EVGA 512MB GDDR3 256BIT GTS 250 VS XFX 1GB GDDR5 128BITS HD5770

hiya guyz ,
O K some people may find it a bit painful to read but This is the full story,
it's been a month and a half now since i bought a brand new EVGA GTS250 (512MB GDDR3 265BIT) for my secondary rig.
But one day..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------i was playing Modern Warfare 2 MP as usual (3 hours play) i witnessed drops in FPS then i saw some strange artifacts (silver spots like a disrupted signal tv screen) on every moving object.. and then the pc got sluggish and after a 5 minute interval i got the blue screen of death saying the device (GPU) has failed so the windows had to be shutdown and ***

i was amazed at this as the pc was working flawlessly previously..
i opened the case, the card was cool (slightly warm).. every thing else as well (HDD, PSU, RAM, CPU heatsink etc)
so definitely it doesn't has a chance to be the slightest of any heat issue

i restarted the PC and it worked fine then.. but now either it's my superstition or reality.. i think the PC has got sluggish then it was before

my PC is:
Dell Optiplex 745 mini tower
-C2D E6300 stock
-D965 Chipset
-4x 512MB DDR2 @ 667FSB
-EVGA GTS250
-DELL 375 Watts PSU (30A)..(PSU is powerful enough)..

it does comes with 1 year warranty but if i give it under warranty it may work for the time being and it would be really difficult to prove about the artifact episode and the company may return it back or repair it.. it could get worst.. i dun wanna live with a haunted card for the rest of my life..

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[b]That happened just one time and could be due to Voltage fluctuations etc. Btw I have researched that the PSU is powerful enough.

But the Real Query Now is that
Mates i am confuse please advice me, Shall i sell the Card and Buy an XFX 5770 1GB GDDR5 later on.

it would cost me $50 or so to exchage
This GPU is not bad and i haven't faced artifacts since then but Furmark test for 1.67minutes (100000ms) Recorded Max temp of 72-73c!

Besides 5770 is newer (40nm) and i hope would be cooler and stable @ PSU too.

Secondly since my chassis is dell Optiplex 745, It supports i converted a Dual video card to Single by replacing the Metal Plate on the DVI port, i was able to do that because the card had both DVI ports horizontally, whereas XFX HD5770 seem to have the posts Vertically, i may not be able to change the metal plates and unable to put it into Optiplex 745..

Please Expert advice ASAP i need to tackle this matter urgently.
Should i sell the card and buy an XFX HD5770 or shall i keep it and chill??
thanks[/b]

Hello,

Both the GTS 250 and the XFX 5770 have a minimum of 450 Watts Power Supply Requirement. Your current power supply unit is probably "enough" for the TDP (Thermal Design Power) and all the other parts of your system.

Geeks3d.com explains:

"This is a value you meet often in CPU or graphics card reviews and tests. The Thermal Design Power or TDP in short, is the maximum power consumed by a device (graphics card for example) under normal / regular use. In other words, the TDP is the max power a device can dissipate when running real applications. What’s more the TDP is given for graphics card default clocks.

TDP is a manufacturer’s data and thanks to this value, VGA cooler makers can size their GPU coolers for example.

The TDP is not the maximum power consumed by processor. Under some special conditions, the device can consume more power than the TDP."

http://www.geeks3d.com/20090611/tu [...] power-tdp/

The power consumption is mainly for the cooling of the device. The actual power consumption is different.

Radeon 5770: TDP=108 Watts
GTS 250: TDP=150 Watts

Solution:
1) I would upgrade your Power Supply Unit to 450 Watts to check if the problem still happens.
2) Uninstall graphics drivers, return the GTS 250 for warranty to have it replaced.
4) Once you receive GTS 250 again, re-install updated drivers from Nvidia website.

If there is a problem with the GTS 250:
1) Uninstall graphics drivers, then try out the XFX Radeon 5770 with updated drivers from AMD.