gpippas :
I hate that I bought a 3870 about the same time as you got your 3870X2 and now it struggles to run anything 1280x1024 and a few months later ATI released a card with quadrouple the power of a 3870 for the same damn price..
I have more reason to hate the release of the 3870x2.
The 4850 that came out last June was the same price as your card for twice the performance. That 4850 was half the cost of my card at equal the performance without any Crossfire issues. I feel that a $450 dual GPU card should be trouble free the first two years of warranty and at least get good Crossfire support in all games out at the time of release.
That's why I won't buy anything more than a 4830 until fall if I have to get a new card. I'm waiting for their next refresh. I guess they don't have enough engineers to get the GPU's out at the time of their CPU launch.
I don't want to buy a 4870 1 gig and have a $300 card in June be twice the power. I'm not that wealthy.
gpippas :
P.s mine died the other day just like yours did.
It must be the resistors mentioned as defective on a significant number of cards manufactured by PowerColor, but sold by other companies. I do miss "built by ATI" cards. I use to buy then exclusively since I went for All in Wonders, but those AGP days are long gone.
If mine still crashes, then I can get a 4830 and hold off till fall on the 1920 x 1080 Acer monitor. I haven't heard reports of the same issues in the 4xxx series and my wife's 3650 is chugging along fine in LOTRO under XP.
It's just odd that it would be a blank screen while still in LOTRO. My wife would see my character auto attacking and I'd hear the music and all, but I'd have to either go into Task Manager and close the game, then restart, or I'd have to restart the PC. The last couple of times, it wouldn't display anything after the Windows load screen, like it couldn't handle 3D anymore.
I have it ready to reinstall, but I'll do that tomorrow night. Then maybe I'll play the Witcher all night and see how it works there. All I want is the kind of stability we used to see with both ATI and Nvidia cards, with only occasional driver issues. Now, there are major manufacturing defects showing up with both companies.
"Made in China"= "We don't care about our customers or product quality just so long as we can get cheap labor slaving away in barracks far from their homes and families, so we can make even more profits".
If China was like the U.S. in the late 40's, early '50's, with new tract homes and apartments where Chinese workers could live with their families in a vibrant community near the factories, I'd not consider it mercantilism. Since they live far from their families like the illegal immigrant men from Mexico in the U.S., then I'd have greater respect for China, but the government and elites are predatory towards their own people and towards us.
Read "Factory Girls" about the lives of Chinese workers. I feel sorry for them and pray that things improve for their kids and grandkids.
http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231543449&sr=1-1