Micro stutter - What is causing it?

[Leprekaun]

Hi there. I've been playing Batman: Arkham City and Sleeping Dogs and after setting my graphics settings, I ran each game's benchmarks. The benchmark runs seemingly smooth for the most part but I often find little stutters in the middle of the benchmark. I have disabled AMD Smart fan control and System fan control so the fans are running at full speed all the time and I have ran Memtest for around 5-6 hours and it passed that without issue. I also have Catalyst 12.8 (downloading 12.6 now to try that as well) so I don't really know where the micro stutter is coming from. I'm not running dual crossfire which I've read can cause micro stutter, only running a single 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7850. So would anyone be able to help me narrow down the cause of this micro stutter? Thanks.

[Hammer_Time]

Performance boost with latest ATi driver 12.11 for Radeon 7xxx cards like yours ( up to 15% ) :

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphics/d ... ndles.html

AMD Radeon HD 7000 Get 15% Performance Gain, Free Video Game Bundles.

AMD Boost Performance, Adds Top Video Games to Radeon HD 7000-Series Graphics Cards

[10/22/2012 11:28 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Advanced Micro Devices is not going to refresh its product lineup with brand new offerings this year, but it does not mean that the company has nothing new to offer. On Monday the company rolled-out a new driver that boosts performance in latest games by 15% and also unveiled “Never Settled” plan to bundle up to three new AAA-class video games for free with its Radeon HD 7700, 7800 and 7900 graphics cards.

AMD Catalyst version 12.11 “Never Settle” driver is among the most important drivers AMD has ever delivered to gamers as it boosts performance of DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 titles by up to 15% without losing rock-solid stability, which makes Radeon HD 7700-, 7800- and 7900-series graphics cards more competitive against Nvidia Corp.’s latest GeForce solutions that belong to Kepler family.

Sounds good, try it out! It is Beta but they promise "rock-solid stability" so why not give it a try? Get it here:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pa ... river.aspx

AMD Catalyst™ 12.11 Beta Driver
Back
Last Updated
10/23/2012
Article Number
GPU-177
AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta Release Notes

FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMD CATALYST 12.11 BETA DRIVER:

This driver introduces significant performance improvements for many games across ALL 28nm AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series products: HD 7700, HD7800 and HD7900.

Performance Highlights of the AMD CATALYST 12.11 BETA Driver

10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
Up to 10% more performance in DIRT Showdown
Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2

Resolved issue highlights of AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta Driver

Medal of Honor: Warfighter; AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta4 resolves an application crash found when running in AMD CrossFire mode with Anti-Aliasing enabled (This issue was observed in the AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta3; The AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta4 has replaced the AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta3 driver that was posted Oct 22 2012).
Resolves performance issues (where GPU activity runs at lower values than expected) seen on the AMD Radeon HD 7870.
AMD Catalyst Mobility 7970M performance for AMD Enduro™ Technology supported platforms has been substantially improved for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications. An updated driver for 7970M users featuring AMD Enduro™ Technology with additional DirectX 9 performance improvements will be released soon.
3DMark Vantage – Up to 15%
3DMark 11 – Up to 12%
AvP – Up to 11%
Battlefield 3 – Up to 25%
Crysis 2: Up to 45%
DiRT Showdown – Up to 62%
ETQW – Up to 8%
Hard Reset – Up to 8%
Just Cause 2 – Up to 90%
The Chronicles of Riddick – Up to 4%
Shogun 2 – Up to 56%
Sniper Elite V2 – Up to 60%
Tom Clancy’s HAWX – Up to 56%
Unigine Heaven – Up to 33%
Wolfenstein – Up to 9%

Very nice ATi/AMD, very nice!!

Don't forget to use "Driver Sweeper" to completely eliminate all traces of old driver every time you install a new video driver! :

http://driver-sweeper.en.softonic.com/

Neither nVidia's nor ATi's "driver uninstall" completely removes every trace of the old driver when you uninstall it, this utility makes sure it does... it does make a massive difference sometimes in system stability, try it out!!

