Which 4090? FE or PNY or Gigabyte

dpoverlord

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With EVGA gone I am trying to figure which one is better with a warranty / long term. I went through 3 3090 ftw3 so am a bit jaded when it comes to having a good warranty / cross ship.

I picked up a 4080 founders and my 2 friends got a Gigabyte / PNY. They seem to all want my founders edition and I was wondering if they know something I don't.

Love to get some input as someone told me the founders edition has a higher quality 'components' but I can't fact check that anywhere.

Thanks guys!
 
As I understand it the "Founders Edition" is a card sold by nVidia and is a reference design. As far as "better components" I've not seen proof of that statement.

I've had Gigabyte and PNY cards over the years with great satisfaction.

Take a guess.... make a purchase.
 
Its easier find gpu water block for Nvidia Ref RTX 4080 then non ref rtx 4080
 
FE is the best built for the best price. However with this generation, they all seem to be pretty good.
 
I would go with Gigabyte not because of warranty but because they offer 2 HDMI 2.1 ports on their their cards in many cases.
 
I would go with Gigabyte not because of warranty but because they offer 2 HDMI 2.1 ports on their their cards in many cases.
The GB 4090 Gaming OC that I own has only one HDMI 2.1 port.
 
If you don't want to keep the FE I would go with the Gigabyte card. PNY seems to be fine, but I don't have a lot of experience with them personally.
 
After years of using EVGA, I went back to my roots and got the PNY 4090. Build quality is really good and has performed really nice so far. I used PNY cards back in the late 90's and early 2000's and had one issue with my old 4800ti which was replaced within a week. I don't know how their support is right now but they are based in NJ.
 
The GB 4090 Gaming OC that I own has only one HDMI 2.1 port.
Yep, I was wrong. On Amper GPUs Gigabyte was more generous. My 3080 TI Eagle has two HDMI 2.1 ports and 3 DP 1.4s. Looks like you only get one high speed video port, HDMI 2.1 with any of the 4090s.
 
When you look at things like

Cooling
Acoustics
Quality of materials/fit and finish
Component selection
Overall dimension
Price

FE has the best combination of all those. Problem is it has among the worst availability.
 
When you look at things like

Cooling
Acoustics
Quality of materials/fit and finish
Component selection
Overall dimension
Price

FE has the best combination of all those. Problem is it has among the worst availability.
Totally!

Wish they were more easily accessible!
 
Which company do you guys think would be best for a rma?
I'm guessing PNY since they are based in the US. Their cards are very solid, albeit don't have a lot of fancy branding and are usually not far off FE performance. I had a 2080 and 3090 XLR8s and they were excellent. PNY have focused mostly on professional cards in the past.

I've never dealt with Gigabyte graphics cards RMA, but service for a recent motherboard I had was not good, took two weeks to get a replacement.
 
I'm guessing PNY since they are based in the US. Their cards are very solid, albeit don't have a lot of fancy branding and are usually not far off FE performance. I had a 2080 and 3090 XLR8s and they were excellent. PNY have focused mostly on professional cards in the past.

I've never dealt with Gigabyte graphics cards RMA, but service for a recent motherboard I had was not good, took two weeks to get a replacement.
That's pretty much the norm from most manufacturers except EVGA.
 
As I understand it the "Founders Edition" is a card sold by nVidia and is a reference design. As far as "better components" I've not seen proof of that statement.
The Founder's Editions cards of the 30-series and 40-series are NOT the same as the reference cards. It is basically a custom PCB design to work with their FE coolers. The actual reference boards for say a 3080 or a 4090 are more like traditional boards. See this example:

3080 Founder's Edition
3080 Reference
 
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