Just wanted to let you guys know that my new x800 seems to be working fine. Last night in BF2 I was getting 60-80 FPS & it would drop to around 40 or so with lots of action. This is a MASSIVE improvement from my earlier framerates.
The particular card I got has a nifty 'copper tube' heatspreader thingy over the GPU & the RAM which is pretty cool. It adds some heft to the card & inspires confidence in its ability to consume astounding numbers of polygons without breaking a sweat.