AMD manufactorer that makes solid Video Cards?

I'm looking to buy a AMD Radeon 6950, 6970 that's 10.4 inches in length or lower.

I recently purchased a Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 addition to replace my Crossfire setup of HIS Radeon HD 5770 cards.

The card ran great for a day, and then I noticed artifact tearing and constant crashing to blue screen was an immediate sign the card was bad. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt, went to safe mode, disabled the card, uninstalled the old AMd drivers, swiped the registry for AMD video clean and reinstalled drivers. Still same artifacts and crashing. So I turned off PC, reseated the card, and still same issues.

I had to RMA the card, and unfortunately Newegg doesn't have it in stock anymore (I figured these cards were good because they're out of STOCK everywhere.) so it's likely by the time it;'s finished processing I'll get my refund. Because if the item is out of stocked I have two options, replaced with a product of "equal" value, or refund. I'll obviously opt for a refund though.

I'm looking to spend anywhere from 280-360 dollars. Maybe even a little more money but not too much more.. I need some good solid suggestions and please omit HIS and Sapphire. I don't know enough about Sapphire honestly, but I already got a band impression - and with all my experience with HIS those cards run blazing hot.

Windows 7 pro 64 bit
AMD Phenom II X4 925 @ 2.8ghz
4GB DDR3 Dual-Channel 1600mhz
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H Mobo AM3 soc
HIS Radeon 5770 Crossfire setup
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200w 80+ gold certified

badger906 said:

ive got an XFX 6950 2gb and cant complain, it runs great and its not loud either :)

How cool are we talking? After dealing with Blazing hot HIS cards, I'm looking for solid cards that stay cool.

The Sapphire HD 6950 I had ran BF3 on ultra at 1920x1080 resolution and it was really cool and the fan speeds weren't even that high - PLUS it as quite.. I was surprised and then frustrated when I came home to find it dead.

badger906 said:

well put it this way the loudest part of my rig is my cpu's water pump lol as for temps ive not benchmarked it yet

Temps are important to me though, I did a bit of research and overall Sapphire is good. XFX is also, but the cards are limited to me because I can only seat a video card 10.5 inches - I was also recommended to MSI and Asus, but again limited options due to my smaller case which is a V3 Thermaltake Black.

Newegg has this which is only 9.6ish inches and looks like it has a good cooling design.

So tempting too with the Ironegg guarantee...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102957

Solarstarshines said:

Matt2488 said:

I'm looking to buy a AMD Radeon 6950, 6970 that's 10.4 inches in length or lower.

I recently purchased a Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 addition to replace my Crossfire setup of HIS Radeon HD 5770 cards.

The card ran great for a day, and then I noticed artifact tearing and constant crashing to blue screen was an immediate sign the card was bad. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt, went to safe mode, disabled the card, uninstalled the old AMd drivers, swiped the registry for AMD video clean and reinstalled drivers. Still same artifacts and crashing. So I turned off PC, reseated the card, and still same issues.

I had to RMA the card, and unfortunately Newegg doesn't have it in stock anymore (I figured these cards were good because they're out of STOCK everywhere.) so it's likely by the time it;'s finished processing I'll get my refund. Because if the item is out of stocked I have two options, replaced with a product of "equal" value, or refund. I'll obviously opt for a refund though.

I'm looking to spend anywhere from 280-360 dollars. Maybe even a little more money but not too much more.. I need some good solid suggestions and please omit HIS and Sapphire. I don't know enough about Sapphire honestly, but I already got a band impression - and with all my experience with HIS those cards run blazing hot.

Windows 7 pro 64 bit
AMD Phenom II X4 925 @ 2.8ghz
4GB DDR3 Dual-Channel 1600mhz
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H Mobo AM3 soc
HIS Radeon 5770 Crossfire setup
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200w 80+ gold certified

Ok this might be a long shot but that kinda happened to me when i RMA'ed my HD6870 got another one it started to do what your saying, Turns out the card wasn't bad check your overdrive settings the card might be way over clocked ,That's how i found out it wasn't a bad card .

It was clocked at the max and you know that will crash you all the time ,just saying check your settings before ruling it a bad card

Hmmm... That was one thing I didn't bother to check! Damn I already sent the RMA off though..

Do these cards come by default overclocked or what? Every AMD card I bought always came clocked at default settings.

Well if Newegg sends it back then it wasn't faulty. Guess I'll wait for the RMA process to finish and I'll let you know - maybe nothing was wrong with it in the first place.

Damn! Of all the things I can't believe I forgot to check the clock settings...

So Newegg approved my RMA. I'll wait 1-2 days to see if they restock my item, if not I'll be issued a refund by default.

I guess it was faulty, it passed the inspections and they determined it was defective.

First any card, or piece of hardware, can go bad right out of the box. Happened to me with my Sapphire 6950 card, but I've had no issues with the replacement, and I've even replaced the card's BIOS to run at 6970 speeds.

As for temps these cards can get hot no matter which brand you get. Sure you can get one of those cards with the fancy coolers and shave a few degrees, but the temps are going to be what they are.

The theory Solarstarshines poses is pretty interesting. I would say check it, but unless you've messed with it before and didn't set it back, I suppose this is possible. Stranger things have happened. I've never seen it before and all I've ever owned since moving from 3dfx was ATI cards so....

Anyway here's my card - Which ATI 6950?

Artifacts issue - Which ATI 6950?

But since RMAing the card, no issue whatsoever. Anyway if you're scared away by Sapphire, try XFX. That's the one I was going to get, but price and availability had me choose Sapphire. I'm happy.