[Leprekaun]

Thanks HammerTime. I dled and installed 12.11. Ignoring the micro stutter for now, I seem to be getting random system resets while playing ingame. It has happened with both with Sleeping Dogs and Batman: Arkham City. The sound would suddenly freeze and then my system would reset. Would it be GPU related or would this issue be more common with RAM?

[Hammer_Time]

Ouch, that is not good... could be gpu, could be ram, could be cpu ( overclock ), hard to say...

Check Windows Event Viewer ( log files ) to see exactly what is causing the problem, this video shows you how to do that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6vUOyxmU1o

I would also install any version of 3DMark and put it in "looping mode" ( repeats continuously ). If your system crashes during that ( let it run for a few hours overnight ) then you still have the problem. If it successfully completes that then you have fixed your problem... do this after you have figured out what is causing the crashes and fixed that problem...

If cannot determine what is causing your crashes then I would try removing 2 of your 4 sticks of ram, see if that makes any difference ( less stress on the memory controller )... good luck!

[Leprekaun]

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 24/10/2012 09:24:39
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: (removed)
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>2</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-10-24T08:24:39.513619200Z" />
<EventRecordID>4820</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>(removed)</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

This is the single most common error and I assume this happens when my PC shuts down and restarts again quickly. Earlier tonight, I ran 3DMark on Extreme and left it to continuously loop and just a little while ago, when I came back to my PC, I found that the benchmark crashed. The PC itself didn't crash, it was just 3DMark. The errors I got from 3DMark when it crashed were telling me something which was that it had difficulty in reaching a referenced point in memory, which I believe, would suggest an issue with RAM. I'm really disappointed that I'm having these issues because Corsair claim that this memory is compatible with AMD dual-channel platforms but it really doesn't seem that way.

I thought that I should also mention, I was curious to check if one of the RAM slots on my MB were damaged and if any of the RAM modules were damaged themselves. Testing with the boot sequence, with the RAM at 1.65v and at 1600Mhz 9-9-9-24 timings (Corsair specification), I found that all RAM modules booted individually and in each of the 4 slots so the RAM modules are able to run at manufacturer's spec in each of the slots. I then tested a single channel (2 modules) setup and that booted fine as well at manufacturer spec. I then proceeded to add another single stick of RAM, so 3 modules in total, and tested them again, it booted fine at manufacturer spec. When I finally added the 4th module, that's when I got an error message from my MB
"The system has experienced boot failures because of overclocking. Last settings in BIOS setup may not coincide with current H/W states.
Current CPU speed: 17.0 x 200Mhz
Current Memory Speed: 1333Mhz
Current HT Speed: 2000Mhz"

The strange thing is, I don't even think it's a MB issue because I also tested using my old 4GB (2x2GB) modules that I had before and my system booted fine at the RAM timings and voltage of my new RAM (older RAM is capable of running at tighter timings, 8-8-8-24 but because the newer RAM has slightly slower timings, I was forced to run all 4 modules at 9-9-9-24) but regardless, my system booted fine without issue at 9-9-9-24 @ 1.65v when mixing the two different RAM kits so if it was a MB failure, it would lead me to believe that even with the old RAM mixed in with the new, it would also fail at those timings.

Aside from RAM issues, I have a slight suspicion that it could be PSU related? Because the memory controller isn't able to receive enough power? Or should a 650W PSU really be able to cover running 4 sticks of RAM?

Anyway, I've decided to run 3DMark again, only using 2 of the 4 modules as you suggested HammerTime and see the result in a few hours.

[Hammer_Time]

Some fine detective work there!!

Ram sticks do not use all that much wattage, a 650 Watt psu should be more than sufficient here for your system.

