New video card upgrade, and monitor recommendations.

L

liquidsoap89

New Member
Hey all, I'm in the market to upgrade my graphics card soon, and I'm stumped on what to go with. Right now I have a Radeon HD 6750, and it still performs well, the only problem is that I upgraded my whole computer a little over a year ago, and something that I bought has caused it to crash randomly after playing games for a random amount of time (usually a couple of hours in a day). I've done all the tests I can, thought it was my mobo, got a new one (after doing all the benchmarks and stuff of course), got a new cpu + heatsink, new ram, new mobo (to go with the new cpu, an intel I7 950), a new PSU, bla bla bla... The crashes still continue, and unless it's one of my hard drives (which seems unlikely) than it HAS to be my video card seeing as how that's the only thing I haven't upgraded.

Anyways, I just bought a new monitor (23 inch Samsung SyncMaster E2320) with the assumption that I wanted the EyeFinity 3 monitor setup with (most likely) an ATI crossfire pair. But then I saw Batman: Arkham Asylum in 3D, AND I've seen how ATI was treated with Rage. I've been hearing murmers about how ATI hasn't been on top of their game recently in regards to drivers, and proper support for games. Rage and BF3 are good examples of that, but this video card has been doing a great job for me with everything else (except for the crashing, which I SERIOUSLY hope is caused by my video card, however unlikely). I used to have a GeForce 6500 GS, and that card was also a great card for me, so I can't really use my own bias here.

What do you guys think? As a company, are either of these 2 looking like their future might be brighter than the other's? I'm leaning more towards EyeFinity than the 3D, because 3 monitors will be especially useful for when I'm animating, and I feel like it will be better supported than 3D (plus it will be cheaper). But I'm under the assumption that NVidia cards can use multiple monitors, and ATI cards can do 3D, so it seems like either one could do either option...

Sorry for the rant, this turned out longer than expected, but any help you guys could offer would be terrific. Oh, and price isn't necessarily a problem (unless we're looking at $500-$1000, which seems like a LOT for video cards...), and this might not necessarily be happening immediately, so maybe some soon to be released cards could sway my judgement? THANKS!
 
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liquidsoap89 said:
Hey all, I'm in the market to upgrade my graphics card soon, and I'm stumped on what to go with. Right now I have a Radeon HD 6750, and it still performs well, the only problem is that I upgraded my whole computer a little over a year ago, and something that I bought has caused it to crash randomly after playing games for a random amount of time (usually a couple of hours in a day). I've done all the tests I can, thought it was my mobo, got a new one (after doing all the benchmarks and stuff of course), got a new cpu + heatsink, new ram, new mobo (to go with the new cpu, an intel I7 950), a new PSU, bla bla bla... The crashes still continue, and unless it's one of my hard drives (which seems unlikely) than it HAS to be my video card seeing as how that's the only thing I haven't upgraded.

Anyways, I just bought a new monitor (23 inch Samsung SyncMaster E2320) with the assumption that I wanted the EyeFinity 3 monitor setup with (most likely) an ATI crossfire pair. But then I saw Batman: Arkham Asylum in 3D, AND I've seen how ATI was treated with Rage. I've been hearing murmers about how ATI hasn't been on top of their game recently in regards to drivers, and proper support for games. Rage and BF3 are good examples of that, but this video card has been doing a great job for me with everything else (except for the crashing, which I SERIOUSLY hope is caused by my video card, however unlikely). I used to have a GeForce 6500 GS, and that card was also a great card for me, so I can't really use my own bias here.

What do you guys think? As a company, are either of these 2 looking like their future might be brighter than the other's? I'm leaning more towards EyeFinity than the 3D, because 3 monitors will be especially useful for when I'm animating, and I feel like it will be better supported than 3D (plus it will be cheaper). But I'm under the assumption that NVidia cards can use multiple monitors, and ATI cards can do 3D, so it seems like either one could do either option...

Sorry for the rant, this turned out longer than expected, but any help you guys could offer would be terrific. Oh, and price isn't necessarily a problem (unless we're looking at $500-$1000, which seems like a LOT for video cards...), and this might not necessarily be happening immediately, so maybe some soon to be released cards could sway my judgement? THANKS!
Click to expand...

