I had a disagreement with a friend of mine. He said that a graphics card’s brand will determine its performance. I think the opposite. I’m following dan’s must-be-cheap doctrine.
I think so because there are only a few board manufacturer, versus a helluva number of brands. This means that quite a few brands will share the same board, Maybe they put a custom heatpipe cooler, but that’s about it.
And as far as I can see, they perform pretty much the same, too. An example here at firingsquad. If you look at the boards which shares the same clockspeed, you can see that there’s no performance difference. Even when you’re comparing it with the highest factory-overclocked type, you can only see 13% difference. It is big enough to be noticeable, but not big enough for me to care. Besides, I like overclocking the card myself, so if I can save 40 bucks by buying a cheap brand, I will without hesitation.
