After going back and forth with the xfx support team who asked me 4 times if I had reinstalled the video drivers in thier "recommended way" they finally agreed to give me an RMA code.

Ill be sending this thing off asap as I tested my system with a friends 8800 and there was no artifacting.

That kind of sealed it for me. Now its just a matter of having them test the card and getting it back in one peice.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, with all the advice I got my system has never been more up to date/clean.

Thanks again