Just ordered one for now

[[Jett]-Dsru]

Going to see how much better. My other 2 HD 3870 X2's on sale for 175.00 each. Anybody interested? Free shipping.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

Got it, but do I have a story to tell. Stay tuned, will provide a laugh tonight.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

So, most you know I have 2 HD3870 X2's in my box. Both are rocking really well and you can see my scores above in stickys. This was not the case when I first got them, brand new and the drivers really sucked up untill a few versions ago. My box was running really well but a little hot. I had pre ordered the COOLIT systems dual TEC coolers for the HD 3870 X2 and waited and waited and waited. I get a email and COOLIT says they are NOT going to make them because of a manufacturing issue (ya right) and will now only make them for the NEW HD 4870 and HD 4870 X2.

So they give me a 25% discount if I change my order to the 4870 coolers and I say fine, I never gave them money, only pre ordered and would pay when I got the coolers.

So D being the stupid Ati lover of all time orders 2 HD 4870 X2's, $1200.00 from Newegg and a day later gets a email that they are SOLD out and I will have to wait 2 weeks for them. So in my usual "need for a larger e-penis, I cancel my order with NewEgg and go to Tiger Direct which shows stock and order 2. Then I get a email from TD saying they only have one now and will have the second "soon". I say fine, they ship me the one and NOW is when all hell breaks lose.

I get a email from Coolit saying the coolers for the 4870's are delayed. Dam, but at least I still didnt send them money, rat bastards!

I get the 1 4870 x2 from Tiger Direct and as a experienced ATi puke do the removal of old cards, run the paid version of Driver Cleaner and install the new 4870 x2. While shit is running I notice my Ebay auction is going to sell one of my 3870 x2's and I am getting giddy.

Everythings clean on system, card installed and then the fun really starts to happen.

ATi drivers dont work, would not install, and when I finaly manualy installed just the driver, every 2 minutes my box would just reboot. No warning, just poof, reboot. I try everything I can think of and only can get the Vista generic display driver to stop my box from rebooting. I then blast emails back and forth with ATi till I cant take it anymore and I call Tiger Direct. They of course refer me to the page with the card and in my post above you will see, NO RETURNS allowed. So while I am loading a few rounds in my AR15 to put this brand new 600.00 card out of MY misery, Ati just releases a NEW driver 8.8 that almosts fixes my issues.

Now, you think I would be happy, but NO, I try to run 3D Mark Vantage and it will also reboot my box in differnt tests but never actualy give me a score. Only friggin reason I bought the cards was for my e-penis and now thats all tucked up in my overweight belly.

I am done. I will only keep this one card and I am sure Ati will fix this issue in the next few months but my next BUILD is NVIDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will start from scratch for my NVIDIA build and only keep my case and XFI extreme card but I will have to change, MB, Mem, and Cards.

Hope you had a good laugh because I sure didnt!

[[Jett]-CRX]

Yep... last ATI card I bought shipped with a driver CD that wouldn't install because it didn't recognize the card. I went to their site and downloaded the version there... was the same as on the CD... didn't work either.

Searched the interwebs and people in forums everywhere were griping about the same issue. Took the card back that night. Will never buy an ATI card again.

...

Provided of course that NVIDIA never screws up like that. Then maybe I'll give them a chance again. Until then, it's NVIDIA only for me.

[[Jett-CC]-Krish the Fish]

yeah I've honestly never had any problems with NVIDIA drivers. and the cards usually work right when I pop them in, no tweaking or anything needed.

and I'm sorry for all the problems you had :( wouldn't want anyone to go through that many problems just because of vid card/drivers

[Binde]

Thanks for sharing Dsru, :) My day today was absolutely awful, but it got soooo much better when I read your story, LMAO! You win...your day was worse than mine.

[Stability]

And I thought that I had some bad problems LOL. Sorry bout that man. Nvidia FTW ;)

-Stab

[Chaser]

I had that issue with ATI but it spawned from a work laptop because we reinstalled XP because Vista wouldn't run terrasync.

ATI provided 0 drivers for XP for the card so it would reboot the system every few minutes. even 3rd party drivers didn't work, the only solution was to reinstall vista. Poor support from both Toshiba and ATI

[[Jett]-OMEGA]

Dsru switching to Nvidia is like Bakka liking girls. Thought it would never happen.

[[Jett]-Tank]

-OMEGA;5644']Dsru switching to Nvidia is like Bakka liking girls. Thought it would never happen.

Haha! Welcome back from the dark side Big D! :)

-=Tank=-

[[Jett]-RB]

All we need now is to see that D is gonna switch to AMD and run some form of Linux on his system.... :P

I have had no problems with all my Nvidia cards. I like eVGA branded ones the best.

[[Jett]-rush2049]

Well NVIDIA does have supperior drivers, and the cards fully support openGL.... So if you ever do development on you rig your covered (level editors, 3d modeling etc.).

I have a question for you Dsru, what PSU do you have, as mine is failing and am looking into a new one... actually anyone can suggest a PSU, I am looking in the 750-900 watt range with a reputable company that won't die in a year or two...

and sorry for hijacking the thread.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

I have a question for you Dsru, what PSU do you have..

http://www.jettcommunity.com/album.php?albumid=28&pictureid=128

[[Jett-CC]-Krish the Fish]

Well NVIDIA does have supperior drivers, and the cards fully support openGL.... So if you ever do development on you rig your covered (level editors, 3d modeling etc.).

