I've used my brief unexpected vacation last week to get some new stuff for the PC. Here's the story.
Was looking for a video card around $200 or a bit more, and bought Radeon HD 3850 (512 Mb) from Sapphire. I'm a faithful ATI user. Or, rather, I was a faithful ATI user. Newest 8.3 drivers reduced performance in certain older games like Morrowind more than 50% (fixable only by keeping older drivers), and Sapphire temperature management proved to be just horrible. The fan worked on 25% of possible speed until the temperature of GPU reached 90-95C. Only then fan RPM would raise to about 40%, which meant that GPU would work on 100C in modern 3D games. Another problem was ATI PowerPlay. It keeps GPU speed at 300 MHz even in 3D games, until GPU load would increase to about 66%. For old games it doesn't matter, since GPU load is quite low, but for other games where load stays around 50-70% it could harm performance badly, since GPU would frequently switch from 300 MHz to 680 MHz.
Both PowerPlay and fan duty can be modified only through re-flashing BIOS. RivaTuner and other utilities cannot do anything, and Sapphire had new BIOS only for a few modifications of their 3850 cards. Obviously, mine was not in the list.
I realize that ATI(AMD) are not responsible for Sapphire's faults with cooling, but still returned 3850 and got XFX 9600 GT as a replacement, also with 512 Mb DDR3 RAM. Had to pay $10 more, but it was definitely a better deal. No problems with overheating (fan works fine, temperatures rarely exceed 60C) and the core works at the same frequency all the time.
Next was the motherboard and CPU, purchased on the April Fool's day. It was really an April Fool's day, cause I've got an Asus middle-class motherboard. Should've got Gigabyte, or, like, anything else. But not Asus. M3A on the new AMD 770 chipset with AM2+ socket. After purchase, I had problems with Windows not loading: the loading process would stop near the point when welcome screen appears (OS is Windows XP SP2, 32-bit). After many trial and error it became clear that issues are caused by Atheros LAN controller (Asus, why can't you just use Realtec? 2 cents cheaper?). Lucky indeed, cause that's one of the few things that prevents you from getting necessary driver from the internet.
Finally, I've somehow managed to connect and get the normal driver for this thing. During this time, I've browsed lots of forums where people talk about this piece of cr... hardware and knew a lot more about the current state of Asus technical support and hardware quality. Basically, it didn't support many Phenom processors for 4 months, until a February BIOS update; it still doesn't support many memory modules; has problems with managing voltage for CPU and timings for memory (BIOS changes them randomly regardless of manual settings); some items have hardware issues with intergrated Realtec sound; and everyone, of course, has problems with Atheros LAN, problems that sometimes don't get solved by new drivers. Asus support ignores everything, and no one expects new BIOS to be released.
So, me was sort of lucky to get only one of the symptoms. Possibly because I kept my old RAM (Samsung PC-6400, two modules 1 Gb each), and didn't get a Phenom, instead getting an Athlon 64 X2 5200 as a replacement for the former Athlon 64 3200. Hopes that the AM2+ motherboard would allow to install Phenom later proved to be a bit preliminary.
And I'll never, ever deal with Asus if there would be choice. Year ago I got an Asus video card with faulty cooling that made more noise than all other fans in the case. Now, a faulty motherboard. What next?
' Wrote:And I'll never, ever deal with Asus if there would be choice. Year ago I got an Asus video card with faulty cooling that made more noise than all other fans in the case. Now, a faulty motherboard. What next?
