Anyone got an opinion on this?

I do. When I first built my current machine I used a Sapphire built Radeon 9500. Not exactly the same card, I know. But it's behavior is enough to make me state that I will never use another Sapphire card again. The effect is described easiest as being the wavy effect used for the "dream" scenes in Wayne's World and other films. I was able to reproduce it using multiple monitors, resolutions, and refresh rates.

I have nothing against ATI cards at all. But after that experience I decided against ever buying Sapphire again. I replaced it with a Gigabyte made GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, and have been very happy since.