I have a question!
For my 07 first gen Mac Pro, Eidorian tells me the best graphics card I can put in it is the ATI Radeon 3870.
I must be clueless about graphics cards, because I was unaware there could be multiple manufacturers of one ATI GPU.
NEWEGG LINK
I had just always figured the things came from ATI or Nvidia or whoever else, directly.
Is this right?
ATI did release their own GPUs under their own brand at one time, but both Nvidia and ATI have since the beginning worked like this:
They design the GPU and board and sell the card to add-in-board (AIB) manufacturers/companies. The intial batch of GPU's for these vendors are based on the reference design w/ reference cooler (what ATI and Nvidia design initially). The AIBs also add the flashy box, stickers, accessories, add-ons, rebates, and their warranties.
After a few months though, these AIB's add their own reference coolers, some re-design the cards, etc. In the end, the GPU's are all the same, you're just buying differently for the warranty, any added accessories, rebates, etc. It gives the consumer choice
Nvidia exclusive AIBs: EVGA, BFG
ATI exclusive AIBs: Sapphire, Diamond, Visiontek, Powercolor, HIS
Both: Palit, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, XFX
THeres moer out there, but those are the one's you'll see in america
