What is a reference card?

[Poundcake767]

Like what is it exactly and what cards do you get that are reference cards.

[ZetZet]

Reference card is one that the chip manufacturer designs as a reference for graphics card makers.

[Poundcake767]

What do you mean?

[Najuno]

Reference design means that the PCB and the cooling design of the graphics card are exactly manufactured after the original design specifications of the GPU manufacturer. That means the board partners like Asus, EVGA, XFX, Gigabyte and so on will manufacture their graphics cards exactly the way nVidia or AMD came up with them from the launch of the GPU.

 

In AMD's case with the R9 290(X) series this was not exactly good because their stock cooler was crap. Now the nVidia stock cooler is really good and looks awesome. Reference design has a demand on the market because of CFing SLIing GPUs or to have a compatible design for water cooling later i.e.

[minibois]

What do you mean?

Nvidia or AMD make the video chips and a 'reference design'. Other manufactures can take this design as a reference, when they put their own coolers on it.

[Poundcake767]

Oh

[Poundcake767]

Are reference cards good?

[Najuno]

Are reference cards good?

The nVidia reference cards are good cards because their cooler is good. Also they use good VRAM and a good memory controller.

AMD lacked that a bit that's why their reference design was only an option if one wanted to go for water cooling. The chip of the Hawaii GPUs was fine. But thr board partners did a fine job on the R9 290 series.

I have reference designs and I can OC my samples further than most people can push their afertmarket designs. And I use a 3way SLI so it is better for me using reference cards.

 

It always depends on the situation what people want, the overall airflow and size of the case and so on.

[typographie]

Are reference cards good?

 

For the average user, it's advisable to get a card with a third-party cooler designed by Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, etc. Nvidia and AMD reference coolers typically aren't very good, although Nvidia's have improved. AMD's reference designs for their Hawaii-based cards (R9 290 and 290X) got a lot of criticism at launch for running terribly hot causing severe thermal throttling, though they're usually fine with a good third-party air cooler.

 

If you intend to use liquid cooling, you will often need reference cards as GPU water blocks are often designed to fit reference PCBs.

[Poundcake767]

Oh thanks