from Sapphire so i don't buy into tiers. Just take a look at reviews and buy accordingly.

 

[JediFragger]

 

[sx_turbo]

The sapphire pulse 7900xt looks the best deal, also the asrock phantom gaming is also another good option with a 3 year warranty, I've not read many complaints about asrock GPU so worth considering also

 

[lemming3k]

No worries, just thought I'd link it in case you hadn't seen that thread


It's only the MBA (reference) Sapphires that are 2yr I think, the aftermarket options (pulse, nitro) are 3yr.
Similarly, for powercolor the MBA are 1yr, but the aftermarket (red dragon/red devil) are 3yr..... 1yr on the MBA is shocking at that price, but Gibbo said he's queried this with them and they won't move...

I'd definitely go Sapphire personally at £700 for the pulse I can't see it getting any better in the short term (hence me buying one!), hopefully they'll be able to do that price again soon!

Hmm, I can't seem to find what the Hellhound is but I'd guess 2 years. Potential for some cashback so if it all comes through I've got a bargain. I'll just be happy if it all works and stays that way.

A rival company that we're not allowed to mention on here, offer the same 3 year warranty on all asus gpu's, if it is faulty after 6 months of purchase, they simple send you out a replacement that you get next day delivered for free as soon as they've tested it themselves which only takes 1-3 days.

They also arrange for DPD to collect it from your house next day as soon as the RMA is reported...

I've actually had a hdd off them this year arrive DOA I rang them 5 mins after it being delivered and testing it with the click of death, they got the driver to turn around and collect it, it got back the same day, the tested it the next day and sent me out a brand new one, so within 48 hours I had another. Can't beat that service!

No waiting for the manufacturer to test it and 28 days wasted...

I wasn't sure what we could say on other companies. I've seen one with a cheap HDD (not available at OC) but since I've never heard of them I've no idea how reliable they are or if I could ask here.

That's amazing service for the warranty. Companies massively underestimate how good customer service brings in money. Another site gave me some money back after a price drop, so I ordered more from them! Anyone that gives me hassle I stay away from in future so it doesn't so them any favours. Obviously hope to never need them though.

 

[Removed User 345456]

It's a typo mate, trust me, look on scan's site, states 2 year warranty, as does anyone else selling their cars... The guy on the phone from ocuk told me the 3 year was a typo when I spoke to the RMA dept...

So ring up and ask for yourself, I genuinely bet you I'm right if it was the same for the pulse 7900xt...

I only rang them to clarify this as I thought it was strange that scan who sell the same products had the warranty stating a 2 year on all Sapphire products, which they confirmed to me on the phone, then I saw ocuk stating 3 years so rang them to see if they somehow had an extended warranty, turns out it was merely a typo from another template they hadn't changed fully when adding the product...

If they have somehow changed it in the last 6-8 weeks then cool, bonus for you/anyone buying one. But it definitely wasn't the case 2 weeks before August... Hence why I went for Asus with 3 year warranty on my new gpu.

FWIW this isn't the first time I've spotted something conflicting across companies selling the same product and ocuk have got it wrong.

 

[TrojanWhore]

@Removed User 345456 - from things Gibbo has said on the forums (edit: I'm pretty sure!), it's as I stated:

- Sapphire: 2yr MBA, 3 yr AIB
- Powercolor: 1yr MBA, 3yr AIB

I'm not doubting what you're saying wrt other retailers, but they could have separate agreements....If CS are telling you it's a typo then that should be fixed asap!

@Gibbo - we could use a little clarification here!

 

[Removed User 345456]

Make sure though mate, you ask to speak to the RMA dept not the sales team, as at first they just red it off the site, and didn't give me much confidence so I rang back and went through to RMA and the guy their confirmed my suspicions.