Your mobo is only rated for DDR-3 1333 Mhz btw, it supports up to 1866 Mhz as OC ( overclock ) so you are stressing the memory controller by using 4 x 4 GB sticks at 1600 Mhz , this is an overclock from "official 1333 Mhz" support:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3263#sp

GA-790XTA-UD4 (rev. 1.0)

AMD 790X + SB750 Chipset

4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note 1)
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 1866(OC)(Note 2)/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

(Note 1) Due to Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.
(Note 2) To reach DDR3 1866 MHz or above, you must install two memory modules and install them in the DDR3_3 and DDR3_4 memory sockets.

I bet if you dropped the ram speed down to 1333 Mhz then all 4 ram sticks would probably work fine together.

Also, notice how when you had 4 sticks installed and got the bios error message that reported it set your system to "default" settings in order to boot because the overclock failed, and it set your 1600Mhz kit down to 1333 Mhz:

Current Memory Speed: 1333Mhz

It did that for a reason, so if you want all 4 sticks to work then you will have to run your ram at only 1333 Mhz apparently.

Or, for slightly better performance, only use 3 sticks of ram at 1600 Mhz if your system is happy at those settings, 12 GB is still quite a bit for a desktop system. Good luck!

[Leprekaun]

Thanks HammerTime for bringing those details to my attention . I should've read more carefully the specifications of my MoBo.

Ok, after some trial and error, I have finally determined what is causing the boot failure. Its the CPU multiplier. If I set it to anything other than auto, even underclocking my CPU below 3.4Ghz, I get that error message but even if I set all 4 sticks of RAM to 1600Mhz, 9-9-9-24 and the CPU multiplier is set to auto, the system boots fine. I know I can overclock my CPU through AMD OverDrive, which does work, but the annoying issue with that is that every time I boot my PC, I'll have to load up AOD and overclock. Having set something like this in the BIOS would mean that I can always boot into Windows at 4Ghz so I don't know what to do to get back to my original overclock of 4Ghz. Any ideas.

[Leprekaun]

Ok, I took a plunge and updated my BIOS to a BETA version (F4A). It has solved the issue in the BIOS as I can now set the multiplier to get 4Ghz and now the RAM is running at 1333Mhz, 9-9-9-24 @ 1.5v. I think I know why my system was crashing before. I loaded up CPU-Z and looked at the SPD settings and noticed that when running in 1600Mhz, the profile defined is XMP-1600 (not JEDEC) so I assume that when the RAM is running at 1600Mhz, It's geared more towards an Intel platform? So as I have an AMD system, it wouldn't run stable at those speeds. Anyway, I'm sort of happy now that I've successfully booted at 4Ghz with 16GB of RAM now . I'll let my PC do some Extreme loops in 3DMark for a few hours, followed by a 9-10 hour Prime95 test, and after that, tomorrow night, I'll run Memtest and just pray that the system passes all those tests successfully.

[Sauron_Daz]

What speed at that auto setting?

[Sauron_Daz]

Ok, I took a plunge and updated my BIOS to a BETA version (F4A). It has solved the issue in the BIOS as I can now set the multiplier to get 4Ghz and now the RAM is running at 1333Mhz, 9-9-9-24 @ 1.5v. I think I know why my system was crashing before. I loaded up CPU-Z and looked at the SPD settings and noticed that when running in 1600Mhz, the profile defined is XMP-1600 (not JEDEC) so I assume that when the RAM is running at 1600Mhz, It's geared more towards an Intel platform? So as I have an AMD system, it wouldn't run stable at those speeds. Anyway, I'm sort of happy now that I've successfully booted at 4Ghz with 16GB of RAM now . I'll let my PC do some Extreme loops in 3DMark for a few hours, followed by a 9-10 hour Prime95 test, and after that, tomorrow night, I'll run Memtest and just pray that the system passes all those tests successfully.

Crossing fingers.

I suppose there's no clearly notable difference between the two setting.

