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Where are the Gainward, Inno3D and Galax vendors in USA?

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Voodoo Rufus

Powder Junkie Moderator
Joined
Sep 20, 2001
Location
Bakersfield, CA
These three vendors have GPU parts that I wouldn't mind trying out, but they seem difficult to impossible to obtain in the US. What gives?
 
If you go to their websites, it shows they are all Nvidia only. ;)




To answer the OP - I haven't seen their stuff being sold in the US for years.

At Gainward's site, there's a Where to buy section and the US isn't one of them. Inn03D also has a WhereTB page, but the US isn't listed either. Perhaps one of the places they list ships to the US? Otherwise, ebay, etc. AFAIK.
 
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Yeah, that's what it seems to be. If you want one, you have to import it, and there's a premium there. No thanks.

Some of these board makers sell under different names depending on the country, too. I think Palit and Gainward are part of the same company, for example.
 
Palit have the following sub-brands (according to Wikipedia), remember, different markets = different brand names, seen most of them often on the European/Asian market.

Gainward
Daytona
Galaxy (GALAX)
Vivkoo
Yuan
KFA2 - fairly well known in Australia
XpertVision

Inno3D is mostly European/Asian market as far as I remember. PNY are certified board partners and make the Quadro cards.
 
Palit have the following sub-brands (according to Wikipedia), remember, different markets = different brand names, seen most of them often on the European/Asian market.

Gainward
Daytona
Galaxy (GALAX)
Vivkoo
Yuan
KFA2 - fairly well known in Australia
XpertVision

Inno3D is mostly European/Asian market as far as I remember. PNY are certified board partners and make the Quadro cards.
PNY & Galaxy are the only 2 I have heard of.
 
Galaxy/Galax = KFA2; Galaxy/Galax is a brand for NA, and KFA2 is the same stuff for other continents. They have mixed-quality cards. Some are great, and some just look good. I had a GTX1080 HoF with so noisy coils that I couldn't stand it, and I sold it. I literally heard it whining in the next room.
It's not a bad option if you have a good warranty, as you never know what you'll get.

Gainward = Palit = PNY. They are focused on Asia and the EU and nothing else. Gainward was worldwide and high-end stuff 20 years ago, while Palit was EU/Asia and fully budget series, but I don't remember how it happened that all brands went under one owner, and now every brand is budget series is I can call it that. I mean, coolers are clearly worse quality than those of ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI. Not to mention that they have no good OC series and no good custom PCB for years, and every card has warranty stickers that void the warranty if touched. A perfect example is the Palit OC series with a warranty sticker on the OC switch (higher power/power limits or something) - if you want to OC, then you lose the warranty.
If I'm right then XpertVision is also a brand of the same manufacturer and focused on the EU.
As long as they're "not bad", then if you pay so much for a graphics card then better get something from ASUS, Gigabyte or MSI.

Inno3D was popular long years ago, but it's on the same shelf as Palit, Gainward and PNY. It's just a budget series with a standard or just weird design. Buy if the price is really low and you are sure about the warranty, but I would avoid.

Daytona, Yuan, Vikoo, and some other brands are just cheap Chinese brands. Hard to get any of them out of Asia as they're designed for their local market.

Colorful has some really nice cards, and I have reviewed many of their products. Generally, the quality is pretty good. They only lack in software, are hard to get out of Asia, and good luck with warranty as I guess it's only via the store.

PowerColor is the most popular brand of TUL. TUL had 9 brands at some point, but I don't remember all of them. There were brands like Vertex3D, Sparkle, Diamond, Club3D and some more. Most of them do not exist anymore. Only PowerColor is worth mentioning, as they make pretty good cards nowadays. I would say it's on the same shelf as Galax/KFA2. Some of their cards are great; some have weird design flaws. Multiple cards had problems with coolers. I had two Hellhound series cards from them with cooler issues. I still have RX6800XT Red Devil, which works great. It's one of the brands that convinced top water cooling brands to manufacture blocks for them and have separate options. Brands like EK don't really manufacture blocks for anyone other than ASUS and some popular series from 2-3 other brands.

Sapphire is probably the highest-quality AMD brand, and it has kept releasing good products for years.

Biostar has a budget and, tbh., pretty average cards only. I wouldn't buy any graphics cards from them, but if they wish to send one for review, then why not?

ASRock has pretty good-quality graphics cards. Although I dislike the design of some of their series, the cards are pretty solid, no matter which one you take.

Acer/Predator has some nice cards, but they are just starting, and it's hard to recommend the Intel series right now. Maybe the next generation; we will see.

In short, if you care about good quality products and count on warranty, you don't want to touch all those weird brands. Some on the list have good quality products, but most are like asking for trouble.
If you want Nvidia cards, then I recommend sticking with ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI, and maybe Galax/KFA2 if you get one of their special OC series. If you want AMD, then it's also ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI, but I would probably put ASUS and Sapphire at the top of the list and then add PowerColor before Gigabyte or MSI.
No matter what people say about ASUS, it's still the best brand around, but some of their products are overpriced.
 
Woomack and Kenrou just gave the forum a proper education. Thanks guys!

I got a new MSI toy coming now. Doesn't seem worth it to hunt down a brand not marketed at all in the US from the descriptions above.
 
I'm waiting for the new AMD, and I hope they give us something efficient. I can't stand all those 300W cards that perform like 170W Nvidia. We will probably see them in the upcoming months and before the Nvidia 5k series. Leaks suggest it can be something good. Now, I only count it will be good and won't be delayed until next year.
 
Speaking of Powercolor (y)

"PowerColor's new tech uses the NPU to reduce gaming power usage — vendor-provided benchmarks show up to 22.4% lower power consumption" - "In the vendor's demonstration, Cyberpunk 2077's power consumption decreased from 263.2W to 205.3W, representing a 22% power savings. It's noticeably better than AMD's power-saving mode, which came in at 18.5%."

 
For AMD it's a huge difference. For mid-shelf Nvidia, not so much, but of course, it's still good news.
 
Oof. I had a Gainward "Power Sample" but when I needed support, they pulled out of the US instead. Left me high and dry. Nuts to them. :( They get great reviews in Europe.
 
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