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ATI is no better, IMO, even worse.

I have a $3300.00 laptop that came with Radeon 9700 (R300) embedded. It has shorted out, overheated, and caused my lappy to become unusable three times.

This lappy has had the MoBo replaced by the manufacturer under warranty twice already, and it has gone bad AGAIN!

ATI will not give any consideration at all, even though they did replace Radeon 9700's in desktops with the 9800, R350, due to this very problem.

I have nVidia's in three of my desktops (two GT 8600's and one 8800) and I have had zero problems, and great support from them. In fact, Nvidia puts out new driver packages all the time, even focusing on special needs such as supporting Folding @ Home FReerepublic Folders

So, for me, I'll stick with nVidia for now. Just my $.02 worth.

This is an education to read thru the technical papers...might account for why they are running late getting the new products out....

And another article:

Nvidia recommends not buying its defective chips

And they call this bumpgate

****************************EXCERPT***************************

Bumpgate Told ya so

By Charlie Demerjian

Friday, 26 December 2008, 15:26

IT LOOKS LIKE Nvidia finally has a solution to the defective chips fiasco that it keeps covering up. The short story according to documents seen by VR-Zone is to not buy them, just buy the newer ones.

No, really, we're not kidding. To quote some of the latest memo, ".....NVIDIA strongly recommends that customers transition to this latest revision of the NB8E-SET GPUs as soon as possible. These latest revision units utilize "Hitachi" underfill packaging material that improves product quality and enhances operating life by improved thermal cycling reliability." We know what you are thinking, there is no problem with the chips, they said so. Many times. With a straight face.

Then again, we did say we believed otherwise. And then Nvidia denied it. And so we printed copies of the technical docs on the problem that we saw, note the part about Hitachi underfill and the date. And once again Nvidia denied it. We publicly mocked them, and so Nvidia spun harder. Whee, look! The shreds of the company's credibility are twitching!

This problem seems to be more with laptops,...I have mostly nvidia video cards in my desktops...and have had no problems....

My HP Laptop does have an Nvidia card but doesn't get much usage.

Got to figure out what is in it....since this is the first I have heard of this problem...