SPCR

I can get the Abit rebadged version at a substantially lower price than the ATI one. I suppose it's the same GPU on a different board. Is there any disadvantage in performance in any way, shape, or form with the Abit versions?

Rebadged? I think all ATI cards are made by third parties. They just make the GPU and companies like Abit make the card. As all the cards are made to a basic design supplied by ATI they're all pretty much the same. Some may have higher stock speeds (pre-overclocked), better heatsinks and more memory. I think Abit are pretty well respected.

EDIT* my bad

Then who makes the "ATI" cards that I can buy at Best Buy, Circuit City, and a few places online (for higher prices than those retail outlets)?

At one time, all ATI cards were "made by" ATI and there were no 3rd party cards with ATI chipsets. This was a different strategy than Nvidia, which decided early on to only make the chips and license others to make the cards. ATI now allows allows other companies to make cards with ATI chipsets like Nvidia does.

Keep in mind that even for ATI branded cards, they are made in Asia under a contract manufacturing agreement.

It's very rare that anything is really different aside from the heatsink/fan used and/or the software bundle.

dnewhous wrote:I can get the Abit rebadged version at a substantially lower price than the ATI one. I suppose it's the same GPU on a different board. Is there any disadvantage in performance in any way, shape, or form with the Abit versions?

You have to check the specs carefully (including GPU and memory speed), extra features such as TIVO, etc, cables, and included software (usually games), and warranty to make an accurate comparison. But other than the above items, if they have the same chipset, they are basically the same.

Be careful to read the fine print about the warranty. Some companies that offer a lifetime warranty only will honor it while that card is still in production, which is usually only a year or two at most, and can be even less.

I heard that the ATI branded cards are made by Saphire and Celestica.

mathias wrote:I heard that the ATI branded cards are made by Saphire and Celestica.

I think those are different companies. Sapphires have an out of box failure rate that cannot be matched by anything else, and I've never heard of problems like that with ATI cards, so I doubt ATi cards are made by those 2 companies.