This is why I buy Sapphire.

[GLD]

I have to admit I find humor in peoples posts when they say stuff like they don't "trust" Sapphire video cards or they say they have bad quality control, etc. Isn't it funny to you when they snivel?

Before I bought my first ATi video card I really did not know anything about them so I took the time to do a search on the different manufacturers. One review stood out and sold me on Sapphire from the get go. Every ATi card I have bought (8 so far) has been a Sapphire. Sure the other brands are worth buying (the HIS coolers always look awesome), but I will probably stick with the tried and true Sapphire's. Thanks to That review here at TPU I fell I am a Sapphire faithful. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/Factory

[Random Murderer]

yea, i never understood why so many people bash sapphire so much. i've owned 3 sapphire cards and never had a single problem. sapphire uses the best parts available on their high-end cards and lower quality stuff on their low end cards(which is to be expected), but even so, their failure rate is next to none, even on the low end cards.
it says a lot about a company when ati rebrands their(sapphire's) cards as "built by ati."

[KieranD]

my old 9600 pro was the best card i ever owned it was sapphire and also had 256mb gddr3 woah that was good in the day!

currently i have a x800gto from powercolor its okay but it was bought on choice of price

[mandelore]

huh, first thing ive heard about Sapphire not being a good brand, i think they are one of the best from personal experience

[Random Murderer]

yep. their gddr4(x1950xtx, 2900 1GB, 3870) cards exclusively use the .8ns ram chips as opposed to the other brands that use .9 or 1.0ns chips.

[Urbklr]

Every card ive bought aswell has been sapphire...they ROCK

9550
x550
x800GTO
x1600Pro
x1950Pro
HD2600XT
HD2900XT

All great cards!

[quickie]

There was something wrong with Sapphire?

My first ATI card was a Sapphire 8500LE. Great card. I had no issues and the quality was good.

Maybe some people have had a bad experience, but no more so than with any other company.

[Random Murderer]

Originally Posted by quickie

There was something wrong with Sapphire?

My first ATI card was a Sapphire 8500LE. Great card. I had no issues and the quality was good.

Maybe some people have had a bad experience, but no more so than with any other company.

i find nothing wrong with sapphire, but some people complain about sapphire having crappy quality control and using crappy parts, which just isn't true.

[strick94u]

last sapphire i got was a 1600 and it was not their fault 1600 was crap but when I went to rma it rma's directly to ATI which is a big plus in my book.

[JC316]

Had 2 sapphire cards both were top notch cards. I got HIS this time because it was the onyl one in stock at the time.

[Ripper3]

My first brand new graphics card was an XFX branded 6600 128MB, thought it was great, huge step up from GF2 MX, at least, heh. Had good quality, OCed well, and I loved it.
My X1800GTO upgrade was quite a while after that, it was branded as Built by ATi, so I'll assume it's ATi or Sapphire, great card, no troubles, took voltage like a champ (even though it was a card that was plagued by having one of the VRM chips missing, which normally meant anything over 1.3v was too much, though I pumped 1.5v, and it worked).
My X1950GT was the first actual Sapphire card I had, and it was brilliant too. Beat my X1800, showed up Pros, with its OC, and never gave me trouble.
Worst mistake I ever made was going back to Nvidia, image quality was noticeably lower, while the performance didn't increase at all, but at least the card didn't die on me.
Now I've got a Powercolor HD 3850, the first one died on my though, so this second ne hopefully will work better. I do wish I had bought the Sapphire, even if only because of the branding, but the Powercolor was simply cheaper, by at least £10 on that day. Definately going Sapphire next time.

Oh, and I have heard about Sapphire's supposedly low quality control, before I built my first PC, my mate was configuring his new build, with crappy parts (kept warning him off the Celeron and 9200SE, but he just kept insisting), and I kept asking "why don't you buy the cheaper of the two cards, the Sapphire one?", to which he always responded with a link to the one single bad reply on the e-tailer's site, to an old 8500 Sapphire card, that had died after he pushed it too hard, which always confused me, as his HIS card that arrived, had problems with 3D (not just because it purely sucked), which he denied as card problems.

[ShadowFold]

My friend is a Sapphire fanboy :P I personally always go with HIS if im getting an ATi card. I had a HIS 9250 and HIS X700PRO. I went with nvidia for once(EVGA 7600GS) and I hated it. So I went back with ATi and got a HIS HD 3850

[Widjaja]

Back in the day when Sapphire came out they were know as a budget brand but now a days they are known as one of the top ATi GPU makers.

