AMD: EVGA wanted to sell ATI cards (Updated)

I'd love to have a BFG Radeon. Absolutely great service and products. The warranty is what would grab me though.
Although at the moment AMD/ATI do really have enough partners.

Originally Posted by Richard Swinburne
AMD considers its world-wide coverage already sufficient and further saturating the market with yet another "sticker on generic product" doesn't do anyone any favours - with this sentiment we completely agree.

Business ethics; the biggest reason I have behind supporting ATi.

i wound love to see this :D but dint asus make ati and nvida cards :D

I think that the step up program would be good for AMD/ATI.

Also there's no link to the forums

While I really tip my hat to ATI/AMD for their choice in choosing partners, if anything I'd rather see EVGA than most other current nVidia partners doing Radeon cards. It might be my screwed-up opinion, but EVGA seems like a very serious and quality-oriented company. Again, I might be off on that, but that's the general impression I've had.

I wouldn't get so caught up in the AMD spin, if they care so much about their partners they wouldn't be annoying their biggest by forcing them to participate in their sampling program, and then not sending cards to key areas.

<3 my sapphire 4870 <3

tbh, good on AMD, we don't need an over saturated market.

I've got an EVGA 8800gt right now and I love it. Their customer service is great and so is there step-up program. I would have loved to see EVGA switch sides since I've been thinking about building a new PC in the next year.

Originally Posted by genesisofthesith
I wouldn't get so caught up in the AMD spin, if they care so much about their partners they wouldn't be annoying their biggest by forcing them to participate in their sampling program, and then not sending cards to key areas.

Annoying their biggest? Afaik they, like Nvidia, rotate their launch partners and there's also a global shortage of 4870s.

I sat across from Sapphire's Global Marketing Manager on Friday and he seemed happy enough.

Didn't see you at the after event (although I didn't turn up until around 7) ;)

I left around then (you missed the early fun :p)

I just wish we would get some better warranties on ATI stuff. Visiontek is the only one with a lifetime warranty I think.

My idea of GPU heaven? A BFG 4870 OC WC thankyouverymuch!!!!!!

Please don't feed the trolls

well the plus side with evga is how much water cooled versions they push so that could be nice but I guess if I had to see a company take on ATI then it would have to be either EVGA or XFX, then again BFG water cooled models might be interesting as well, huh well either way new partners would be neat but I do lean towards ATI whats the point in another card company coming just to use a different sticker... I think we are good now and well I think one of the current companies need to consider releasing a water cooled version of their ati cards unless they have? if so linky please ^_^

EVGA and BFG doing ATI cards would be sweet. They are both execlent companies pre and post sale. ATI should drop Powercolor and Saphire and bring those class companies into the fold.

Only premier brand for ATI I know of is Diamond, and they don't have a base in the UK :( I want there Black 4870!

Originally Posted by Denis_iii
EVGA and BFG doing ATI cards would be sweet. They are both execlent companies pre and post sale. ATI should drop Powercolor and Saphire and bring those class companies into the fold.

Only premier brand for ATI I know of is Diamond, and they don't have a base in the UK :( I want there Black 4870!

lol well I would consider ASUS and HIS to be more of a "premiere brand" as for dropping a company they would have no need to and certainly not the companies you mentioned lol yes they may not bring the best to what is ATI but they cover the low end and low prices very well so they are needed to make the higher end companies work with their prices so anyhow they would have no need to drop names to add names anyways as they only have 8 I say round it to a nice 10 and call it good, get evga and bfg on board and call it good.

Originally Posted by talladega
I just wish we would get some better warranties on ATI stuff. Visiontek is the only one with a lifetime warranty I think.

Agreed, from what I've looked at, none of the ATI partners have the same amount of warranty coverage as EVGA, who allows aftermarket cooling on their cards. EVGA also has a community forum going for them too. I wish more ATI manufacturers(and even more nVidia would work too) had better after-sale stuff like EVGA.

living in Canada, i have to say eVGA is my favourite brand. with the latest powerseries from ATI, that would be like putting the best of 2 worlds.... cards and manufacturers. yay.

