AIB vs Reference

[ijb1989]

Morning folks

hope all are well?

I’ve done a bit of Googling on this and seen a couple of bits of the difference between both (originally reference were weaker but nvidia FE put paid to that) but wanted to corroborate.. What is the difference?

I’m hoping for a 6800 XT if that helps

 

[montymint]

reference is the standard PCB layout, design, power settings etc by the manufacturer.

AIBs are board partners who make their own boards (using the chips provided from AMD, nvidia etc). They can tweak the board design a little to change power delivery to allow for faster clock speeds, cooler running etc etc.

Some may keep close to the reference design whilst others will change it significantly (in my case my vega64 was a red devil that had a different pcb layout).

For most people, the changes are incidental and it becomes a case of £ vs cooling / speed and your own research would be needed to determine what price / performance is best.

For people using watercoolers, they would need to find a board layout that the waterblocks fit, which is usually the reference design.

 

[ijb1989]

Thanks @montymint - appreciate that. With specific reference to the 6800 XT, i'd assume from your response that the AIB models coming out on Wednesday would be preferable.

 

[montymint]

its uo to you really. They will probably be a little quicker than reference, but is that worth the uplift in price to you? only you can answer that

 

[ijb1989]

Noted - would you therefore suggest checking benchmarks for each individual variant of them then?

 

[montymint]

Noted - would you therefore suggest checking benchmarks for each individual variant of them then?

ideally yes - however the benchmarks will come out at the same time as the cards, so unless you're willing to wait you'll miss out.

you could check comparable benchmarks for the 5700XT and Vega64s for the same brands to see if there's a consensus.

From personal experiences, the red devils and nitro + ranges are the upper end, but do cost a bit more.

 

[Aretak]

Cooler and quieter is usually the main benefit. Sometimes better overclocking due to higher power limits. The safe bet is to go with Sapphire if you have the option for AMD cards. They very rarely produce a bad cooler.