Have you tried a fresh install of drivers for your 6750 or a fresh install of your OS?

Also are you using the new beta drivers or the official ones
 
Believe me I've tried everything. I've had this video card for over a year now, I've updated the drivers numerous times, and I've reformatted Win 7 numerous times as well (I'm a compulsive reformatter). When this first started happening the first thing I thought of was the video card (seeing as how it's happening when I do GPU intense things ie. Games), but after being told that video cards rarely have problems, and also using Furmark over night and not having any issues, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't my video card. But then as the crashes continued to happen after everything else was replaced it became the only thing I can think of that COULD be causing the crashes.

So I really don't know. I want to get a new video card (or 2) to be able to do some of the cool things that they're capable of (EyeFinity and/or 3D), but also to get rid of these damned crashes.
 
how are your temperatures?

Download a programme called hwmonitor to check if you dont already have a monitoring programme.
 
After I got my heatsink for my cpu (a big noctura monster), my cpu idles at about 20, in games it goes up to maybe 30-35 (I haven't checked in a while). Right now my GPU is at 35 (idle), I think it goes up to about 50-55 while gaming (this is when I look at the temperature in the catalyst control center). Like I said earlier, I did all the benchmarks I could when this problem started. Prime 95, Furmark, and a few other things I think. I left Furmark on all night once and the computer didn't crash. I don't remember exactly what the GPU temperature got up to, but it wasn't anything to worry about.

I've fiddled with AMD Overdrive to increase the fanspeed (which normally sits at 50%) and that didn't work, and I've got 3 case fans in addition to my gpu, psu and cpu fans so there's definitely airflow. My only guess to the problem is that there's probably some faulty part in the card (although I have no idea about the actual bits and pieces of hardware so I couldn't go any further than that). But whatever it is, I'm looking to upgrade anyways so hopefully (HOPEFULLY!) this wont be an issue for much longer.
 
No suggestions... From anybody?!?

Can both cards do both features? Is one feature better than the other? Does one card do a feature better than the other? Are both cards looking good for the future?
 
id like to know what psu brand, memory brands etc you are using, that can be a big kicker to this problem as well as wattage and such. you might just be killing the psu by overloading it or something silly like bad ram
 
Yes I agree. Post full system specs. Download and install PC Wizard and run it. Go to FILE SAVE AS, CLICK OK. Copy that text into this thread. Also include the brand and model of your PSU.
 
<<< System Summary >>>
> Mainboard : Gigabyte X58A-UD5
> Chipset : Intel X58
> Processor : Intel Core i7 950 @ 3066MHz
> Physical Memory : 6144MB (3 x 2048 DDR3-SDRAM ) (Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM)
> Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
> Hard Disk : Seagate ST31000528AS ATA Device (1000GB)
> Hard Disk : Seagate ST3500418AS ATA Device (500GB)
> Hard Disk : Western Digital WD2500BB-00DWA0 SCSI Disk Device (250GB)
> DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4167B
> DVD-Rom Drive : JML V496RC9UF
> DVD-Rom Drive : SHSRO 81Y3OTAR (I think one of these is a virtual drives, and another isn't plugged in)
> Monitor Type : Samsung SME2320 - 23 inches
> Network Card : Atheros Communications AR5008X Wireless Network Adapter
> Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
> Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
> Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate Professional 6.01.7601 Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
> DirectX : Version 11.00
> Windows Performance Index : 5.9 on 7.9

The PSU is an Antec TP-650 (modular PSU, 650 Watts), although I doubt it's the PSU causing the problem. Before I bought my new mobo, CPU, RAM and PSU that I've got now, I had an older PSU (500 watts I think) and my computer was still crashing.
 
EDIT: I guess I should add a few things... Nothing's overclocked. Video card fan settings were increased at first but after installing a new driver they reverted back to normal. I've reformatted numerous times. The 500 Gb HDD is where Windows and most of my programs are installed (this is the one I reformat), the 1 Tb HDD has all my media and games, and the 250 Gb is just there for show I think (nothings on it :D). I've got a KB+M, 5.1 speakers, an external HDD (with it's own power cable), Wacom Tablet, 360 controller, and a phone and mp3 player cables all plugged in. That... Is all I can think to add.

Just pretend that I edited that last post properly...
 
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