Thinking of upgrading Vid Card: opinions/advice seeked

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Average operating temps can vary from card to card. It really depends on the heatsinks and fans and how much can be dissipated easily.

I would say 87C is not overheating, though.

That's not the problem, IMO.

Yep his power supply is said to be one of the worst ones on the market, I'd replace that as a first step. Once upon a time I made the stupidity of using a cheap PSU and the computer was pretty stable at first but then slowly (over a year or so) started crashing more and more and would not boot sometimes on first try. It also didn't overclock much even from the beginning. After I replaced the PSU with a quality one I found that it started to boot nicely again and I could overclock it 800Mhz higher than before. I was almost sure that it had some hardware problem in the motherboard, ram or CPU causing the instability but no - it was the PSU all the way.

[save]

I would look for cpu temp, graphics temp first.

Some AMD cpu's needs one or two patches, because without them, timers used in some games go bananas.

Is AH the only game that have your machine freeze up ?

The sound you describing could well be the on-board sound-chip, and like someone wrote, updating motherboard drivers, specially the sound drivers could be a good idea.

If your machine is over-clocked, I suggest undoing that while you find  out what root cause is.
Also I suggest you post your machine hardware setup
<S> !

[-ammo-]

Thanks again fellas.  Below is a snapshot of DXDIAG and my hardware specs.  I honestly don't know what is valued information vice chaff, so I post everything.  Sorry if this was unnecessary.

ASROCK Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 MB
XFX Double D Radeon 6950 Video card 2GB 256 bit(2560x1440) and it's slightly overclocked
Intel I7 Sandy Bridge 2600K @ 3.60 GHz
G Skillz Ripjaw DDR3 8 GB memory
Intel Cherryville 120 GB SSD
2 x 3TB Samsung 32MB/s SATA HDs (storage)



-----------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 8/14/2013, 17:45:48
       Machine name: IPFREELY-PC
   Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130318-1533)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
       System Model: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
               BIOS: BIOS Date: 06/15/12 14:32:36 Ver: 04.06.05
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
             Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8086MB RAM
          Page File: 2844MB used, 13324MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 64bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
      Display Tab 1: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
          Input Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D:    0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw:  0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay:  0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow:  0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
          Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
       Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
          Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6719)
           DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6719&SUBSYS_31211682&REV_00
     Display Memory: 1725 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 2034 MB
      Shared Memory: 3786 MB
       Current Mode: 2560 x 1440 (32 bit) (60Hz)
       Monitor Name: ViewSonic VP2770 SERIES
      Monitor Model: VP2770 SERIES
         Monitor Id: VSC832B
        Native Mode: 2560 x 1440(p) (59.951Hz)
        Output Type: DVI
        Driver Name: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1172 (English)
     Driver Version: 9.12.0.0
        DDI Version: 11
       Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
  Driver Attributes: Final Retail
   Driver Date/Size: 12/19/2012 22:08:04, 1151488 bytes
        WHQL Logo'd: Yes
    WHQL Date Stamp:
  Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-2459-11CF-A671-2B11BEC2C535}
          Vendor ID: 0x1002
          Device ID: 0x6719
          SubSys ID: 0x31211682
        Revision ID: 0x0000
 Driver Strong Name: oem26.inf:ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.1:ati2mtag_NICayman:9.12.0.0:pci\ven_1002&dev_6719
     Rank Of Driver: 00E62001
        Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_C
   Deinterlace Caps: {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX
       D3D9 Overlay: Not Supported
            DXVA-HD: Not Supported
       DDraw Status: Enabled
         D3D Status: Enabled
         AGP Status: Enabled

-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
            Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
 Default Sound Playback: Yes
 Default Voice Playback: Yes
            Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0899&SUBSYS_18491898&REV_1000
        Manufacturer ID: 1
             Product ID: 65535
                   Type: WDM
            Driver Name: HdAudio.sys
         Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
            WHQL Logo'd: Yes
          Date and Size: 11/20/2010 12:44:23, 350208 bytes
            Other Files:
        Driver Provider: Microsoft
         HW Accel Level: Basic
              Cap Flags: 0xF1F
    Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0
 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
              HW Memory: 0
       Voice Management: No
 EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No
   I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No

          

[Bino]

...
     Display Memory: 1725 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 2034 MB
      Shared Memory: 3786 MB
...

This puzzles me. "Display Memory" should be 2 GB.

This reminds me of the issue I had with my old X58-based mobo:  http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,340863.0.html

[Chalenge]

While I am not a fan of RealTek onboard audio I would still prefer their driver to the Microsoft driver. Probably you allowed the MS driver to install during Windows installation, or it was updated automatically (never a good thing in my opinion). This may seem like a small issue, but once things heat up on your system with even a slight overclock, and a PSU that is edgy you will see issues like you are having.

I would suggest testing with OCCT to verify system stability.

I'm sure you will get a few more recommendations, too.

[Skuzzy]

A very high percentage of game crashes can be attributed to the Microsoft supplied sound driver.  It does create stability problems, when it gets under load.