I just tried out the 1.4.4-pre8 windows binary and don't have any problem (nvidia 1.85.85 / GeForce6800 - a fair way away from your set-up). I was thinking about downloading the latest nvidia win-xp drivers to test it out...but they're 88 meg!
Geez it does look like a hardware issue. Have you tried using the "-nomtex" switch ?.
