Here is the deal. I have two SLI systems. One is air and one is watercooled. That is four GTX cards, of which all 5 have failed (even the RMA replacement). The core was strong on all the cards (coolbits detect 700 plus) even after they started to fail. It is the memory or a memory control device that is at issue not the crap about vertex deltas and cores not handling load at pcperspective.
Two were EVGA GTX EGS and two were GTX SC cards. Different machines, PSUs, motherboards and CPUs. They both had the same issues. After about 30 days, the memory starts to go south, slowly but surely the memory needs to be downclocked further to avoid artifacts in games. Currently one of the SC cards is down to 650 (where it always seems to stabilize) and the second card is now down to 700. I cannot get past the last test in 3DMark06 without a lock up on either machine at anything above this. And, setting the core lower or higher does not affect stability. Just the memory.
There are a lot of people with these cards, and they are not all complaining, but it seems that the degradation occurs when running certain games, like BF2. Most other games work fine.
There is definitely something up with the 7900 GTX cards. I can't speak to the GT cards since I did not experience those myself, but it sounds like there is a similar problem. XFX has gone as far as shutting down their forum to avoid all the complaining and from one account, indicate they will not RMA the card since ALL the 7900 series NVIDIA cards have a similar issue.
I am disappointed as I really like these cards, when they work. I think I will cut my losses and return the SC cards since they are well within 30 days of purchase. I will have to keep the other two cards, put a single in each, and hope NVIDIA figures out their issues. I tried to give them some slack since the G71 is a new chip, as it is not a superset of the G70 and sports an all new core. But, crap is crap, and no matter how much you polish it, you still got crap.
Giving up on NVIDIA. Maybe there is a nice Crossfire system in my near future.
Two were EVGA GTX EGS and two were GTX SC cards. Different machines, PSUs, motherboards and CPUs. They both had the same issues. After about 30 days, the memory starts to go south, slowly but surely the memory needs to be downclocked further to avoid artifacts in games. Currently one of the SC cards is down to 650 (where it always seems to stabilize) and the second card is now down to 700. I cannot get past the last test in 3DMark06 without a lock up on either machine at anything above this. And, setting the core lower or higher does not affect stability. Just the memory.
There are a lot of people with these cards, and they are not all complaining, but it seems that the degradation occurs when running certain games, like BF2. Most other games work fine.
There is definitely something up with the 7900 GTX cards. I can't speak to the GT cards since I did not experience those myself, but it sounds like there is a similar problem. XFX has gone as far as shutting down their forum to avoid all the complaining and from one account, indicate they will not RMA the card since ALL the 7900 series NVIDIA cards have a similar issue.
I am disappointed as I really like these cards, when they work. I think I will cut my losses and return the SC cards since they are well within 30 days of purchase. I will have to keep the other two cards, put a single in each, and hope NVIDIA figures out their issues. I tried to give them some slack since the G71 is a new chip, as it is not a superset of the G70 and sports an all new core. But, crap is crap, and no matter how much you polish it, you still got crap.
Giving up on NVIDIA. Maybe there is a nice Crossfire system in my near future.