Ok to get "Powered by ATI" cards?

[fuzzywuzzy]

I'm looking to get an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB board that's OEM....

Are there any ATI Radeon cards that I should stay away from that are built by third parties??

Brands that are available at the local stores are Pandex/Pandax(?) and Sapphire....

Is it advisable to stick with Built By ATI boards?? Do they make OEM boards???

From the reviews and stuff, I can't find ANYTHING (not even a website) for that Pandax crap, but do see reviews for Sapphire ones...

[-N-]

built-by-ATI you have assurance you're buying good quailty stuff... since you're buying a product from the company that makes the chip.

3rd party companies, like Sapphire, sometimes lower the frequency and raise the latency on the memory chips. gr~:mad:
If Sapphire only kept the identical ATI and just renamed it and lowered the price like it is, that would be grand. :p

[Evnas]

In the past, 3rd party companies for ATi made some really ****ty cards...but lately, they have been pretty top notch. However, i prefer to buy BBA anyways (Built By ATi) because, as was said, they designed the VPU, and they usually have the best design (though if u look at the cards, they are all virtually identical, unlike with nVidia, they vary quite a bit)