5900 Rma

[DrJay]

I wanted to get some opinions about this:

I ordered one of those sub $200US BFG 5900non-ultras about 1 month ago. The card was completely fubarred in 3d usage...I got screens of crazy, garbled Shiet. I tried several drivers and two different systems(one Amd one Intel), but nothing worked. I RMA'd the card to BFG about two weeks ago (I was lazy) and just got the replacement card yesterday. They sent me a 256mb 5900 ultra clocked at 450 core / 850 mem. With 44.03 Dets, coolbits auto-detected a speed of 516 core / 986 mem. The bad part of this is they sent it in a plain brown box with no manual, software, vid out or power cables, etc., just the card in bubble wrap. Also, the card is an older revision...the 5900nu had a cool blue pcb with a better looking and quieter copper heatsink. So far, the card seems to work fine, although, there is a very, very slight electrical hum type noise coming from the card during 3d apps. Do you suppose they sent me a card that someone else had already RMA'd to them?
A 5900nu and a 5900 ultra would probably reach about the same top end OC'd speeds as they are essentially the same card. With the extra 128mb, I'm thinking this worked out to my advantage,...that is unless the card they sent was already RMA'd and on its last leg for some reason.
Any input or insights...??

[Sovereignty]

a lot of people have said they have that noise coming from their card under load. None have blown up yet so I guess you're ok :)

RMA'ing a 128mb 5900nu and getting a 256mb 5900ultra is a damn good deal if you ask me.

[SPQQKY]

The hum under load is the cards fan increasing in speed to compensate for higher temps while running 3D apps, this is normal, it was designed that way.

[DrJay]

Yeah, the 256mb card will probably be better in the long run. It seems to overclock as well as the 128's and the extra memory might help at high res with AA and AF in certain games. It was a free upgrade though so I won't complain.
Regarding the electrical hum issue; I'm having a hard time buying that the fan is causing that noise. The fan does speed up when 3D apps start but, the card is still causing the hum even when in 2D mode(like when scrolling with mouse wheel) with the fan on low. Also, I used to get the same noise with a Ti4600 card. I had an iceberq4 cooler (plugged into line out of PS)on the 4600 that ran at a constant speed. I dont think any 4600's even increase voltage to their fan headers anyway... Oh well, despite the noise, the new card is functioning well. I ran 2k1 @ 514 core / 583 memory : http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7598765 (http://)