FX 5500 - Which Drivers?

Here's the scoop... I was having random BSOD's, and after a LOT of
annoying troubleshooting, I decided that my ti4200 was faulty (2 years
of service and the cooling fan dies at some point in the past few
months...).

So, I drove over to Best Buy, and got what I thought was a roughly
equivant video card, the BFG FX5500 overclocked... apparantly I was
mistaken!

After installing the 5500, I ran 3DMark01, and got a score of roughly
~7500. (I'm running on a GA-7N400-L with and AMD 3200+). This is
insane, I thought, my ti4200 gave me ~11500 when it was able to complete
the benchmark without BSOD'ing.

So, I tweaked some settings, ran it again, and got a BSOD. Ick.
Rebooted, tweaked the settings BACK to where they were, ran 3DMark01
again, and it crashed. Grrrr... SO, I downloaded the 61.77 drivers to
replace the trust 44.03's, and now I can run 3DMark01 forever... BUT, I
am now getting a score of ~5500...

Two questions...

1) Is there a set of drivers that are faster than the 61.77's,

and
2) Did I get hosed with this card thinking that it should be roughly
equivalant to the ti4200?

I mean really, the average frame rate dropped from ~120 to ~40!

Any advice, admonishings, pleas to return the Beast to Best Buy (with
suggestions as to a better card for under $200US) would be greatly
appreciated!

Ryan

"Ryan J. Paque" wrote in message
...
Here's the scoop... I was having random BSOD's, and after a LOT of
annoying troubleshooting, I decided that my ti4200 was faulty (2 years of
service and the cooling fan dies at some point in the past few months...).

So, I drove over to Best Buy, and got what I thought was a roughly
equivant video card, the BFG FX5500 overclocked... apparantly I was
mistaken!

After installing the 5500, I ran 3DMark01, and got a score of roughly
~7500. (I'm running on a GA-7N400-L with and AMD 3200+). This is insane,
I thought, my ti4200 gave me ~11500 when it was able to complete the
benchmark without BSOD'ing.

So, I tweaked some settings, ran it again, and got a BSOD. Ick.
Rebooted, tweaked the settings BACK to where they were, ran 3DMark01
again, and it crashed. Grrrr... SO, I downloaded the 61.77 drivers to
replace the trust 44.03's, and now I can run 3DMark01 forever... BUT, I am
now getting a score of ~5500...

Two questions...

1) Is there a set of drivers that are faster than the 61.77's,

and
2) Did I get hosed with this card thinking that it should be roughly
equivalant to the ti4200?

I mean really, the average frame rate dropped from ~120 to ~40!

Any advice, admonishings, pleas to return the Beast to Best Buy (with
suggestions as to a better card for under $200US) would be greatly
appreciated!

Ryan

Take it back!

I should imagine something along the lines of the "ATI RADEON 9600 XT 128MB"
would be a better replacement for under $200 (as long as you have nothing
against ATi). I must admit I prefer NVIDIA cards, but with the selection on
the Best Buy website that looks like your best bet.