[Hammer_Time]

Ok, I took a plunge and updated my BIOS to a BETA version (F4A). It has solved the issue in the BIOS as I can now set the multiplier to get 4Ghz and now the RAM is running at 1333Mhz, 9-9-9-24 @ 1.5v. I think I know why my system was crashing before. I loaded up CPU-Z and looked at the SPD settings and noticed that when running in 1600Mhz, the profile defined is XMP-1600 (not JEDEC) so I assume that when the RAM is running at 1600Mhz, It's geared more towards an Intel platform? So as I have an AMD system, it wouldn't run stable at those speeds. Anyway, I'm sort of happy now that I've successfully booted at 4Ghz with 16GB of RAM now . I'll let my PC do some Extreme loops in 3DMark for a few hours, followed by a 9-10 hour Prime95 test, and after that, tomorrow night, I'll run Memtest and just pray that the system passes all those tests successfully.

Ah, good thinking!! I think you are exactly right, the XMP Profile is designed for Intel chipset mobos:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... e-xmp.html

It can and does work on AMD chipset mobos, but that is a lot more "hit and miss". XMP was created by Intel and primarily designed for Intel chipset mobos.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/enable-x ... 37024.html

How to Enable XMP on an AMD Board

by John Mitchell, Demand Media

You can enable the XMP performance profile on most motherboards, including AMD boards, directly from the BIOS settings. XMP, also known as Extreme Memory Profile, is a memory overclocking performance technology "designed to take advantage of the mega-gaming features built into Intel technology-based PCs," according to Intel. PC gamers find this type of technology most suitable for game play, as it increases speed and performance.

Anyhoo, better that you set your ram speed manually now...there is very little performance difference between 1333 and 1600 Mhz so no worries if you run your ram at 1333 Mhz...as long as it is stable there. Sounds like you are giving your machine a thorough workout with those 3 benchmarks over the next few nights! Hope it is rock solid for ya! ( pretty sure it will be after your last posts, but you never know for sure till you bench the hell out of it! ).

[Leprekaun]

@Sauron_Daz: The Auto setting for the CPU is 3.4Ghz. The strange thing is that even if I set the multiplier to get out 3.4Ghz, the system fails to boot! Very strange behaviour.

@HammerTime: Yeah, I just hope it all works out ok! . I had a scare when I booted my system a few hours ago because as soon as I reinstalled my ATI/AMD drivers and rebooted, as soon as I got into Windows, the system crashed and reset . The next time I loaded up Windows, it worked fine. At the moment, I'm running the RAM at 1.5v as suggested by the SPD for 1333Mhz but I may just boost it up to 1.65v to keep the RAM running with a safer margin of voltage to avoid any potential random reboots in future. 1.65v wouldn't even be overvolting it, it's meant to run at 1.65v when running at 1600Mhz. I'm just sticking to 1333 but keeping the voltage up.

I've just finished a successful 3 hour Extreme test in 3DMark11 so no errors or reboots so things seem to be stable now. Like I said, just for the sake of stability, I'll still up the voltage on the RAM. I am certain that the VID of the CPU is fine because I've ran a 9 hour Prime95 torture test before with 1.48v VID @ 4Ghz (I increased the voltage again to 1.5v to maintain system stability) and it passed without fail but just in the slight case that a dual-channel setup may offer some instability for the CPU, I'll still run a Prime95 test and move on from there. As far as I know, you can increase the voltage of a CPU by up to 10% so 10% of 1.4 is 0.14 so technically, my maximum would be around 1.55v if I have to get it there so I still have some 0.05v to play with if I need it.

[Hammer_Time]

If your ram is stable at 1.5 volts @ 1333 Mhz then I would recommend you leave the memory voltage at that setting, only increase if you decide to try for 1600 Mhz in the future ( although it appears your mobo does not like running all 4 sticks of ram at 1600 Mhz = unstable ).

I don't believe there is any need to increase your cpu voltage either... see how stable your system is over the next week. As you said, increasing the cpu voltage by 10% ( over stock voltage ) is still considered "safe" , but if you can get away with less voltage, so much the better...

I think you are "good to go" now though, 3 hours of looping 3DMark11 is pretty rigourous on a system, so sounds like you have this problem fully licked now!! Happy Gaming!!

