What is the perception of ASUS graphics card in your eyes

[DooRules]

EVGA is my vote every time. And with their new warranty, you are able to transfer warranty to new buyer of card, very cool.

[Black4]

I think you'll get a bit skewed results since being ASUS owners is probably what brought people here but the comments should be interesting.

Personally I do think ASUS cards are best but EVGA is a very close 2nd. I'm not a big fan of their warranty fine print for starters.

I agree with what xeromist said here.

Performance and compatibility is what I think your target market segment want and ASUS has all of this, markets them effectively and has a personable and excellent spokesperson (J.J.).

I don't have a lot of experience with multiple products, but have owned both ATI and nVidia items and know how to research and compare a prospective purchase.

I suspected once that a reference card might have superior compatibility, but now I simply think they have a baseline of performance, and that other vendor's cards have a performance advantage in some way. I chose a Direct CU II because I intend to get a Gene-Z/GEN3 soon, but a similar EVGA card was on my short list.

EVGA might have a slight value edge to their cards, and they are at least as well marketed as ASUS's. The Republic of Gamers product line gives ASUS the edge over EVGA, in my view.

[cravinmild]

"EVGA might have a slight value edge to their cards, and they are at least as well marketed as ASUS's. The Republic of Gamers product line gives ASUS the edge over EVGA, in my view. "

THIS^^^^^^^

If not for the RoG status i would have gone with another vender. The Matrix Platinum specs could not be turned up and the price was very near the other vender prices.

[Jonny K]

Here's my take, I registered for this forum just to respond to this thread.

Right now I'm trying to build the most powerful PC I can manage without SLI and cost is not really an issue within reason. I'm avoiding SLI because I don't care for microstuttering, otherwise my setup would be SLI. Asus is of particular interest for me in the realm of 7970s and GTX 680s, though the 680 is my key target. My perception is that Asus is a high end brand, though I've never owned an Asus card before. My current video card squeals like a little pig whenever I run games (capacitor noise) and I want to be sure my new card does not do this. I have hopes that an Asus non-reference design card with all those fancy power phases will be better built than competitors, though I'm still researching.

My system is watercooled and I plan on removing the stock cooler and fitting a waterblock on the card and then overclocking to as high as I can reasonably go, likely with minimal (if any) voltage modding. Water is where Asus falls short. If Asus is catering to the high end enthusiast users then where's the water cooled offerings? If I buy a DirectCU II based card I get an epic huge three slot cooler which I would have to remove right away, assuming I can find a non-reference waterblock that will fit the Asus card (which I think does exist) and hopefully a new two slot plate to decrease the crazy size of the thing. The point is, adding some water to the mix might be a good idea, and smaller cooler options may also be good.

A few other things:

- I'd like to see you directly address the issue of capacitor noise. I've seen various manufacturers claim they use high quality components, but I've never seen anybody list "no cap squeal" as a feature. That is a feature I would definitely look for.

- I was reading through the AMD video card section here at the Rog board and there's a big thread there with lots of people saying they are having trouble with 7970 DirectCU II cards (crashes and such). It wasn't clear whether this was an Asus issue or an AMD issue, but it was clear that there were lots of problems. It was also evident that Asus representatives were not participating in the conversation to offer insight. This leaves me unsure what to believe and cautious. Where does the problem lie? Should I delay my purchase? Is this a 7970 only issue or will the 680 also have it? Etc. It would be good to see Asus jump right in and tell it straight. If there's an issue then say so, and let us know there's a fix coming. That kind of feedback counts for something.

- Would you ever consider selling just the card without a cooler on it, allowing enthusiasts to install their own cooler? Because that would be awesome for us water cooled guys. Or instead, what about a high end card with quality construction paired with a basic cooler that is sold with the assumption that the user will likely change it? It seems like a waste to buy a 680 DirectCU II and then remove that big cooler (that I know I paid for) when I could buy a competitors card for less with a basic cooler on it (which I'm removing anyway). Therefore, it comes down to board quality only, if the competitor can provide quality construction with a less fancy and expensive cooler then they may win that battle since the cooler is not important to me.

