Trying to decide between Nvidia or EVGA for your next GPU? You’re not alone- this is an extremely common comparison to make when shopping around.
When it comes to high-performance hardware, brand name means everything. Whether or not a system is a top-flight model or a budget model, as along as the consumer knows and trusts the brand the brand they buy, all is seemingly right in the world.
When it comes to graphics cards, Nvidia is undoubtedly a major heavyweight and they offer some of the best GPU tech money can buy.
While other brands like MSI and AMD have their own kinds of graphics cards to choose from EVGA is a more unique brand in that they aren’t exactly the creators of the product they are selling.
We’ll dive into the details to help you understand exactly what you’re getting when you buy an Nvidia product versus an EVGA product.
What is Nvidia?
Nvidia is an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware and based in Santa Clara California. They are the premier company when it comes to designing graphics processing units, commonly referred to as GPUs for gaming and professional uses.
If you have been looking for computer parts at any point in the past decade, you have almost certainly come across Nvidia. They are, simply put, the premier name in the industry for designing graphics processing units (commonly referred to as GPUs) for gaming and professional uses.
Though their footprint has continually grown, Nvidia has been around for 28 years. They actually were behind the graphics for the original Xbox, which had some seriously breakthrough technology behind it at the time.
Whether you are going for the best there is out there in flat-screen gaming or taking a leap into the newer world of VR, an Nvidia card is always a rock-solid choice in the right system.
Here’s a quick look inside Nvidia HQ. As you can see, there’s a lot going on within the company:
So, what makes Nvidia such a powerhouse? Why is there product an elite in the sea of other companies who try and perform the same services to lesser fanfare?
To start, it is because Nvidia graphics cards use something called deep learning. Deep learning is a version of machine of learning algorithms that use multiple layers to extract high level features from the raw input of the data.
An example of deep learning in the graphics world is image processing.
In image processing, lower layers possibly will identify edges while higher layers identify the concepts that our eyes can pick up such as numbers, letters or facing. If the technological jargon has lost you, this basically means that Nvidia uses accelerated analytics to allow programmers to utilize the higher number of cores that are present in graphics cards to parallelize the programs.
Through this parallelization, the training speed of machine learning algorithms can be greatly increased.
Long story short: All you really need to know is that the Nvidia’s GPU tech is considered to be just about as good as it gets.
What is EVGA?
EVGA is best viewed as the middle man between Nvidia and you. EVGA is one of Nvidia’s top authorized partners for sales throughout North America. What this means is that EVGA takes the products that Nvidia creates and then essentially rebrands them as there own to sell.
This may sound like it might be ripping them off, but that is definitely not the case here. Nvidia actually gives EVGA permission to sell its products to various partners in order to extradite sales. So, while EVGA doesn’t exactly create the stuff it is selling, the product is top quality.
Whether you’re buying direct Nvidia-branded product or an EVGA product, you’re getting a solid product.
Nvidia vs EVGA: Performance
If all specs are equal, there is no obvious difference between Nvidia and EVGA performance. For example, you are essentially buying the same product whether you get an RTX series graphics card from Nvidia or if you get an RTX series graphics card from EVGA. The performance will be identical and the only difference here is the stamp on the card.
If you like the look of the Nvidia cards, get that. If you like the stamp of EVGA, get that one. It is the same thing through-and-through.
The only possible difference to be aware of is that Nvidia will sometimes release newer models earlier than EVGA. But, this is in the eye of the beholder. For example, if you search across the reviews online, many users will claim that Nvidia products are superior to EVGA models and although they are identical in build, they somehow stand by these opinions.
Maybe it is placebo effect at work here? It is hard to say, but the sentiment remains strong.
Nvidia vs EVGA: Customer Service
While much of what we’ve covered so far has pointed toward Nvidia and EVGA being neck-and-neck, we do believe that there is a clear winner in regard to customer service.
Customer service is incredibly important when dealing with graphics cards. This is because you can easily mess things up by breaking the card, overclocking it too hard and other kinds of hazards that can overtake your precious GPU.
EVGA Customer Service
With EVGA, you get an option to select from a variety of different warranties that will keep you feeling safe as you bump the clock speed up to the highest possible capabilities. In addition to this, you EVGA’s step up and with this, you get 90 days of complete freedom to use the product as you wish regardless.
If you are wondering how they are with on-the-fly problems, then have no fear as EVGA has 24/7 tech support where you can talk to live agents to help you with your issues the moment that you have them.
The EVGA community is also excellent. The forums can give you some great insight into the problem you are having and, regardless of the problems, you should be able to find solutions in this nearly endless thread of discussions.
EVGA is also known to have constant promotions, social media contests and gaming tournaments as well. If you join one of these tournaments without an EVGA product, you might just win one in the proceedings.
Nvidia Customer Service
They obviously do offer customer support and warranties as well, but they are not nearly as flexible as the ones that EVGA offer. There is simply no flexibility here and the Nvidia warranty applies for one year from the date of purchase and that is it.
