Not all brands are available. Would u guys simply choose any brand that's available or would u select a particular brand?
Their all the same other than a different sticker and warranty or whatever, take what you can find in stock.
well the sapphire one i just randomly bought comes at slightly higher clocks. but 10mhz higher isnt something youd pay extra for. good thing sapphire mark the price as cheaper. i believe the rrp for the his 5970 is cheaper, and they bundle in a few more extras. for those of you in australia, www.pccasegear.com have stock for the sapphire 5970, but for how long i do not know. rumour has it that they do international shipping, but given the current au to us dollar conversion, you'll be forking out the equivalent of 999US. better to wait for your own country to get it. they had stock for the gigabyte 5970 two days ago, and it lasted for a total of three hours.
Take what you can get I would have preferred Sapphire, but I went with Diamond this time around since the local store had one in stock for a discounted price ( open box ).
I have a grudge against PowerColour and Sapphire (Sapphire had the exact same cooler). It was just a poorly designed cooler, but just felt lazily poor in a way.
well if you look carefully, ati only just allowed their partners to utilise their own designs. so everyone now has the same cooler, at least until sapphire improve their vapor-x design for dual gpu, or his readapts their iceq. the 5970 cooler is rather poorly designed from ati. if my research is correct, 6 of the card's vrm units are mounted directly underneath the fan, and the fan happens to be a paddleboat sideblower and not a downblower... so deadspot much? apparently people have reported the vrm units directly underneath the fan hit 110 degrees C.
It seems that only sapphires are available on the market. powercolor nope. I got myself a power color 4870. It's quiet okay but it's one of the cheaper brands and i feel like it's cheaper. okay disregard what i wrote. top of the line 5000 cards are still pretty rare.
Oh yes i bought from diamond before my 4870 x2 is from diamond. I even wrote in to diamond asking them a question for a few times. no reply they just simply closed my case with not even a reply. Nope not going to get diamond.
Currently, none of them as they all use that god-awful leafblower fan in the cooler. I'd buy Sapphire if and when they put their VaporX cooler and fan on it, which is both cooler and quieter.
if you have cash to burn and need 1 right now get what you can(go buy best warrenty in your local) BUT if you have been saving every dime for like 3yrs WAIT!!!! they got bugs out the ass...i mean the cards like two weeks old and they had to release a new bios for it not to mention the beta only drivers. this way if you wait you get newer(not saying better) drivers/bios and maybe better prices