- I can't really comment on who makes the best video cards since I only buy video cards every few years and own one at a time, so comparisons are hard. And video card review websites are usually useless, since every card that gets reviewed always seems to get an editors choice award regardless. I'm left to examine the images of the product and the overall company reputation myself, as well as forum discussions. Asus does well in this respect.


Overall, Asus seems to have done a decent job catering to enthusiast users with the ROG hardware, this website, and some of your other quality products (after all, my current Z77 motherboard is an Asus for a reason). If you tweaked just a few things you could be even better.

As for me, I'm holding out for a little while on the video card purchase until 680 stock improves and to see what other companies like EVGA are bringing to the table with their high end parts (including water cooled cards). Hope my input was helpful.


Jonny K

[stren]

Personally for me there's too little water cooling support. Either I'll get a reference card in which case the designs are the same (and price can only be justified by my perception of warranty and RMA service), or I'm looking for a card with extra vram/performance that is still compatible with a waterblock. I have no interest in air cooling or giant 3 slot coolers, or <3gb of vram.

I wish there was someone out there interested in challenging the evga classified cards - extra vram and optional waterblock. To me that series is number one for what I want and it separates them out as a leader in the industry.

Asus may be number one, and I love the ROG motherboards, but they do not dominate in the same way in GPUs. When you think of *the* performance card for multi-monitor setups you don't think Asus. Yes Asus do some nice air cards, but so do MSI and EVGA often without resorting to three slots. There are very few high end setups that use air. I also like the idea of a step-up option for evga even though I've never used it.

BTW you should post this in a non Asus forum if you want less biased answers

[Zka17]

I voted for Asus because of their overall product line (ROG). At the VGA section, however, there is a strong competition for the first place between Asus and EVGA... Basically because of the water cooling, as others have also mentioned...

Just hope that the newly presented Fusion Thermo System would be extended in future... both for motherboards (I would love a Rampage V Extreme with this system!) and graphic cards...

[FireFlower]

Voted EVGA for a few reasons...

1. They usually chip with reference style cooler but allow to install 3rd party cooler without loosing warranty
2. Generally quality has been better, less RMA's by my hand.
3. Better applications

I bought two GTX 560 Ti TOP 1GB during summer 2011. Had a lot BSOD problems with SLI and bugs. Sold my old rig and kept other card. This card was damn noisy with original fan profile, made custom one where static 1800 rpm if under 70C, over 70C top speed (4500 rpm).

Well now two months back it started making artifacts, over drawing vectors etc and RMA'd it. Got entirely new one, sold it and bought new one from other brand because I was pretty upset with Asus Crosshair V Formula. Too long boot time. New systems boots is on desktop in 8 seconds! Asus motherboard needed 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Sooo personally I think Asus is starting to loose their edge in products development and application design. Those applications are ugly and pretty weird to use. UI is strange and not logical.

[Zka17]

Well, FireFlower, you went wrong about about the two GTX 560 Ti TOP 1GB cards... It happens that I have them too...

If their fans were noisy, it means that you failed to upgrade their BIOS... After that upgrade they're dead-silent... I'm really curious which exact EVGA you've got, as those usually have more noise on air cooling...

[FireFlower]

EVGA GTX 670 FTW.

Btw I never updated bios of GTX 560 Ti, it was the newest when I checked it could it fix fan noise problem. Well now current system is a lot quieter even though radial fan is supposed to be more noisy.

Lets see again when Asus decides gives up silly 3-pci-slots design in coolers. If this continues soon we will have 4 slots design featuring full tower cooler mounted to it...

[Arne Saknussemm]

The thread is perception so I voted EVGA....really I think return rates etc show the poll companies as much of a muchness, except zotac who I think of as second division and not premiership. EVGA make great cards and do things like put a decent amount of ram on 680s etc. Asus is probably just as good and (not NVIDIA) a matrix 7970 or a GHz edition with a good cooler design will probably be my next card if they come out soon. It's just EVGA have a pedigree....asus will have to work for that.


EDIT : Several weeks later ordered a 680 DCII top! on balance ASUS wins!