Jowata

You have to make up your own mind..........
           If it's a deal too good to pass up then it's a deal too good to pass up.......

Common sense would tell you that coming here is to find out if in fact my first impression of the situation was correct. Maybe someone else would show up and say that their support is horrible, or they don't honor their warranties, or (insert criticism)...

After reading your 1st post I googled Zotac Forums to see what people there
are saying and all links gave an error. 1st fail.
Found a Zotac link http://www.zotac.com/index.php

I'll stick with EVGA and these forums.
Not trying to dis Zotac, never had a card from them. None of my friends do either. Maybe someone here will chime in. I just feel more comfort making  a purchase from a Co. that has forums like these.

Well, I do have an EVGA 480. So, I would still get support on this site for that one. I just want some SLI 480 without paying 500 bucks for it. I payed 520ish for my first one and am not going to be paying it for the second. I would go without before paying up another 520. 

Now, I think I already know this, but EVGA and ZOTAC will SLI together right?

Well i had a 470 by Zotac, it was really good, a friend of mine had 4, 480's and everything works really great, by the way all his 480s are colder than my EVGA 480, (two of them has the same GPU Voltage).

Maybe its luck, i don't know, this weekend im going to change the TIM of my 480 to see if that was the difference between them.

Zotac has a good warranty,but not really good support, as an example, the Zotac tech support never understood my friend when he asked for a new bios for his 480, they told him that he doesn't needed to update the bios, the only bios you need to update frequently are the ones from the motherboards... FAIL 

both made excellent cards, but EVGA has better support, a better community, an excellent warranty.. so it's up to you! Good Luck!

I'm with Afterburner on this one... the only time I updated the BIOS of a GPU was when I was forcing an overclock into the graphics card BIOS.

Xtremed

Afterburner

Xtremed

Well i had a 470 by Zotac, it was really good, a friend of mine had 4, 480's and everything works really great, by the way all his 480s are colder than my EVGA 480, (two of them has the same GPU Voltage).

Maybe its luck, i don't know, this weekend im going to change the TIM of my 480 to see if that was the difference between them.

Zotac has a good warranty,but not really good support, as an example, the Zotac tech support never understood my friend when he asked for a new bios for his 480, they told him that he doesn't needed to update the bios, the only bios you need to update frequently are the ones from the motherboards... FAIL 

both made excellent cards, but EVGA has better support, a better community, an excellent warranty.. so it's up to you! Good Luck!

Would you be kind enough to help me understand under what normal circumstances a BIOS update for a GPU would be needed? You have me puzzled...

LOL.. yeah no problem 

I had a situation with my 480SC, it had a bad bios (the card artifacted by itself at stock, it was a gpu voltage problem, and the bios ended on 21.00.80 being an SC model), so.. right now i live in Venezuela, and before doing a RMA (something really difficult being here), i tried to flash the card and put a newer bios,and after that Problem Solved! (other guys here in the forums had the same situation by the way), thats a good example on how a bios update can solve a problem! 

Interesting, but couldn't you have just forced a different voltage into the bios of the card manually rather than having them give you a whole new one?

the answer is simple:

YOU WILL NEVER FIND CUSTOMER SERVICE AT ANY COMPANY LIKE EVGA'S.. PERIOD THE END..  THE CUSTOMER INTERACTION AT EVGA IS TOP NOTCH TEIR 1... IF YOU NEEDED TO TAKE YOUR ISSUE TO ANY EXECUTIVE STAFF MEMEBER THEY WOULD LISTEN.. FIND THAT SOMEWHERE ELSE I DARE YOU..

chrisdglong

FRY's has a too good to pass up deal on a Zotac 480. It is USD 439. They both have lifetime warranty, but does the Zotac have any strings attached, such as the "only as long as the card is still being made" like other companies?

They are both produced from the same manufacturer from what I have read, so that is not an issue. Anything else that I have not thought of? 

(I fee like quoting this one)

Mostly all of the 480GTXs are the same
So, it doesn't matter who you really get it from

If you can get lifetime for a cheap price go for it but just remember you are paying for what you get...lol

(Zotac AMP!, MSI Twin Frozr II, Sparkle's 480X Calibre are the only non-referenced cards, but only Sparkle has a lifetime for the non-reference GPU) (Air-cooling)



So it is technically preference and who and how they would give you the best support ;)

i wish evga would swap me a 480 for my old hd4870's.. i would be so happy to have a evga card on my ftw...

EVGA gives you the best forums and the best customer service if you should ever need to use them.

I dont understand, ive got 10 years warranty. on my 2x 480gtx H/C FTW.
no T shirt. No problem there.   squealer on one card. capacitor. Live with unsure ATM. HDMI forceing Games at 24hz. Driver?. Vga, on samsung 1080p. get funny line's while gameing. on black screens. Sometimes. Driver?
More testing for a couple of weeks. before make a post...

