Graphics Card Keeps Freezing And Reseting - 4870X2

[Nilthandrik]

While playing certain games the image will freeze for a few seconds then flicker to black the resume working. This continually happens at various intervals ranging from seconds to minutes. This does not happen on all Games however so I'm having trouble determining the cause.

Eg:
Trine - Crashes
X-Com Enemy Within - Crashes
FEAR 3 - Does Not Crash
Skyrim - Does Not Crash
NFS Most Wanted - Does Not Crash

It's a custom computer that I built about five years ago.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 - OC 3.5GHz - 1.35V
ASUS M4A79T Deluxe
SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 4870 X2 2G GDDR5
Corsair XMS3 1600 (CM3X2G1600C9DHX) 4GB (2x2GB) X2 = 8GB
Thermaltake 1200AP ToughPower 1200W Active PFC 1.2kW/1200A Power Supply W0156RU

The CPU OC settings are all manually set in BIOS and the ram timmings are also manually set.

I have the latest Catalyst drivers for this card on a clean install of Windows 7 Pro With all updates.

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated, and if you need more info just ask.

Thanks.

 

[renz496]

have you considered upgrading your GPU? the problem you have could be driver related. and AMD has been dropping driver support for their 4k series since long ago.

 

[Nilthandrik]

have you considered upgrading your GPU? the problem you have could be driver related. and AMD has been dropping driver support for their 4k series since long ago.

I considered it, but due to the cost of gpu's I would want to make sure that upgrading would fix the problem.

Plus the next issue that arrises is what to upgrade to.

Do I go for a cheap upgrade or do I go high end so that it lasts longer....what can this build handle?

 

[renz496]

your CPU is quite old. so going for current high end GPU will create bottleneck on CPU side. if you really want something that perform better i'm afraid that you might want to make platform upgrade. if not maybe you can just get much newer GPU that can perform on the same level as your current GPU. this chart will help you to look GPU performance tier in general:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

take GTX750Ti for example. the performance is one tier below your current 4870X2. but if crossfire did not work for your game 750Ti will easily outperform your card. and that card sips power. only rated at 60w. that is just one example. your current PSU capable of running even the most demanding graphic card available right now (which is AMD R9 295x2 which consume a lot more power than your current 4870x2). cards like AMD R9 270X isn't bad either. i still think your CPU still able to handle the card just fine. my advice is just avoid AMD 5k and 6k series if you're buying new card. not that they are bad or anything but AMD is well known to drop support for their card much earlier than nvidia did. to be honest i suspect AMD will stop supporting both series in the main line driver by the time MS coming out with their next version of windows next year.