It's too bad you don't have another system to try the card in. Don't you have friends with computers that you can try your card in and see if that changes your mind about the 9700. You stated your system freezes every time, even with your ol Geforce, well I think that says it all. Please don't blame your frustrations at the card, when you don't know the whole story. I know shelling that kind of money is hard for you to take when it doesn't perform as expected, but you need to spend some "time" doing your research and not just your "money".