Originally Posted by Denis_iii
EVGA and BFG doing ATI cards would be sweet. They are both excellent companies pre and post sale. ATI should drop Powercolor and Sapphire and bring those class companies into the fold.

Only premier brand for ATI I know of is Diamond, and they don't have a base in the UK :( I want there Black 4870!

don't get ride of sapphire, they come with one of the best bundled packages i know of, not to mention the toxic range.

i wish they picked up XFX...yes lifetime warranty for parts and labor

I actually think ATI could do with more partners, or just replace the ones it has with better ones.

Current ATI partners dont offer that much in the way of extras; which is dumb seeing as ATI has limited them to stock designs so far.

extra's? why the hell do you want them to add that to the price, because nothing is free in this world. No ATI have got it right by selling cards almost OEM packaged, and the Black edition of the 4870 looks most interesting, shall wait for the monster 4870X2 black edition!!! probably cost about £200..

ATI manufacturers have been suffering for along time with bad sales during the 8800GTX life span, and now the 4870 is selling extremely well AMD is letting its partners earn some cah back after them investing alot of time and money into there production.

the 4800 series reminds me of when AMD introduced the first 64-bit CPU and it screamed past Intel, wasn't going to cause intel to go under but did cut there sales in a big way! Then AMD were first to dual core, again intel got bent over and treated like a sheep! (AMD is the farmer)

AMD's biggest mistake was in fact its AM2 range, i was surprised to see that the AM2 upon release was just a simple Athlon 939 with a different memory control for DDR2, and a few tweaks. What AMD should do now is to develope a decent speed CPU that can perform on par clock for clock with a core duo, but with low power consumption. what with engery bills the way they are going iv powered up my old shuttle with its sempron 1.6GHz beast just to keep the electric bill low!

most of the "partners" nividia and amd have could go away, they are not necessary, the cards are all the same, they all throw in the same useless extras, they all use the same pcb's, they all use the same drivers, whats the point? why not just have nvidia and amd sell the cards directly? no need for "partner" to get involved, just my 2 cents.

As far as I recall, Sapphire is (or was?) ATI/AMD's primary partner in that most, if not all, cards are/were actually manufactured by Sapphire. I guess that would make Sapphire the one partner most difficult to replace. I still think ATI/AMD should mull over taking EVGA on board. They really could do worse... :)

Originally Posted by pizan
i wish they picked up XFX...yes lifetime warranty for parts and labor

2 years in the UK though :( but only about as good as most AMD partners though :p

Have always tried to buy Sapphire cards, excellent cost/reliability. The one time i changed was to get a HIS 3870 X2, which promptly died after a day or so. I think AMD have got it right with their approach, keep their core partners happy who have supported them through the lean days too.

Originally Posted by Denis_iii
EVGA and BFG doing ATI cards would be sweet. They are both execlent companies pre and post sale. ATI should drop Powercolor and Saphire and bring those class companies into the fold.

Only premier brand for ATI I know of is Diamond, and they don't have a base in the UK :( I want there Black 4870!

Not to get all bent out of shape, but that say more about you than it does about premier brands. I'm going to assume that you don't know much about graphics card manufacturing, more a customer than a full-on enthusiast. That's fine, as it explains your focus on sales support over design and quality. But before you start bagging on brands you should educate yourself.

Sapphire is the main ATI manufacturer. I understand that all current HD4870 are made by Sapphire, then other manufacturers slap on their own sticker. So how is the Diamond card better than the Powercolor? Or the HIS? Or even the Gecube?
BFG and EVGA do not manufacture nor design cards. They merely buy high speed-binned cards from Nvidia (or their reference card manufacturer) and perhaps add a custom cooler.
Diamond is a premium brand? Diamond hasn't done anything meaningful in quite some time. Even the HD4870 XOC Premium Black Edition is merely a reference board with stock cooling and a bump in clocks. At the moment it is a Photoshopped JPEG in a press release. I'll make sure I get impressed when I finally see one.
Last time I had anything to do with Diamond was a couple of Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo2 12MB PCI in SLI. That was quite a long time ago.

