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I took the brave decision to jump the bandwagon by switching from an NVIDIA based graphics card to an ATI based graphics card. I have been a supporter of Nvidia since I got my first PC where I have used an XFX Geforce 4 MX440 before switching to a newer PC powered by MSI 7300GT, and then moving on to my gaming PC powered by Gainward 9600GT Golden Sample. I love the PhysX feature available in Geforce 8 and 9 series where physical objects are rendered by the physics engine in Nvidia CUDA compared to traditional games where all the flags looks the same. With PhysX, no two flags will look the same.
So anyhow, I have been using the Gainward card for close to 2 years when the card decided to end its life. I went back to the distirbutor and met up with Charles, the GM of Netraid who was later absorbed into the current distributor. He offered me a one to one exchange to the same new card which delighted me. I accepted the offer and happily plugged the card into my PC upon reaching home. Just within hours of using the card not even stressing it with any games, the card died again! Barely 5 hours it died with the same problem.
Then my worst fear came, could it be that my Power Supply Unit have become faulty and ended up killing both the graphics card? I took my entire PC to the distributor the next day and my Power Supply Unit was put through a rigorous tests and it was concluded that the PSU was perfectly alright. This time, the distributor could not offer me any more replacement cards as the last one died in my hand. So instead, I was offered an upgrade to a brand new PowerColor ATI HD4770. I took up the offer as I could not afford being unable to use my PC as I have a thesis to work upon.
So here's how the previous card looked like in my PC
The old Gainawrd 9600GT Golden Sample in the rig
Now fitted with ATI HD4770. I am totally unused to the new 'simpler' yet powerful card. Compared to my previous card, this one has lesser RAM, smaller heatsink, and lesser ports.
This time, I took it home, and after fitting it into my PC, the screen did not display anything! Apparently, my Samsung monitor is starting to die as well. Fortunately, I managed to get the card working - until today. Looks like a 23 inch widescreen upgrade is coming soon.
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