Dear all,
So this is something that confuses me. If I were planning on installing a water block on my GPU, does it make any difference if I went with one manufacturer over the other, in terms of the scillicon lottery and whatnot, or should I just go for the reference design with the manufacturer I feel most comfortable with in terms of quality and warranty?
I don't really need the bells and whistles if I'm getting a water block (glaring at the ASUS card 7970) as I'm going to get my overclocking done through software and I'd rather save on the card by getting the reference.
From what I've read online, MSI Power Edition cards seem to be some of the best overclocking cards out there at the moment. This is due to the fact that you can overvolt the GPU. I don't know of any other manufacturer that let's you do that.
Msi is the best. All nvidia cards are the sane now. Just make sure you can get a water block if you go away from refrence
Well, if I were to overvolt, where can I find the maximum voltage that the manufacutrer would recommend? With CPUs, for example, I can look at the documentation and find that, in the 990X case for example, the maximum voltage the chip is rated for is 1.4V, for a GPU I don't seem to be able to find that info (maybe because AMD/NVIDIA don't take it as the norm that people can overvolt things)
EVGA and MSI probably make the best non-reference cards right now. The only problem with non-reference cards is that waterblocks are either very rare or non-existent, which is quite a shame because non-reference cards usually have a more robust power design which allows for better overclocking. If you can find a waterblock for a Lightning or Classified card, then definitely go with one of those. If not then just get any reference card, because the reference cards are all the same no matter which manufacturer it is.