Looking to replace X800 XT PCI-E card - recommendations?

I'm getting quite tired of my system crashing due to the graphics card (or probably the drivers). I have a generic ATi Radeon X800 XT PCI-E card. Whilst its performance is pretty good, the system crashes very regularly. Sometimes the VPU Recover traps the crash and all is well, sometimes I get a BSOD telling me that ati2dvag.dll caused the crash and the system reboots.

This typically happens when the PC is doing two or three things at the same time and i'm using the mouse (a standard MS optical mouse). I may have a download going in the background, a Word doc open and i'm browsing a Web site in Internet Explorer. I can almost guarantee a crash in that scenario. The system is not overheating as I check the temperatures using PC Probe and the CPU is usually at around 40C and the motherboard at around 38C.

These crashes have happened regularly since I built the system last January. I've got used to them and keep all my drivers up to date (including the BIOS on my motherboard).

I'd rather just bite the bullet and buy a new graphics card. So, what fairly high-performance cards are out there at the moment for less than £300? Would it be better to go for nVidia now?

If your dead set on a getting a new card you wont go wrong with the 7800gt

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Originally Posted by zulander

If your dead set on a getting a new card you wont go wrong with the 7800gt

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Any particular brand of 7800GT or are they all the same?

Graphics cards don't just crash a system unless there is something wrong with them. Have you tryed a format, and clean install? How long have you had it,you could RMA it. Try it in another PC.

I've had it since I built the PC. So it was a brand new install. It's happened with every version of Catalyst since January this year. As for RMA, I can't even remember who I bought it off as it was one of those anti-static bag OEM jobs!

I suspect there is some incompatibility between the graphics card and some other component in my PC. Unfortunately I don't have another PCI-E system to test it on.

Your card is probably shot - shame about not being able to RMA it
A lot of the 7800gt's are pretty simelar but stuff like the BFG will come pre overclocked. Leadteks will probably have a really huge tho effective cooling system and xfx may have a few extra mhz added on to the memory and core direct from the factory and will probably over clock nicely as well tho ull have to do that yourself. At stock most 7800gts are very even.

How would a 7800GT compare to my current X800 XT? Would it be faster? I don't really want to fork out a lot of dosh for something slower! I've not kept up to date on components since I built my machine at the beginning of the year.

a 7800gt is waaaay faster. SM3.0 support better card all round, for £250 its the best card you can get. Prices seem to be going up though or maybe its just me. The only things better are the 7800gtx and the Ati x1800 wich both cost silly money. You could maybe try and get the x800gto2 and overclock but these are getting harder to find and theres no gurantee it will go alot quicker than the x800 xt. But it would keep expenditure down

If money is an issue the 6800GS is a good PCIe card that is about as fast as a 6800GT,….and reasonably cheap too. The 6800GS is about $200 here in the states.

If money is no object then the 7800GTX or X1800XT is the way to go.

Funny thing is I had a similar problem as you had but it was with an nVidia based gForce4 Ti 4600 which was the fastest thing going when I bought it for about $400+ (USA). It was running a dual LCD display in windows XP and had a tendency to blue screen a lot. It also caused some odd things to happen on the installed KVM switch. I concluded that it might have something to do with the BIOS of the card but since I had enough parts around I just built a new PCIe based system using an ATI X800XL, ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe and Athlon 64 3000+. It fixed the problem big time.

I also was considering just swapping out the video card or removing one LCD monitor. In single monitor mode it worked like a charm and was rock solid but something about dual monitors made it really twitchy.

I'm probably going to go for a 7800GT as I don't want to spend too much money on a faster card than that as the rest of my system won't be able to keep up. I'm just going to hang on until Scan do a Today Only on the 7800GT :)

I don't really want to go for ATi again as that's what I believe is causing my crashes at the moment.

Hint, hint Scan people...

I'd have to agree and say the 7800GT. I wouldn't pay a premium for something like the BFG that is pre overclocked. Save yourself the money and do it yourself!

The cheapest I have seen a round for a major brand is this Leadtek.

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...1483&GroupID=0 but I only shop here :)

if you dont mind overclockesr.co.uk they had the BFG 7800 for £223 ish at one point think its now at £234 with a few days wait, still a good price tho, best ive seen

Taz - if you pay P&P both ways, ill gladly test the card and try and find out if there is a fault with it.

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Originally Posted by Agent

Taz - if you pay P&P both ways, ill gladly test the card and try and find out if there is a fault with it.

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Wow, you guys are too kind. I appreciate your offer of assistance. A guy at work who works in our MIS department has some spare PC's lying around and has asked me to take the card in to work. He's going to run 3DMark and a few games on it all day today to see if it's knackered.

Once again, thanks for the offer. I should know before the end of today if I need to buy a new card.

make sure he tests it well.:)

so what happened, is that card borked?