I may try that tomorrow then. I really do hate problems you cant consistantly reproduce. Can never tell when you fixed the damn problem, go for hours without any issue thinking its fixed and then BAM resurfaces out of the blue. Case in point its been 4 hours now since the last bit of artifacting, with me at the computer web surfing the entire time, and no issue. I dunno, maybe the system needed a reboot for that afterburner fix tempered posted about to solve the problem. Reset the driver or something.
Its just ridiculous. I cant remember /EVER/ having these kinds of problems with an nvidia card. They have all just been plug and go. Come to think of it the 9800xt (and 9600xt i put in my sisters machine) had artifacting issues on and off as well depending on what driver i was using at any given time. Not as bad as this, but then i guess i should have known better.
Side note, XFX tech support on their website is terrible. Submitted a support ticket this morning to see if they knew anything about this issue and i still have yet to get any kind of response at all from them.