PC Problems

[Naaman]

Sounds like something going very wrong...somewhere.

At this point I'd be at the "get it looked at, find out what's wrong and get it replaced", can you get your Uncle to check it out?

[fredbobjimmy]

he has had a look at it, and performed tests, he is pretty much certain that the hardware is fine and that it is a driver issue, and it is finding the right combination between the mobo and the graphics card. I have tried looking online for suggested combo's but ive had no luck. Gonna try rolling back the graphic drivers tonight, and if that fails try a older mobo driver and restart over the graphic card process.

[Naaman]

It's probably worth getting in touch with Scan as well, see if they have any suggestions 

(Have you been able to try the graphics card in another machine?)

[fredbobjimmy]

already tried scan and they didn't have a clue, apparently they have never heard of the problem before.

I's RMA'ing it on monday and they are dropping of a new one, seems that my current one had been used before and returned, the wiring packages at the bottom of the box were opened and the card was already registered for another machine and address. My guess is that it was faulty in the first place.

[Naaman]

Not nice

Good luck on that

[fredbobjimmy]

Well since the price has dropped too much since i bought the graphics card they wont replace it, but however will give me a full refund. When i spoke to customer services he suggested that i should buy the ATI 4850 for about the same price i paid for my 8800gt, or get the ATI 4870 which is suppose to be better than the 9800GTX.
So, erm, any thoughts on what i should get? To be honest, i just want to get back to stabbing and setting people on fire.

[Naaman]

How much you got?

And while the ATIs are good they're pretty crappy in CoX, it's Nvidia all the way.

Did they say why they wouldn't replace it?

[fredbobjimmy]

The wouldnt replace it because it has dropped £30 in price, and they cant do a replacement and refund the £30 so i have to reorder the 8800 if i still want it from them. While having a look around a local shop had these

These 9600GT's, not sure how much, if at all better it is to a 8800 GT

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20020730&rstrat=1

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20019412&rstrat=1

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20020728&rstrat=1


And these 8800's

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20019363&rstrat=1

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20020218&rstrat=1

What do ya think?

[Naaman]

I'm torn....

The XFX 8800GT looks very tasty and is loaded with 1Gb of Ram, but is a single height card so under stress will probably scream like a banshee

The 9600GTs score marginally outperforms the 8800GTs in direct comparison (10-15%), but all of them are 512Mb. Double height card so plenty of cooling....

I'd probably go with the MSI 9600 on balance, room for improvement through the drivers and (currently) 512Mb should be more than enough, unless you're going to play Crysis

[fredbobjimmy]

quick question, does the mhz matter alot? the 8800 is 600 mhz and the 9600 is only 400mhz.

[Naaman]

The tech specs posted there are a little shabby...

The 400Mhz is referring to the dual RAMDACs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAMDAC)

The important stuff, speed wise


XFX 8800GT - GPU speed = 600MHz, RAM = 1800MHz

MSI 9600GT - GPU speed = 650MHz, RAM = 1800MHz. (info here - http://www.msicomputer.co.uk/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1396&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136#)

They're both built around the same chipset but the 9600 is a slightly improved version of it. The 9600 also has more bandwidth through the bus, it's able to accept and throw out a lot more data in a given period of time.

Toms Hardware has a comparison of the two cards (identical memory size) and the 9600 cards (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Nvidia-Geforce-9600GT,review-30353.html) and while the 8800GT beats it it's pretty marginal once the Anti-Aliasing is cranked up (Anti-aliasing it what smooths the jaggy lines), and CoX looks really pretty when the AA is cranked up. BTW - look at the numbers, not the bars themselves, TH is pretty bad for misleading bar charts.

[fredbobjimmy]

I found a XFX 9600GT here for a bit less, its a XFX 9600GT OC 512MB PCI-E Graphics Card from PC world, 700 mhz core clock speed and 2.0 Ghz memory clock speed. Will this be better than the MSI?

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[Naaman]

Undoubtedly 

XFX are one of the top 5 gaming brands

[fredbobjimmy]

Sweet, ill go after work and pick it up

[Naaman]

So is it all still working smoothly Jimmy?