While this is decent, it is not nearly as flexible as EVGA’s, so there is a point against Nvidia here. It is not just the lack of flexibility though as Nvidia has had a rep of failing to live up to its warranty promises in the past.
If you scour the web, you will see quite a few complaints from customers claiming that Nvidia reps have been known to try to find loopholes in order to corner consumers and void warranties.
Worse than this, Nvidia support is very difficult to attain with without a purchase receipt. So, depending on where you go to buy your product, this might be a problem. Some stores don’t keep receipts past a certain amount of time, so if you happened to buy something in-person, you might be out of luck.
Hands down, we really like EVGA in terms of customer care. While Nvidia is as popular as it gets and has outstanding products, they seem to sacrifice a bit in this area.
Nvidia vs EVGA: Pricing
EVGA cards are actually a bit more expensive in comparison to Nvidia cards and other competitors. Considering they are both born of the same cloth, the prices of the semi-competitive partners is pretty surprising.
This seems a bit strange at first right? Because Nvidia is the actual creator, so shouldn’t there prices be a bit higher to reflect that? Well, when you consider the lack of focus on customer service and warranty policies, the puzzle becomes a bit clearer.
When buying the same graphics card from EVGA, you are simply going to pay more for better customer experience.
So essentially, if you never tinker with your graphics cards and just install them and let it lie, then Nvidia would be the cheaper and more logical option.
For all of the overclockers out there, you need to have a good warranty and great customer service support to go along with your experimenting and boosting. You are paying more to protect yourself from yourself in this case.
Nvidia vs EVGA: Reliability
This is a tough question, because, again, the cards are essentially identical in terms of their builds and capabilities. One thing to consider is that the original manufacturer is always Nvidia here, so if you are worried that things could get messed up in the product transfer for EVGA to put their mark on it, then you would be forgiven in thinking that Nvidia is the best option available.
But, when you are thinking about reliability, you are going to want a card that is built to last and is supported by plenty of people ready to help you when the issues arrive. This is where we’d again trust EVGA over Nvidia.
When searching through listings of both EVGAs and Nvidia products, you might see differently named items that have similar specs. So, you might be wondering are these any different just because of the stamp on them?
Well, it’s complicated. While the technical aspects are almost identical, many have reported there were advantages in the Nvidia models compared to EVGA ones and that is likely because there were some kinds of alterations made through EVGA to amp up the price.
There is no true way to know the real difference between the two except to try them out for yourself or consult trustworthy benchmarks.
The products are all technically shared because Nvidia gives its products to EVGA to sell, so of course there will be some overlap here.
But are any of EVGA’s products original? The answer is yes. They are technically all original products, due to the fact that they are renamed and possibly tinkered with a bit behind closed doors. Still though, any differences are generally going to be in name and appearance only.
Confusing, right?
You might look at the price differences and think there might be some real differences, but this is almost never anything more than a smoke screen.
Other Nvidia Competitors
As much ribbing as Nvidia has received here, it remains a fact that this is the top of the line graphics card regardless of their questionable customer service. When looking at their real competitors, you are going to see names like Intel and AMD.
AMD and the Radeon series can put out some seriously impressive cards, making the war between AMD and Nvidia as tight as it’s ever been.
Nvidia used to stand alone on the mountain top while other cards tried and tried to get on the same level, nothing ever really compared to their GTX and RTX series cards. That has changed now as AMD can put together some equally impressive cards for much less cost and this is started to win them quite the following.
AMD is just one piece of the competition though, as Intel is also a huge name in the market. Intel graphics cards are generally not anywhere close to the same level of high-end performance though. They generally spend more energy pushing integrated graphics cards and, while some can be decent (like the Iris series), the majority of them pale in comparison to the powerhouse graphics cards that Nvidia or EVGA puts out yearly.
Final Recommendations
Nvidia vs. EVGA is pretty much like asking would you prefer Heinz or ketchup? Nvidia is basically the factory where the EVGA cards are produced.
Despite the many similarities, there are still important factors to consider when choosing between the two of them.
We always urge consumers to think heavily on customer service. As detailed above, we heavily lean toward the EVGA side of the aisle there. You should not think twice to go with a EVGA graphics cards if you share our belief in well-supported products.
If money is your sole determinant, EVGA products will often cost you a bit more than an equivalent Nvidia product. There’s zero shame in Nvidia though. We’ve run their products in plenty of rigs and have rarely had anything but positive experiences.
It is definitely worth noting that with all of Geforce’s best cards comes the amazing and unparalleled GeForce Experience. This program will allow you to easily optimize those ultra-powered graphics cards of yours to make sure you always have the correct driver booted up. In addition to this, any new game that you download can be customized there immediately and the application itself will tell you what the ideal settings are for your particular GPU. This allows for easy editing while making sure you are not going too far beyond your parameters.