I am kinda jealous of your system now, it is faster than mine!! 7850 is stronger than my GTX 560 Ti card!! I am still happy with my card, but may upgrade it around Christmas time.

[Sauron_Daz]

@Sauron_Daz: The Auto setting for the CPU is 3.4Ghz. The strange thing is that even if I set the multiplier to get out 3.4Ghz, the system fails to boot! Very strange behaviour.

@HammerTime: Yeah, I just hope it all works out ok! . I had a scare when I booted my system a few hours ago because as soon as I reinstalled my ATI/AMD drivers and rebooted, as soon as I got into Windows, the system crashed and reset . The next time I loaded up Windows, it worked fine. At the moment, I'm running the RAM at 1.5v as suggested by the SPD for 1333Mhz but I may just boost it up to 1.65v to keep the RAM running with a safer margin of voltage to avoid any potential random reboots in future. 1.65v wouldn't even be overvolting it, it's meant to run at 1.65v when running at 1600Mhz. I'm just sticking to 1333 but keeping the voltage up.

I've just finished a successful 3 hour Extreme test in 3DMark11 so no errors or reboots so things seem to be stable now. Like I said, just for the sake of stability, I'll still up the voltage on the RAM. I am certain that the VID of the CPU is fine because I've ran a 9 hour Prime95 torture test before with 1.48v VID @ 4Ghz (I increased the voltage again to 1.5v to maintain system stability) and it passed without fail but just in the slight case that a dual-channel setup may offer some instability for the CPU, I'll still run a Prime95 test and move on from there. As far as I know, you can increase the voltage of a CPU by up to 10% so 10% of 1.4 is 0.14 so technically, my maximum would be around 1.55v if I have to get it there so I still have some 0.05v to play with if I need it.

[Leprekaun]

If your ram is stable at 1.5 volts @ 1333 Mhz then I would recommend you leave the memory voltage at that setting, only increase if you decide to try for 1600 Mhz in the future ( although it appears your mobo does not like running all 4 sticks of ram at 1600 Mhz = unstable ).

I don't believe there is any need to increase your cpu voltage either... see how stable your system is over the next week. As you said, increasing the cpu voltage by 10% ( over stock voltage ) is still considered "safe" , but if you can get away with less voltage, so much the better...

I think you are "good to go" now though, 3 hours of looping 3DMark11 is pretty rigourous on a system, so sounds like you have this problem fully licked now!! Happy Gaming!!

I am kinda jealous of your system now, it is faster than mine!! 7850 is stronger than my GTX 560 Ti card!! I am still happy with my card, but may upgrade it around Christmas time.

Your 560 Ti seems to still have a good rating rating on in the GPU chart on Tom's Hardware. I remember reading on tomshardware that it really isn't worth upgrading your GPU unless you're going for a good few levels up so depending on how drastic your upgrade is, based on the 3DMark11 score, I would think you'd need to get a 660 Ti at least (100 points higher) to notice any difference. My previous GPU was a 5850 so the 7850 was a considerable step up for me. BF3 ran ok on my 5850 but there were times when I would experience slowdown. It could have been a software issue with BF3 itself or driver related, I'm not really sure but a game that I did get into, rFactor 2, turned out to be quite demanding and that is a game that I would try to focus on so I'm hoping that the 7850 will help performance there.

If you do consider an upgrade, if I were you, I'd spend my money on an AMD/ATI card. I'm not saying this because I have an AMD/ATI card because before I upgraded my GPU, I was giving serious thought into getting an Nvidia card so that I can take advantage of PhysX in games like Batman and Mafia II but I found that for the same money I would spend on an average Nvidia card, I could get a great AMD/ATI card so thats why I got a 7850. Just looking at an Nvidia GPU with a similar score to a 7850 on Tom's Hardware shows that the closest Nvidia card to a 7850 is a GTX 580. My online retailer stocks both GTX 580 and Radeon Hd 7850 but while I might spend £160 for a 7850, I would have to spend a minimum of £200 and that £200 will get me a refurbished Nvidia card, not a brand new one so it was a no brainer really to go for AMD/ATI card. If I wanted a new GTX 580, I'd have to spend £240 which is considerably more than the 7850.

