Powercolor X800GTO16 First Impressions

I just bought this card and it SUCKS. It sucks because it doesn't work. I installed all the hardware in my new build and installed every driver. I installed the video card driver last and it keeps hard shutting down the computer upon login. Swapped it with my X700 and it works fine. Nice job. Now I got to RMA this to Newegg.

Hopefully the next one won't suck.

I've stopped using ATI cards after I had 4 X300 cards from Sapphire that wouldn't run in half the machines I put them into.

PCI Express cards.

I'm guessing it's a driver issue. I tried installing from scratch and everything worked fine with default WDM drivers. Then I tried to update them. Then nothing would work after that.

nVidia for life.

I like ATI's cards. I also expect products to be DOA sometimes. As long as I get a replacement in due time, I'll be fine. We use X300 cards at work for builds and they are all fine.

Read the writing on the wall, my friend. x-fire suxxors compared to SLI, ATI's linux drivers suck in games, and they've had supply issues. As much as I love them, it is time to admit that for the moment Nvidia is once again doing better. My 7800GT is on the way right now, and good lord how I wish I could get the same features from that as I do from my A-I-W. AIW is really the one really big thing that ATI has going for it.

ATI needs to get their drivers a bit up to speed. Crossfire is better (technically speaking) than SLi due to its non use of profiles.

If Nvidia went with the pure meaning of SLI, then Nvidia would be my pick for the 'SLI' types of cards.

Yeah, I do agree there. Nvidia's "SLI" isn't actually the real deal, and it's very limiting as well. I have faith that ATI can make some better drivers though, and all in all I would prefer a land dominated by ATI considering Nvidia's current tactics. (talking about how they just bought ULI recently, which one can only assume had SOMETHING to do with their chipset that supports 8x AGP but allows for an upgrade path to PCI-e.)

»http://www.aseville.com/albums.php?id=215

The above picture is my card...

http://www.systemcooling.com/images/reviews/Graphic/PowerColor_X800GTO16/card_rear_lg.jpg

This picture from systemcooling shows it should have a rear power connector... AND! In the box there is a cable for the power connector. This really sucks. I'm going to have to find out what's going on from Powercolor.

Wow looks like they have some quality control issues over there.

I've called Powercolor and they state that this is a new revision of the board and doesn't need the spare power. There is enough provided by the slot itself...

That being said, I tried the video card in my older computer and IT WORKS FINE. My next step is to replace me power supply with an ATX 2.0 before pulling my hair out. It seems like it is a power issue because of the HARD shutdown.

This is an AGP card or PCI-e? I can't tell on visuals...

PCI Express. AGP would not be providing enough power for any new cards.

As it turns out, it was the power supply. I picked up an Antec 550W NeoHF PSU and it works fine. It is kind of sad to me that Intel supports older power supplies yet they don't work as expected.

Didn't know the card was that new. Nvidia actually plans on making some more budget agp cards in the future, actually...

At any rate, wow! 550 watts, eh? I often forget just how power hungry intel chips are.