Gotta laugh at the manual work pics.
Looks like a woman only enviroment.
Possibly cause they're not gamers and wouldn't want to steal any cards.

RMA is top notch with Sapphire too.

My Sapphire X1950pro is still going strong and had no issues with any of the Cat drivers which some X1950pros were experiencing.

Only gripe about my X1950pro is the texute loading vs my old nVidia card in some games being slower and why did they decided to put two 4-pin molex connectors on this card instead of a PCI-E connector?

Anyway it's still the best card I've owned so far.

[ghost101]

No companies are actually that bad. I love it how after a single bad experience people just leave that company.

I remember trying to persuade someone that PNY arent actually rubbish. They pointed to 2 abd user comments. I then showed ebuyer which had 66 positive to 1 negative comment and they shut up.

Just go through newegg, can you find any gpu company that gets sonsitently bad reviews? Remember that people tend to bithc more than they praise a product.

[allen337]

Guess none of you have never had problems with them. Ive heard and read where their support forums are horrible, seen the mods there actually cuss people for having problems with their products. I have a sapphire 2900xt but its the last sapphire ill buy after reading what a bunch of assholes run their support. here ~~ http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....pphire+support . Just be glad you dont need warranty. ALLEN

[Paulieg]

I do know that certain Sapphire cards have had difficulty working correctly with certain monitors causing no display. There is a long forum post on this issue with specifically Sapphire cards, I'll try to find it

[quickie]

Originally Posted by allen337

Guess none of you have never had problems with them. Ive heard and read where their support forums are horrible, seen the mods there actually cuss people for having problems with their products. I have a sapphire 2900xt but its the last sapphire ill buy after reading what a bunch of assholes run their support. here ~~ http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....pphire+support . Just be glad you dont need warranty. ALLEN

Wow. After reading that, I am shocked by the complete lack of professionalism. Absolute absence of customer service, or for that matter, common curiosity.

They may not have a quality control issue in terms of hardware, but they sure do in terms of customer service.

With my last couple of computer purchases, I have kept the company’s customer service as a factor. This is something I’ll continue to keep in mind.

[Random Murderer]

this is the only time i have ever heard of bad customer service from sapphire. i read "the ladyhawk chronicles" before, but i have never heard anything else bad about sapphire's customer service. i will continue to be a sapphire customer.

[Widjaja]

allen1337
I forgot to metion this.
I've seen it too.
If you have a problem and point it out for everyone else as well as link to other forums about people with the same issue popping up, they say your'e lying and change what you say in your post so it makes you sound like a liar and an idiot.
I saw one poor guy get this treatment at thier forums until he apologised which hes shouldn't have.

I don't go to Sapphire forums for help anyway, I just come here.

P.S. I know there is a Sapphire forum member who is pretty close to the mods who trolls this forum.

Sapphire good for everything else except support.
If your card don't work don't ask why at Sapphire forums IMO.

[newconroer]

I don't see why people bash any GPU re-manufacturers, and for that matter, why they praise one.

All they do is tinker with some caps, maybe flash the card and give you a bundle. They're all the same...


If you want to talk about warranty or customer service, then that's different.

[das müffin mann]

my sapphire card is the best ive ever owned its been very good to me except their support but then again i havnt really encountered a company other than newegg that offers good customer service

[ghost101]

Originally Posted by Paulieg

I do know that certain Sapphire cards have had difficulty working correctly with certain monitors causing no display. There is a long forum post on this issue with specifically Sapphire cards, I'll try to find it

Its actually to do with some ati cards rather than sapphire in particular.

As for customer service being bad, thats another ball game. Ive previously read about the poor service provided by sapphire. In europe theers not even a proper online procedure. You have to email them for a form if they decide to reply to you. Powercolor and asus are also very poor in europe. Your best hope is to always go to the retailer.

[btarunr]

The best product from Sapphire ever: The X1950 Pro 512M based on a blue PCB and round Zalman cooler....sexy.



And their even better Phenom (AM2+) board based on a reference design patent shared between Sapphire and DFI

[woozers]

Currently I have a hf2600xt from sapphire, which gives me some trouble. Not because my card is bad (The card shouldn't be bad after 6 hours @ cod4, all options high, or it could be?), but I think it is incompatible with my mobo or my PSU is too weak. Sometimes my pc crashes with a BSOD (same code, all the time), when I switch resolutions, launch a game, quit from a game. But in-game everything is smooth. Meh, I'm too lazy to figure what is wrong.

[Scrizz]

sapphire cards have always treated me right.
maybe I just like blue (Sapphire and Gigabyte)