Team [SAO]

Gah, after nearly 3 years my ATI 4870x2 has finally died a death :/

I bought this card brand new on the day they where released and in hindsight was quite possibly the worse graphics card I have ever owned. In 2008 I built a brand new gaming rig and having more money than sence decided to splash out on what was the worlds most powerfull card (well for a month or so).

Firstly this card crippled a top-end power supply as under load which I had to replace. So with a new, more powerful psu, the card would crank out top fps in all the latest title. Minus the fact ALOT of games didnt like the built in crossfire and so the second gpu was disabled and IF it did work the microshuttering was terrible :/

Then for what ever reason the card was designed to not kick in the fan until it reached 120+ degrees, so after a few months of not realising this defect. The heat killed the card, lucky for me it was under warrently and got a new one. To save it from this fate again I bought a top of the line cooler which seemed to solve the problem.

All was fine for a while until in game I would get random fps drops for no reason. So after some investigation I discovered that the motherboard I had a defective IOH heatsink causing the IOH to overheat (FYI the IOH is the chipset used for I/O after most of the northbridge was moved on die in the core series cpus). As the IOH heated up it throttled I/O thoughtput mainly PCI-E bandwidth causing the graphics card to slow down.

Tried as I might to keep the IOH cool, it eventually killed my motherboard the week before christmas this year. So a new motherboard later im back up and gaming, that is until last night.
Last week when playing Left 4 Dead 2 I got a random BSOD, from what I caught it was the ATI driver but that could be anything? Bad driver a big possiblility but alas it was not.

Thats when I noticed that my graphics card was stuck at 37 degrees, no matter what load I placed on it or how high I set the fan 37 degrees. So just in case this was the temp sensor being stuck I jammed the fan to 100% and got on my merry way. Last night I BSOD twice in game and then the third time the card refused to boot ;(

Took the card out and cleaned it, took the top of the cooler to have a good look and im not suprised the poor thing died. There was very little clearance from the IOH to the backplate on the card and you could actually see where it scorched the card, burnt some of the board and some of the tracks looked slightly melted.

So im not sure if a faulty IOH took out my graphics card or if a faulty graphics card killed my motherboard, but either way my graphics card is dead. Although I did BSOD last night I did rejoin and finish the game. thanks to a spare nVidia 8400. A full 23 fps @ 640x480 (on a 1080p monitor non the less).

I might have a spare ATI 1650 PRO that should squeeze a few more FPS at a better resolution to keep me going for the moment. Money is a bit tight atm, would love to go out and just buy a new 7970 but like I said that is out of the question. My best plan is an ATI 6870 (should get similar/better performace with the bonus of DX11) but at ~£120 even that might be pushing it price wise :/

Havent had an nVidia card in a while but im open to suggestions.

gtx 460 for ~£100 is an excellent investment, check HUKD, they go on their cheap too

Running the 6870 right now with not one issue, and in terms of the card C mentioned that was the exact card I was gonna get if the dam thing didnt run outta stock(dell ). Either would be a viable

yeah, id have went for the 6870 too, either are a good choice, im a bit annoyed that ATI dont have anything on the equivalent of CUDA for rendering video, so my next card will def be an nvidia one

I also went for\and am running the 6870 1GB. Also agree not much between the 2 cards (6870 or the 460).

BigC - The ATI 7970 that P* mentions above utilises ATI's own version of CUDA known as "ATI Stream" tech for video rendering etc.

Hope that helps.....