Reference is reference right?

[demonking]

i'm just wondering i was looking on my favorite component site (scan) and noticed that the ASUS reference card is £40 more expensive than the Palit and the PNY cards at reference speeds any clues as to why?

money hungry companies?

variation in production cost's? (although i woulda said that ASUS was the biggest producer)

just wondering as i woulda thought reference is a brand standard and you aren't going to get any more for you money right? cept maybe a nicer black box and maybe a colour manual with some adverts lol

 

[AndyMosh]

The only difference you want to look at when buying reference cards is how good their warranty is. Apart from that and the sticker on the side they're all the same.

 

[Stryker64]

Well there can be a slight variance with components. While the reference design says you need particular capacitance on a certain capacitor, the manufacturer of the capacitor is different and this ties into the reputation of certain brands such as EVGA or MSI that tend to user higher end (premium) components instead of just sourcing it from the lowest bidder, which certain cheaper brands do.

Some people say Nvidia favours EVGA so they always get the higher binned GPUs, but this is only a rumour. But certain companies seem to get better GPUs than others.

Personally I wouldn't get ASUS, but I have a history or terrible luck with ASUS products, such as losing on the silicon lottery to dead PCIe slots and even a DOA. But I am the minority and chances are you won't have a problem, but I'm a magnet for bad luck when it comes to ASUS.