[chadalogue]

I have a powercolor radeon agp 256mb x850 xt and it is the bane of my existence, partly because I was a real dumb-[bleep] and threw away my stock cooler after fitting a zalman fan. The card was overheating and causing artifacts, I thought I'd need and aftermarket cooler, yet it turns out that the card was probably faulty from the start.
Now, the card causes artifacts at just over 50 degees celsius, and I can't even consider turning on AA/AF.
It seems to be a memory issue, as traytools can o/c the core but not the memory (I have to underclock to get any stability)
The question I'd like answered is: is there any point in trying to keep the card super-cool (i.e under 50 degrees?); should I consider a better aftermarket cooler (like a silencer) or should I look at better ram heat-sinks? Or, should I save my pennies, pretend the whole thing never happened, and buy a new card...
(which would have to be pci-e, ergo I'd need a new mobo and cpu...)

I played through HL2 and Doom 3 and even oblivion quite happily on my old faithful 9600pro...
PLEASE ADVISE! THANKS

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If you get artifacts withut overclocking its a faulty card you should have sent it back as soon as you noticed them as electronics companies always ship a certain amount of defective amount of cards its easy to get them replaced.

If you have a zalman they are better than silencers in terms of cooling properties, silencers are good but they are better noise reducers than coolers, basically if you have a zalman you arent going to get much better if anything from air. Ram sinks arent going to help if the memory is faulty most cards dont come with them at all they arent as neccesary because ram shouldnt get that hot.

[warriorscot]

If you get artifacts withut overclocking its a faulty card you should have sent it back as soon as you noticed them as electronics companies always ship a certain amount of defective amount of cards its easy to get them replaced.

If you have a zalman they are better than silencers in terms of cooling properties, silencers are good but they are better noise reducers than coolers, basically if you have a zalman you arent going to get much better if anything from air. Ram sinks arent going to help if the memory is faulty most cards dont come with them at all they arent as neccesary because ram shouldnt get that hot.

[chadalogue]

Thanks very much for clearing that up... I'll try my best to get a replacement stock cooler. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.

Thanks again.