Great cards Tho. Great overclocker.880/2000. no added voltaage. And if i have a Problem, Evga looked after me On my 2x280.s
Overheating problem.
So that why, Im buying from EVGA.  Still.

I recommend going with the Zotac. Zotac, PNY, and BFG (BFG = 400 series victim) are extremely similar in the way they produce/modify there cards. All 3 get a rating of 8 out 10.


EVGA is lacking in the high-end GPU arena and the quality control arena! You can have the best customer support and support forums in the world, but when a customer has to RMA a product over and over and still ends-up with a half baked product, then it means nothing. This is why EVGA gets a rating of 5 out of 10!


Do not get me wrong, EVGA has some nice products. Such as motherboard (New MBs only, stay away from refurbished MBs/GPUs), but there GPUs are lack-luster at best. Awesome boards and will buy another one, based on my current experience with my current board, but will not touch any of there high-end GPUs.


MSI, is the best 400 series GPU on the market right now. Followed by PNY and Zotac. Unfortunately, BFG is currently out of the GPU game… My BFG experiences out pase any GPU manifacture x10...


EVGA RMA = complete fail.


Here is what I say!


Give me a quality manufactured product that just works the first time. A life time warranty means nothing. 3 year warranty at the max! Tech is changing at such a fast past and companies (corporations) come and go!

I bought a Zotac 480 from Fry's for the $439 deal, works great and runs very cool and quiet. No complaints!

jeffreylellis

fxdrake84

jeffreylellis


I recommend going with the Zotac. Zotac, PNY, and BFG (BFG = 400 series victim) are extremely similar in the way they produce/modify there cards. All 3 get a rating of 8 out 10.


EVGA is lacking in the high-end GPU arena and the quality control arena! You can have the best customer support and support forums in the world, but when a customer has to RMA a product over and over and still ends-up with a half baked product, then it means nothing. This is why EVGA gets a rating of 5 out of 10!

Where did you get those ratings or are they personal ratings from your experience?

They're 65% person rating from me (someone who builds and repair PCs) and 35% from reading/listening to peoples reviews/complaints. Look in the EVGA complaint department warranty/info/general/Etc section of the forum site. Over time I found EVGA to have the most negative post/complaints about RMA processes... Boards being replace with boards with bent bins, dirty, cracked/chip components, dirty, Etc... Defected cards being replaced by defective cards, over and over again. <<< All a result of poor quality control.
 

I think because they're helpful people continue to post issues on the forums. That's why you see a lot of issues over there.

Ever try posting on the MSI forums? They're TERRIBLE!!! Their mods seem drunk with power, and they will lock your thread if you post an issue that they think is a non-issue. And don't ever mention a modded bios, or they will lock the thread and potentially ban you...

I actually heard a mod tell someone that they don't have to help anyone because they're not paid to be mods...


But to be fair, the MSI forums are not actually run by MSI, like the EVGA ones are. That's why you have this Lord of the Flies type struggle over there.

Nahte27

jeffreylellis

fxdrake84

jeffreylellis


I recommend going with the Zotac. Zotac, PNY, and BFG (BFG = 400 series victim) are extremely similar in the way they produce/modify there cards. All 3 get a rating of 8 out 10.


EVGA is lacking in the high-end GPU arena and the quality control arena! You can have the best customer support and support forums in the world, but when a customer has to RMA a product over and over and still ends-up with a half baked product, then it means nothing. This is why EVGA gets a rating of 5 out of 10!

Where did you get those ratings or are they personal ratings from your experience?

They're 65% person rating from me (someone who builds and repair PCs) and 35% from reading/listening to peoples reviews/complaints. Look in the EVGA complaint department warranty/info/general/Etc section of the forum site. Over time I found EVGA to have the most negative post/complaints about RMA processes... Boards being replace with boards with bent bins, dirty, cracked/chip components, dirty, Etc... Defected cards being replaced by defective cards, over and over again. <<< All a result of poor quality control.

I think because they're helpful people continue to post issues on the forums. That's why you see a lot of issues over there.

Ever try posting on the MSI forums? They're TERRIBLE!!! Their mods seem drunk with power, and they will lock your thread if you post an issue that they think is a non-issue. And don't ever mention a modded bios, or they will lock the thread and potentially ban you...

I actually heard a mod tell someone that they don't have to help anyone because they're not paid to be mods...


But to be fair, the MSI forums are not actually run by MSI, like the EVGA ones are. That's why you have this Lord of the Flies type struggle over there.

MSI had forums?
Well ignoring the fact that they had forums they have really, really good tech support ;D
(Phone, tho I haven't tried internet)