# Evil graphics cards.



## DangerMouse (Jul 17, 2008)

the nvidia 6200 is the first one i put in that DIDN'T give me problems.... 
never had much luck with them, but my kid needed it to play certain games, soooo....

DM


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## rgsgww (Jul 5, 2008)

DangerMouse said:


> the nvidia 6200 is the first one i put in that DIDN'T give me problems....
> never had much luck with them, but my kid needed it to play certain games, soooo....
> 
> DM



The last 9800gx2 I had gave me problems...I don't know why I get so many graphics card failures. I might just settle with a single card solution and be done. I might go with EVGA or Asus.


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## vectravl400 (Aug 13, 2007)

I think that the higher operating temperatures are to be expected from this type of graphics setup. GPUs are one of the worst offenders as far as heat goes and you have four of them between the two GX2 cards (That's not a bad design, performance wise. It just needs additional care given to cooling). It may be time to consider additional cooling methods like a PCI slot fan, another case fan, or even liquid cooling.

As far the component failures go, you may find that the culprit is poor power quality, either from the power supply or the wall. You should at least have a good surge protecter or UPS filtering the power to the computer and may want to consider trying another internal power supply that is designed to hand the capacity required for an SLI setup.


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## rgsgww (Jul 5, 2008)

vectravl400 said:


> I think that the higher operating temperatures are to be expected from this type of graphics setup. GPUs are one of the worst offenders as far as heat goes and you have four of them between the two GX2 cards (That's not a bad design, performance wise. It just needs additional care given to cooling). It may be time to consider additional cooling methods like a PCI slot fan, another case fan, or even liquid cooling.
> 
> As far the component failures go, you may find that the culprit is poor power quality, either from the power supply or the wall. You should at least have a good surge protecter or UPS filtering the power to the computer and may want to consider trying another internal power supply that is designed to hand the capacity required for an SLI setup.



I have a 1600 watt psu, I should check the amperage on the rails. Voltages seem stable under load though.

Voltage from wall is stable, 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits. An isolation transformer that can handle my equipment costs as much as tri sli 285s!


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## 2long4u (Dec 29, 2008)

rgsgww said:


> The last 9800gx2 I had gave me problems...I don't know why I get so many graphics card failures. I might just settle with a single card solution and be done. I might go with EVGA or Asus.



Maybe you should go with an ATI solution. Right now they can't be beat for price/performance. The 280/260 is a good chip but it is too big and hot. I would go for the 4870 or 4870x2. Plus you can run an Intel chipset with crossfire if you needed two cards.


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## 2long4u (Dec 29, 2008)

I just read this.



> AMD is slated to launch the Radeon HD 4890 card based on the RV790 core in April not the rumored Radeon HD 4970. The RV790XT A11 sample is running at 850Mhz core at 1.3V and 975Mhz GDDR5 memory. In comparision, a Radeon HD 4870 (RV770) card runs at 750MHz core and 900MHz GDDR5 memory. AMD told their partners that RV790 is expected to be around 20% faster than the current Radeon HD 4870 RV770 card and will compete headon against the GeForce 285 GTX card. The pricing? Between US$199 to US$249.


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## rgsgww (Jul 5, 2008)

2long4u said:


> Maybe you should go with an ATI solution. Right now they can't be beat for price/performance. The 280/260 is a good chip but it is too big and hot. I would go for the 4870 or 4870x2. Plus you can run an Intel chipset with crossfire if you needed two cards.



I just went for my first asus product, the gtx 285. This thing runs much cooler than the mighty hot 280. After looking at the failure rates and temps of the 4870 line, I decided to go nvidia. I'm just not going pny again.

I heard about the new ati line, would like to see how it is, but I'm very happy with this new graphics card.


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## DangerMouse (Jul 17, 2008)

i've always used asus and abit boards, and all my machines (mine, the wife's, both kid's) have/had ati with tv. 
for my machine, i also got the CL audigy platinum so i can plug in straight to cakewalk, cooledit, etc. to record.
i only got my son the nvidia cause he had to play some dumb game that needed more and more crap...and vista... yuk.
he played the game through and now i have a drive with vista sitting on his desk.... heh heh i'll probly claim it later 

DM


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## rgsgww (Jul 5, 2008)

DangerMouse said:


> i've always used asus and abit boards, and all my machines (mine, the wife's, both kid's) have/had ati with tv.
> for my machine, i also got the CL audigy platinum so i can plug in straight to cakewalk, cooledit, etc. to record.
> i only got my son the nvidia cause he had to play some dumb game that needed more and more crap...and vista... yuk.
> he played the game through and now i have a drive with vista sitting on his desk.... heh heh i'll probly claim it later
> ...



I am so disappointed with vista and sound cards...can't even use the special features of my sound card.


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## DangerMouse (Jul 17, 2008)

yup, it stinks i couldn't use my son's SoundBlaster OR the onboard audio. no drivers expected ever. he just played the game with no sound.

DM


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## rgsgww (Jul 5, 2008)

DangerMouse said:


> yup, it stinks i couldn't use my son's SoundBlaster OR the onboard audio. no drivers expected ever. he just played the game with no sound.
> 
> DM



Well, it worked for me...just no nice audio. I diddn't get what I paid for. But, I forced vista to run xp 64 drivers and...most of it works. I got EAX back and hardware acceleration.


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## 2long4u (Dec 29, 2008)

Yea I tried downloading the cuda drivers so I could fold with my laptop because it has a nvidia 8700 moble, but when I went to install the drivers it said I didn't have a compatible videocard. 

It turns out Toshiba changes its signature so you have to use their drivers. There is a work around but I didn't think it was worth the trouble.


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