I have a question for you Dsru, what PSU do you have, as mine is failing and am looking into a new one... actually anyone can suggest a PSU, I am looking in the 750-900 watt range with a reputable company that won't die in a year or two...

and sorry for hijacking the thread.

i picked PC Power & Cooling for my build a couple years ago because i researched a lot into it, and the fact that they supposedly have the lowest failure rate made me happy. plus, they also had the only 1K watt PSU at the time :)

here's their $110 750W "Silencer" PSU (it's called the silencer because it's supposedly super quiet):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009

And here's their 860W PSU... it's only $205!:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703013

good luck. If it helps, my PCP&C PSU came with a printout telling me that they tested it and that it passed their tests... so I trust them with my life!

[[Jett]-RollingRock]

nvidia has been kicking ati's ass for a while. but nvidia has been known to screw the pooch from time to time too.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

Where has D been?

Oh, the saga continues. More to come. What a frigging nightmare.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

Ok, sit back and enjoy the story.

So, as you can see from above my new HD4870 X2 video card is the card from hell. Hardware, software, and driver issues is keeping me from getting a E-Penis score with 3D Mark. A little explanation is needed before I dive into the details.

A. 3D Mark 06 can run on XP and Vista
B. 3D mark Vantage can only run on Vista
C. To run TWO HD3870X2's or TWO HD4870X2's you must run VISTA as QUAD configurations are NOT available with XP, only up to 3 total GPU's

So with above said, I proceeded in the usual ANAL fashion of figuring out WTF is causing the HD4870 X2 to crash in Vista.

I created the following test bed

Case
CPU
Memory
Motherboard
Harddrive
Power Supply
Video card
NO Sound card
NO CD drives

I have TWO 10k rpm raptors, one with only XP (updated with ALL XP current updates) and one with Vista (updated with current updates)

I have one HD3870 X2 (I sold one on Ebay and now I am regretting it) and one HD4870 X2.

The HD3870X2 works well with either XP or Vista
The HD4870X2 works well with XP but Vista is lucky to not crash every two minutes

I am able to RUN 3D Mark 06 with both and I am amazed at the results:

TWO HD3870X2's in CrossfireX in Vista = 17656
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6587720

ONE HD4870X2 in XP = 17659
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=7958686

I am truly amazed that ONE HD4870X2 has a score greater than 2 of the HD4870X2's. This card truly rocks. If one card beats two imagine the score when i get a second one.

But wait, why buy a second one when you HAVE TO RUN VISTA to run CrossfireX in QUAD mode. This where where my troubleshooting begins.

As I stated above, I have the exact system, just with two EXACT same drives with different operating systems on it. I can not get the HD4970X2 to work with Vista PERIOD. I have been all over multiple forums, communicated with ATi and Sapphire and MS and if any of you had to wait for technical support from any of these guys you know what a useless waste of time this could be. Most answered with reinstall this or that, take out this or that card, use this or that verasion of software, etc. They simply dont want to hear that you have created a test bed and TRIED all those things in a orderaly fashion with great precession on making sure you document BIOS settings, configurations, and setup. They have canned responses to give you so they can move on to the next "ticket".

Now, here comes the fun part. My second HD4870X2 shows up yesterday!!!!!!!! I forgot to cancel the backordered one (now this is totaly my fault and I take full responsibility for being a idiot) and if one didnt work why would two. I tried and of course it crashed Vista, maybe even faster than one card, so I did gain speed! :eek:

I now have to make some choices because I have two systems, XP and Vista with NOTHING on them except a benchmarking program that will only work with a select OS.

I am still trying "other" things to see why these cards are so picky with Vista, reading hundreds of posts hoping I stumble upon a solution because if I dont, I have one of the HD4870X2's ($600.00) that is going to make a nice paperweight because you cant run QUADS in XP (only OS that will not crash with it).

And the thing that pisses me off the most is if I can get that score with one of the HD4870X2's, with two my E-Penis would be John Holmes junior and I could waive it in front of your faces and post about the calculators you guys have as PC's.

My E-Penis life is truly over.

PS: Stay tuned for Part 3 as I am sure I will FUBAR something in my quest to run 2 HD4870X2's in Vista with CrossfireX.

[[Jett]-Dsru]

So, after countless emails between me and Sapphire and Ati, all agreed that the card was broken and authorized a return to Tiger Direct. had to wait till they got countless managers approval but both cards going back for full refund. Seems to me that I was NOT the only one that had problems with this card in Vista, but nobody admitted it. Long story short, now have just one HD3870X2 working great, full refund including shipping charges but 2 weeks worth of emails and headaches.

Long story short, when you live on teh bleeding edge of technology, prepare to be burnt sometimes but good customer service will keep you as a customer.

Case closed.

[[Jett]-Willow]

Haven't used ATI since the first Radeon (yes the first 32mb Consumer Video Card), and never will again. My headaches were very similar to yours. ATI Driver support sucks ass, and there is no way to side step that FACT.