this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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You must be mistaken because reference cards are specifically those made by GPU manufacturers, aka AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.
They're called that because third-party manufacturers (Gigabyte, Asus, XFX, etc) use those as a reference to create their own designs of PCB, coolers, and settings.
Can you give links to the cards you're speaking about?
I agree the reference design is called that because the other manufacturers base their designs on it, but these cards are using exactly that design - without any changes.
Sapphire
MSI
Gigabyte
AMD
Ah, I see. Yes, you're right, they do manufacture reference design cards. First time dealing with reference models, since those aren't sold where I live, hence the confusion, haha
Those will all be the same in terms of temperature and clock speeds. Build quality should only vary insignificantly, although I do not trust Gigabyte, due to 3000 series PCB issues and how they handled it, and ASUS due to their borderline scam customer support.
You won't be getting any warranty buying used, I don't think. So, imo, just get the cheapest one. You should concern yourself more with the seller, and do make sure to thoroughly check everything after buying. Both physically and performance-wise.
You're probably right, I should maybe just buy a cheap one. I wondered if maybe some of them are known to use better components or have less coil whine but I don't think anyone has checked this yet 😅