[DIREWOLF75]

Just looking at an Nvidia GPU with a similar score to a 7850 on Tom's Hardware shows that the closest Nvidia card to a 7850 is a GTX 580. My online retailer stocks both GTX 580 and Radeon Hd 7850 but while I might spend £160 for a 7850, I would have to spend a minimum of £200 and that £200 will get me a refurbished Nvidia card, not a brand new one so it was a no brainer really to go for AMD/ATI card. If I wanted a new GTX 580, I'd have to spend £240 which is considerably more than the 7850.

Yeah, i pretty much noticed similar things when deciding on my current 6770.
No matter what price range i looked at, picking an ATI card always gave more or less of an advantage. And then i found this 6770 with passive cooling and read about it online "extra high quality components" and "clearly lower temperature than almost any and all similar cards with active cooling" and a few other similar things, i just thought YAY!

And then it was out of stock, but in the end i got it and so far it´s been working SOOO well.

[Hammer_Time]

My monitor supports 1920x1200 max so I find that using that resolution ( or 1920x1080 ) with all settings maxxed out ( except AA, either use FXAA if available or just turn it off, not much aliasing going on at that high a res anyways.. ) my 560 Ti card can "keep up" just fine, specially if I overclock it a little. Not in Metro 2033, but since most games are console ports my card still works just fine.

Your 7850 card is roughly 1.5x as strong as my card, and you are right, I would have to "double" my performance to really notice any difference, and that means a $300 GTX 660 Ti card or an HD 7950 card ( they have dropped in price recently! ).

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814150590

XFX FX-795A-TNFC Radeon HD 7950 Core Edition 3GB

$306.99

I like this dual fan model better for $3 more but it is out of stock:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814202006

Pros: Overclocked to 1225/1600 and hovers around 70* with 75% fan in stress tests; runs cool at stock temperatures; has a boost setting for non-overclockers; great price!

Cons: I can't afford 2.

Other Thoughts: I was pleasantly surprised by the overclockability of this card. I was torn between this and the Gigabyte Triforce-cooled 7950, but this one was $30 cheaper. I pulled the trigger, and I couldn'b be happier. I'm managing a stable 1225/1600 overclock at 1.25V with stock cooling!

[Sauron_Daz]

Just looking at an Nvidia GPU with a similar score to a 7850 on Tom's Hardware shows that the closest Nvidia card to a 7850 is a GTX 580. My online retailer stocks both GTX 580 and Radeon Hd 7850 but while I might spend £160 for a 7850, I would have to spend a minimum of £200 and that £200 will get me a refurbished Nvidia card, not a brand new one so it was a no brainer really to go for AMD/ATI card. If I wanted a new GTX 580, I'd have to spend £240 which is considerably more than the 7850.

Yeah, i pretty much noticed similar things when deciding on my current 6770.
No matter what price range i looked at, picking an ATI card always gave more or less of an advantage. And then i found this 6770 with passive cooling and read about it online "extra high quality components" and "clearly lower temperature than almost any and all similar cards with active cooling" and a few other similar things, i just thought YAY!

And then it was out of stock, but in the end i got it and so far it´s been working SOOO well.

Sometimes waiting a bit can be very rewarding.

[Leprekaun]

Ok I got another sudden system shutdown . Will Memtest detect anything if these random shutdowns are memory related?

[Hammer_Time]

What was running when your system shut down?

Memtest will detect memory errors 99% of the time in my experience. I have seen the very odd time where a system passes memtest but still has a weird memory problem ( changing brands of ram fixed it ).

See what happens when you run Memtest... good luck!

If it fails Memtest, put your old ram back in and run Memtest again ( to confirm your mobo/memory controller is still "good" ).