Best GPU brand of Sapphire, XFX, HIS, Gigabyte, Powercolor

[Blackdog_kt]

I have no real experience with any, but most of what you mention are brands that have a good name for quality.

You could also try MSI which is what i have and i can definitely recommend from experience. I had a 4870 1GB but it was faulty right from the start (turned out it was damaged during shipping) and died on me, so i replaced it for free with a 4890 1GB thanks to their 3 year warranty policy.

Apart from that, they generally use "tougher" electronics and sport bigger heat-pipes at very similar prices to the rest. Finally, many of their high-end DX11 GPUs that are on the market currently (both nVidia and Ati based) have a twin frozr II cooler. That has two cooling fans so it helps a lot with maintaining low temperatures without too much noise, whereas a single fan GPU would have to run it at higher RPM and generate more noise.

I guess you can't go wrong with any of them, some will be clocked a tad faster, others will sport a slightly lower power consumption, better cooling or less noise, some will have an extra year of warranty and prices usually tend to be very similar for most of them, so it's all about which characteristic you value most.