Ok, so most of you are aware, I'm not very happy with my HD5870's from XFX.
First, the stock clocks were 875/1300mhz. I bought these cards based on memory speed, knowing I was planning eyefinity.
A couple of months after I bought them, the cards would fail in many apps. I was directed by XFX to flash to a newer bios, with differnet clocks...900/1250. They did tell me at the time, that overall, performance was better, but some instances performance was less. Clearly they failed to meet thier own warranty(replacement based on performance, not value), however, no product they had actually offered this performance. Fine.
One card worked with the new bios, but the other began to overheat under the higher gpu clocks, causing throttle. I told XFX that the bios resulted in lower performance. rather than troubleshoot as to why I was getting lower performance,
XFX merely told me that lower performance was not possible. It wasn't until I told them about the throttle that they conceded that that might be an issue, and that I wasn't crazy(I am a bit off-center, as you all know, so that's just fine
).
XFX support gets a fail right there, for not troubleshooting the issue properly.
So, get my new card in the mail, and it's actually another XXX reference card, with the new bios. Works great. but over the past two weeks, I've noticed odd grinding sounds coming from the PC, and some short investigating, and it's very obvious that the fan on this vga is about to die. I think Erocker has run into this as well, with his 5850's, so to me, these fans weren't made to be operating @ 75c or so, as they are in my system(gpu loads over 90c, throttle @ 98c).
So, out of 9 XFX ATi vgas, 6 have had to be RMA'ed far various issues, most for overheating on stock cooling. $30 shipping for an RMA is cheaper than $60 for cooling(although I do have Zalman coolers here for these cards, but not the right size screwdriver to put them on...yet).
The easy fix would be for XFX to send me a new cooler, or a fan, at least, with the appropriate thermal pads.
Who wants to bet they insist is return the card?
BTW, that 6 cards @ $30 or so each for shipping is an extra $196 in shipping charges these cards have cost me(I added up all my receipts).
So buyer beware....Maintaining your pc is gonna cost some money...and maybe some time without a working system. Usually, XFX rmas take a total of 10 weeks from first email about the issue, to the repalcement card arriving. After 6 of them, I can safely say this is the norm. Last one was started April 24th, they shipped replacement June 8th, 6 weeks later.
I'll update this as the RMA progresses...should be interesting.
