MSI vs EVGA for GTX 580 & Other Cards + Some Ramblings Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,196 words · ~5 min read
0:00
I get any number of inquiries about uh which brand of video card should I
0:04
choose I want to get a a GTX 580 or I
0:08
want to get a Ron 5770 what whatever
0:12
whatever card you're looking at and you want to know which brand to choose so uh
0:16
for the launch of the GTX 580 I happen to have the luxury of having two cards
0:21
to compare so I have one from EVGA so
0:24
this is an EVGA reference GTX 580 so you
0:27
can see it uses the same cooler
0:30
as the MSI GTX 580 it also uses the same
0:35
PCB layout as the GTX 580 and um I have
0:39
a lot of people asking me like should I pick based on overclocking results and
0:43
reviews or should I pick based on
0:46
um you know the uh the overall quality
0:50
of the product well I can tell you one thing right now these are both reference
0:53
design products especially when you buy a high-end GPU at launch they are quite
0:58
literally exactly the same thing there is no quality difference between an MSI
1:03
GTX 580 and an EVGA GTX 580 none
1:07
whatsoever so put that out of your mind so some of the ways that you can
1:12
differentiate is in terms of the other
1:16
ways that the brands differentiate each other from each other
1:20
that's awkward anyway so MSI has a three-year warranty and EVGA has a
1:25
lifetime warranty if you register so there's uh one tick boox for EVGA uh
1:30
MSI's card actually comes with a slightly better accessory package
1:34
although I do mean slightly it comes with a long HDMI cable about a 6t cable
1:39
versus the EVGA 1 comes with one that's about this long so that's a mini HDMI to
1:44
HDMI cable and the MSI 1 also comes with my preferred type of six pin to eight
1:48
pin so it just has a single six pin on the one side that goes to a single eight
1:52
pin on the other side whereas EVGA uses one of those dual six pin to 8 Pin
1:57
adapters that I'm not all that fond of
2:00
now in terms of connectivity overclocking results etc etc it's all
2:05
luck of the draw except remember these two are just reference products both of
2:09
these manufacturers will release all kinds of different non-referenced
2:13
products so EVGA for example on the GTX
2:17
460 has their external exhaust version
2:20
they've got any number of overclocked skews so that is they have GTX 460s that
2:26
are overclocked out of the box now you do pay a slight premium for them but
2:29
that means that you're getting a higher speed bin and if you don't know what a
2:33
speed bin is go ahead and check out my NCI Tech tips episode on the process of
2:38
binning and that'll explain what that means but you're basically getting like
2:42
a higher a higher graded chip okay
2:45
because it passed at a higher speed you're getting
2:49
um yeah well basically that's it when you buy a factory overclock card that's
2:53
what you get and MSI also does some pretty unique Solutions as well so you
2:56
can see here I've actually got some MSI
2:59
GTX 460 Hawk edition cards so these guys have triple overvoltage so that means
3:04
you can overvolt the GPU the RAM as well
3:07
as the uh GPU PLL voltage so you can get some great overclocks it's actually got
3:12
a uh a switch on the back where is it right there where you can even change
3:17
the voltages so that you can go even higher and get real crazy uh aftermarket
3:22
cooler so uh oh yeah EVGA like I said they have their external exhaust coolers
3:26
versus the reference one MSI's got the twin frozer too they've got the Cyclone
3:31
all kinds of unique stuff that these particular vendors are doing now they
3:35
also have some software differences although they aren't really differences
3:38
evga's got their Precision Tool which is for overclocking and tweaking all that
3:43
good stuff monitoring your temperatures fan speeds and MSI has afterburner which
3:48
is a fairly similar uh utility now bear in mind that both EVGA and MSI have
3:55
graciously allowed uh all other board
3:58
Partners to use their particular software so you can actually buy any
4:02
card and use MSI After Burner and the same goes for EVGA Precision which is
4:07
pretty cool of both of them to do that uh EVGA also has their 247 tech support
4:14
as well as their uh where is the uh the
4:18
terms and conditions for that one I believe they still do offer a tradein
4:22
program if something newer and faster comes out so that you can uh you can
4:26
trade in your old card got some little bragging on on the side of their box
4:30
here which is uh definitely some interesting
4:34
stuff there you go evga's number one and
4:39
then what do we have on the MSI box not
4:42
a whole lot there just I mean these are
4:46
reference cards so it becomes very difficult to differentiate so like I
4:49
said I've brought up a bunch of different things that both of these brands do to separate their products
4:53
from the other NVIDIA partners for these particular cards it's going to come down
4:58
to uh what kind of price how much of a value you put on the uh the value ads
5:03
that each of these board Partners have attached to their GTX 580 and your
5:07
personal preference because really nobody can tell you what experience
5:12
you've had in the past with MSI or what experience you've had in the past with
5:16
EVGA I mean there's all kinds of different factors like you could go oh I
5:19
got an MSI Motherboard and it's great so I want to buy an MSI product great good
5:23
for you but that's no reason why you can't use an EVGA card on an MSI
5:27
Motherboard and similarly if you have AMD chipset there's no reason you can't
5:31
use an NVIDIA card and the other way around you got EVGA board you want to
5:34
throw a Missi card in it no problem so
5:37
there you go there is my little guide on EVGA versus MSI as far as being NVIDIA
5:42
board Partners
5:47
go oh yeah I should have probably mentioned my my one of my personal
5:50
favorite ways to pick uh video cards is based on the aesthetic of it you know
5:56
whether you like the EVGA sticker or you like the uh the MS size sticker better
6:00
can actually make a difference to people and you can even run into differences a
6:04
little bit later when we're not all using reference cards uh where you know
6:08
some will have a green PCB some will have a black PCB so uh so yeah and yeah
6:13
like I said it's a goofy thing but that that is actually something that factors
6:17
in for me personally