Zotac? Gainward? Asus? MSI?
 

As I may have told you, I'm building a super(ish) PC as a retirement-present to myself. What remains is the GPU. One motive is to build a PC that I don't have to (want to) upgrade for many years, so it doesn't matter if a new GPU is overkill now. I originally considered getting a 1080 Ti, but that was before the new 20xx cards. The 2080 Ti is tempting of course, but I'm not sure I want to pay more for a GPU than what the PC it will be installed in cost me. The 2080 seems like a good alternative, as performance seems to be comparable to the 1080 Ti, it has ray tracing (assuming that may become relevant some day) and it doesn't cost much more than the 1080 Ti (in Norway). My pusher has GPU's from Zotac, Gainward, Asus and MSI, and they currently have a black week sale on those cards.

So what should I buy? I want a Nvidia GPU, since I know those cards. And I want to buy it from my current pusher (since I know them).

pibbur who previously has owned GPUs from all of the above mentioned brands, except Zotac.

I wouldn't personally worry about choosing between those brands. I'd say they all produce decent cards, and I'd just choose by the specs and the price.

I did read an article about Nvidia the other day, as their share price dived quite sharply. It suggested that the inflated price of the 2000 series is to avoid competing with their large existing stock of 1000 series, so perhaps the prices could be expected to come down quite significantly after a while.

I’ve never owned a zotac product but I’ve not heard anything bad about them. I used to like gainward but they stopped selling is the US so they’re no longer an option for me. I’ve owned a bunch of Asus and msi products and haven’t ever had any issues. So as Ripper said I don’t think it matters much between those brands.

They all will make thier versions of OC and stock cards so no real difference there. The main difference you’ll find is in cooling solutions. I’d read reviews, check out the cooling numbers and noise levels and choose based on that.

When I build a PC I choose mid tier cpu and ram and OC the crap out of them and then buy the fastest GPU out.

I don’t believe in overkill for a gpu. There’s always better tech and higher resolutions that will tax even the fastest gpu. For instance a 2080ti struggles to hit 60fps in 4K and a fully modded skyrim can take down the best cards. So really it just depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to do.

What a nice gift to yourself! :salute:

Don't focus on brand but the product and what is important to you. Like cooling, over-clocking capabilities, if it will fit in your computer and so on. I'd also look for reviews to see if the product has had any problems.

I believe in upgrading whole computer rarely but GPU frequently to get the most out of my money and time. Changing GPU is also very easy to do. Thus I would avoid the 2080ti with the current prices.

All I can say is I'm Gainward fanatic when it comes to nVidia. Phantom or Phoenix series.
If you'll go for AMD, pick Nitro Sapphire.

Or else. ;)

Heavy-hearted have to admit @souha13 is right - but it's a thing you don't need to know. :)

I went with MSI for my first super-powered Nvidia GPU and regretted it. Currently own an Asus STRIX GTX-1070 video card and I'm quite satisfied with it. My last 3 motherboards have all been Asus-brand and I never had a serious issue with any of them except for a northbridge fan that went bad on one SLI board which I had to replace. Asus has been rock-solid in my experience.

There was some report somewhere last year that indicates MSI and GIGABYTE were the best with regards to reliability and customer service. Naturally time changes and I can't vouch if that is still the case.
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I personally own a mini-zotac and mini-gigabyte (I use itx cards/cases and only the mini will fit). I had to contact zotac once and they responded quickly (under 24 hours with a fix). My specific issue is there was a ram issue with a lot of 1070's and they had a firmware fix which worked fine.
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I use the zotac more than the gigabyte but haven't had problems with either - the gigabyte is in a linux gaming box that i use at specific times of the year; the zotac is in my windows box which i use daily.
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If I had to do it over I'd probably get the same card or maybe a 1070 ti (mini). Prefer my itx cases with regards to desk space.

I love Zotac, because most of their gfx-card live long, have a good performance AND are a bit smaller than other cards and so easy to handle.

Just stay away, far far away from XFX, that is if they're even still in the business of making video cards. My late sister asked me to get her a good video card, and at the time ATI's HD 4850s were good and cheap. I figured all brands were the same and it was the chipset that was important. So I selected an XFX brand for her. It was a hacked gpu designed for an integrated solution (laptops?) made to appear as a HD 4850 for PCIe. It always showed up as "mobile" in Device Manager. There was only one single ATI driver build that ever worked with it. All others brought instant BSoD.

The ASUS Strix has the advantage of having 2 additional DC/PWM Fan Connector, which you could either use for a case fan, or an aftermarket cooling solution like the Morpheus 2.
ASUS customer support sucks though. It's just pain in the ass to even register on their forums or page.

With the 1070 generation I bought EVGA which have decent service and a warranty which officially doesn't get voided by removing the cooler. However their fan is too noisy for my taste.

I have used Zotac in the past and it was a nice stable card. As for Nvidia's 2000 series please do your homework. The reason Nvidia's stock dropped was due to so many issues with their RTX cards. Please understand I am not a fanboy of any video card manufacture. I have built systems with both AMD and Nvidia. I never had problems except once years ago. Right now I have am running a Nvidia GTX 970. But I can't emphasize enough to do research on the RTX 2080 series.