Sapphire and Powercolor have stuck by ATI in the good times and the bad. Why would they screw over such rare loyalty by dropping them for a couple of Nvidia "pre-loved" princesses? That notoriously abusive partner Nvidia treats them bad and they run squealing to the guy who won't treat them like a bitch.

For my first ATI card ever (over ten years spent with 3DFX/Nvidia) I went for the HD4870 slapped with a Gigabyte sticker as it came with a 3-year warranty. Unfortunately the cheaper card slapped with a Gecube sticker only came with a 1-year warranty.

BFG I can understand- their lifetime warranty is erotic. Once AMD has BFG on board, that's it. No need for EVGA.

Originally Posted by Grinch123456
BFG I can understand- their lifetime warranty is erotic. Once AMD has BFG on board, that's it. No need for EVGA.

EVGA also has a lifetime warranty, and the US XFX does also(but I think XFX has a crappy one for the rest of the world).

yet another "sticker on generic product"

The sticker peeled off my Powercolor 4850. :(

I'm not too bothered, since it was a crap sticker anyway.

Does anyone else miss the "Built by ATI" cards?

This article is false... EVGA did not ask to sell ATI cards.

EVGATech_JacobF:
"There is no truth to this at all. Completely false."

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=488986

So long.

Originally Posted by Goty
Does anyone else miss the "Built by ATI" cards?

A bit of a rarity. I don't remember ever seeing authentic, original ATi or nVidia products before.

ya I do miss the built by ATI cards but anyhow to bad the EVGA thing is false unless that guy that states its false is just saying that not knowing the higher ups could be the ones doing the talking, I mean he is a tech after all, anyhow I think it would have been a good move on EVGA part but ehh.

What I miss is non-generic cards,
so with better video-in-out, or better power-control/tweakability, or better cooling (or more silent cooling).

All we see now is rebranding and rebinning.

Originally Posted by Burnout21
AMD's biggest mistake was in fact its AM2 range, i was surprised to see that the AM2 upon release was just a simple Athlon 939 with a different memory control for DDR2, and a few tweaks. What AMD should do now is to develope a decent speed CPU that can perform on par clock for clock with a core duo, but with low power consumption. what with engery bills the way they are going iv powered up my old shuttle with its sempron 1.6GHz beast just to keep the electric bill low!

Haha, i bet they never thought of that, you should write them a letter.

hahhahhah

this will be cool really. but it's funny. EVGA ati. Lol. Can't wait.

I have issues with Sapphire's RMA process, I've owned 2 ATI cards a 9800 Pro(BBA) and a 2900 Pro(HIS)(Both are still running strong), My friend owns a Sapphire X1900GT, it was still within warranty yet they charged him $15 to basically send it to Taiwan to be fixed/replaced. What good is it to have offices in the states if they don't do RMA services? and then charge thier customers to compensate for their shortcomings. None of ATI's partners have warranties worth mentioning. VisionTek has a lifetime warranty but I see people complain on their forums that the service itself is horrible.

I've only had to RMA 1 card myself that was a 7900GT from EVGA, there was damage to the card done by me(but unrelated to the actual issue) and they replaced it anyway. That's customer service.(and basically made them Tops in my book for NV cards)

The Sapphire RMA, My friend who built the computer sent the card back for our other friend, forgot to include the check/money order for $15 instead of calling him and pointing out he forgot to include it(so he could send it to them), they shipped the card back with no explanation, he had to call them and then play phone tag for them to tell him he forgot the money. And he had to repeat the whole RMA process including Shipping costs. Needless to say they lost a customer.

And he's still waiting for the fixed/replacement card(using my 2900 Pro till it gets back) 2 months now.