Any update: HD Radeon 4xxx v.s. Nviida 260?

[sirdilznik]

I am using an AM2+ system. My mobo is K10N780SLIX3 running a Phenom II 940 and I use a GTX260-216. I've had no issues with this combination, the card runs beautifully in the system and gives terrific performance in both native games and under wine (depending on how far wine itself has come along for a given title). I can't comment on the ATI card since I haven't used ATI since my switch to Linux years ago, but I've been really happy with my GTX260-216, that card is a beast.

[MAXX]

My GTX 260 worked fine for about half a year...
Then it started squealing like a girl, no matter if I play certain games (Lugaru or X3 squeal like hell, Quake Wars, Doom 3, Americas Army and Prey run without squealing, creating high-poly models in Blender 3D makes the card squeal like hell...)
Seriously, it's unbearable. I'd buy a new card, but I'm afraid, that it'd just have the same fault.
And I heard about the crappy ATI drivers at every corner, so I can't buy one of theirs either... So I'll have to wait till NVIDIA uses better hardware or until ATI has better Linux drivers.

[Kano]

Couldn't you return the card?

[MAXX]

No, they say it's "normal"/"normal wearout".
Seriously, it's barely half a year old and... well, I'd definitely call it defect. It can't be considered normal that they produce such squealing crap and expect people to swallow it.

I'll post a link to a video where someone recorded his squealing GTX260 whichs squealing level is similar to mine. I don't have that link handy right now.

[Kano]

Try contacting the manufacturer.

[crumja]

Too much FUD going on here. It's always "I read this or that". Please, think about what you're reading instead of accepting it on blind faith. Panix, AMD does not restrict what video cards can be used with their motherboards; that would be illegal. MAXX, you "heard" about bad ATI drivers. Have you tried them to see if they meet your needs?

[MAXX]

Well, crumja, i don't feel like buying an ATI card for 300 bucks just to test if the drivers are suitable for my needs...
My GTX 260 sounds like this or even worse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAnLxMyapOs

And not just in menus/during intros, but also while playing certain games and creating 3d models, even in 2d mode, while moving windows around.
I tried activating the vsynch in the NVIDIA options which did not help, I tried clocking down the card which did not help eighter, I tried close to everything....

[bridgman]

That kind of squealing is usually either the fan or the voltage regulator; can you tell which one is making the noise ?

I guess I should mention that most of our cards sell for a lot less than $300 no matter where you buy them.

[MAXX]

Well, either the voltage regulator or the capacitors.
I checked the fan when it first occurred, it's definitely not the fan.

Also I'm not 100% sure if it occurred before or after my old power supply died. I think it was after I changed to a new power supply. The old one had 500 Watts and the new one has 800 Watts. Might be connected to that somehow, or maybe it just coincidentally occurred around that time. It was not there right after changing the PSU, but rather a few days after.
Maybe it had just enough juice to run at lower clockspeeds on the older PSU and so there occurred no squealing, although that's unlikely. I wish NVIDIA would just change to decent capacitors (preferably solid state ones) and to decent voltage regulators.
I'd gladly pay 50 additional bucks if I could be sure not to get any squealing in exchange...

[LenS]

Well, either the voltage regulator or the capacitors.
I checked the fan when it first occurred, it's definitely not the fan.

Also I'm not 100% sure if it occurred before or after my old power supply died. I think it was after I changed to a new power supply. The old one had 500 Watts and the new one has 800 Watts. Might be connected to that somehow, or maybe it just coincidentally occurred around that time. It was not there right after changing the PSU, but rather a few days after.
Maybe it had just enough juice to run at lower clockspeeds on the older PSU and so there occurred no squealing, although that's unlikely. I wish NVIDIA would just change to decent capacitors (preferably solid state ones) and to decent voltage regulators.
I'd gladly pay 50 additional bucks if I could be sure not to get any squealing in exchange...

Hi, to preface this I've used Nvidia cards for a long time and been very happy with them. Their drivers have always been first rate. Unfortunately drivers are only part of the reason to buy a particular video card and from what I've seen lately they've been cutting corners on hardware design and manufacturing. This is the reason for the short lifetime. Does your computer get turned on and off daily? more often? less often? That's a factor in the failures.

This is from the fourth in a series of investigative articles about the Nvidia failures and are fairly technical, but explain and detail the reasons for Nvidia's problems. I have not seen anything else more informative on the web. This refers to ALL Nvidia cards, some more than others, I would suggest reading all four articles to get a good understanding of what's going on. This writer has access to an electron microscope and there are pictures in the article explaining what he's talking about:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...rfill-problems
WHEN WE TOLD YOU about the 'bad bumps' in the Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch models the other day, we expected it to end there.

But as luck would have it, Nvidia pointed us to a much deeper problem that not only affects at least some of the Macbook Pro notebooks, but likely every other high Temperature of Glassification (Tg) underfill chip Nvidia makes.

Technical Background
To understand this article, you really need to understand the problem, so please read the technical three part series (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) explaining what the problem is and where it occurs.

Nvidia's current problem stems from its half-hearted response to its earlier problem by only changing the underfill. Nvidia said that's what it did, both near the end of our initial Macbook article and in a later Cnet article here.