Sapphire 6970 Faulty card? help!

[Pinkfloyd45]

I REALLY need help on this one guys. Just threw down a ton of cash at a local Microcenter to replace a GeForce 8800GS Superclocked 384Mb with a new ATI Sapphire 6970 2Gb.

Now there are minimal issues and concerns i can look into later such as getting very low FPS on counter strike source and horizontal tearing in Crysis Warhead. But for now the biggest problem is the resolution quality.

I am on a 32" Auria 1080p monitor with a max refresh rate of 60Hz and a native resolution of 1920x1080.

Auria Monitor

I have the latest Catalyst drivers installed (11.2) and am using HDMI in 1920x1080 @ 60Hz on windows 7 ultimate 64bit.

The quality of my resolution is kind of atrocious as the screen does not completely go to the edge of my monitor as it did with the GeForce 8800. So my Resolution is looking more like 1915x1075 if you know what i mean. there is about a 3 or 4 mm space on all 4 angles of the screen.

The curious thing is that i though it could be the refresh rate so i try changing it in catalyst with no luck. Catalyst has it set to 60Hz and when i use the drop box to set it to 59Hz and hit apply it immediately pops it back up to 60Hz. Overscan/Underscan still doesn't push the picture equally to all corners and makes the quality look even worse.

This is ALSO the case when i change the refresh rate from the desktop itself. (control panel>appearance and personalization>Display>screen resolution?advanced settings>click on "monitor tab") however, THAT refresh rate is stuck at 59Hz!!

At this point i don't know what i can do except wait until i get off work on Monday and call AMD. I've tried too many things to mention including forcing refresh rates with Riva Tuner (which didn't change a thing), Uninstalling/Reinstalling catalyst drivers 11.2 and 11.1. Using the backup video drivers windows has to offer when there are no other drivers loaded. Which actually takes up the whole screen and looks like it would do the trick but it doesn't go all the way up to 1920x1080 like this monitor and card are designed to read things at.

I'm starting to feel like i wasted $436 on this card and am thinking about driving back an hour each direction to Microcenter and getting a GTX570 instead or something. Somebody PLEASE help, any ideas are appreciated

,Pink


Rig-
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto 3.1GHz- unlocked to Quad and overclocked to 3.33Ghz

MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3

SAPPHIRE 100311SR Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5

and some ****ty 220Gb HD i ripped out of a Pentium 4 dell

 

[BigTerminator]

Try this, go to CCC and go the section which says my digital flat panel. Go to scaling options and select 0% or what ever works best. Now go to HDTV support and only use 1080p60 standard, nothing else. And in properties make sure it's in 1920x1080.

This is what I think the biggest problem might be, and that's the monitor itself. The TV or monitor has there own setting for filling the whole screen and resolution's. Go through all your menu options and fiddle around with different settings. There might be some option for aspect ratio so try that.

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

I have tried that. The screen gets stretched out enough so that it looks like its taking up the hole monitor but the quality is still just as bad. always have it on standard 1080p @60Hz. I still feel that it would be the refresh rate but i don't really know a whole lot about this kind of thing. SOMEthing is overriding my refresh rate somewhere and i don't know what is. As for the aspect ratio thing, that was my first thought but this monitors menu is extremely limited. I've seen more options on my 17" lcd monitor from 2001

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

Nobody knows?

 

[Rattle]

did you try simply enabling GPU SCALING?

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

Yep, quality is still bad. everythings grainy. i'm going to call ati today because im really starting to think i have a bad card

 

[Rattle]

try a different monitor, the card just may not play nice with it.

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

My GeForce 8800 worked perfectly on it though. And for 400 dollars this card should be perfect too. I don't have another monitor with that resolution either, otherwise i would have tried. Thanks for the input though friend

 

[Rattle]

well its probably an EDID issue with the driver. There's probably a workaround somehow.

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

ATI just told me that the only thing they have that can fix my problem is the underscan/overscan feature. When i asked about my geforce working much better he just told me that the drivers are different. and when i said that if i remove the drivers and just use the windows backup drivers and it works well he told me that that usually works but when you reinstall the catalyst drivers "everything goes to hell". Basically letting me know that ATI drivers are complete sh*t. looks like i'm taking this one back and getting a GTX 570..pain in the ***

 

[Rattle]

That sucks, I love the 6900's but you can get a 6950 for 225 and flash it to 6970 completely anyway so you kinda got ripped off

So in a way this isnt a bad thing, might save you some money for the same performance, gtx 570's are as low as $330 online and same performance more or less.

 

[Pinkfloyd45]

Yea im already using my GTX570. went back to microcenter and exchanged my 6970 for it. maybe a little less powerful but its working perfectly

 

[fearless123]

hey mate!

I dont know if your issues are solved..but just incase if it hasn't....i've found a solution to it. First of all, DO NOT USE A HDMI core from your card to your monitor. INstead use a regular plug instead if you know what im talking about..the one that you plug it in and have to use the 2 screw on the side to tight it up by turning it( for your confusion further more, you must plug that plug i 've suggest to u next to the HIDI port(left). if you plug it one the lower one the card wiill not read that and you will get a blink screen ...Anyway use that and reboot..you should get your resolution to fit your edges fully. Oh and yes you could still set your resolution at 1950x1050. If you have any issues or if you're lost, feel free to email me([email protected])...by the way i have the same card too. hope everything work out..and sorry if i forgot what that thing is called..lol