My MSI HD 6970 broke

[xera]

Sad sad news.

It was just over a year old...

I have no idea what caused this...

My pc was on, I walk out of the room for 1 minute, came back, and screens were blank

It was showing random white lines all over the screen in bios, two parallel vertical bars during the win boot screen, and simply going blank when it got to the login screen (think due to 32bit colour?)

I've sent it back to wootware already

[PostmanPot]

Bad luck... You gonna be scrapping the MSI brand now too?

[xera]

Haha.. na, haven't given up on MSI yet... at least I didn't get that club 3D with 1yr warranty, then I'd be uber screwed!

But you see, that's the thing, I always seem to get "bad luck" with this chinese junk

Or maybe its just cause I used my pc almost every day, solidly, with two monitors, which did seem to make it run significantly hotter than 1 monitor.

[P924]

Yup, with 2 monitors, the ram never clocks down.

[Nameite]

lose solder joints from high temp...if you out of warranty just bake it

Get better cooling for the mem chips should help

[bboy]

i run two monitors and my one clocks down on 2d mode

[xera]

Today Wootware sent me an email saying the supplier had offered a new MSI GTX570 Power Edition OC as a replacement unit.

They say it is faster than the HD 6970, according to this review, check page 23

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...-oc-review/23/

I had originally chosen the ATI as I was hoping to use Eyefinity, but I have not got round to even purchasing 3 monitors yet. However I might still need it in the near future, so I have mixed feelings.

What do you think?

[PostmanPot]

Should be same card or better, different manufacturer (AMD vs Nvidia) is a bit odd.

[droid]

I just checked the two main MSI distribitors pricelists in SA.
No 6970 in stock. Me think it is slowly starting to reach EOL with the 7 series being out.

Benchmarks

The HD6970 has a passmark of 3133
GTX570 has a passmark of 3626

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

I think it is a good deal.

Your decision on whether to go Nvidia will probably be influenced on whether you planned to run a Crossfire setup in the future and whether you motherboard can also handle SLi for a dual Nvidia setup.

[PostmanPot]

I just checked the two main MSI distribitors pricelists in SA.
No 6970 in stock.

RMA stock =/= stock.

[P924]

Having recently switched back to Nvidia, I say go for it.

[P924]

i run two monitors and my one clocks down on 2d mode

Does the ram clock down as well, or only the GPU? and what resolution are the monitors