Graphics Card Issue & Upgrade Question

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buji

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 15, 2006
Messages
114
My 8800GTX has been awesome for the past 2.5 years I've owned it, but recently it's been causing issues. I was playing L4D2 and the game froze, with green "w" like lines all over the screen. I rebooted, tried again, same thing. Updated the drivers, checked the temperature of the card (which wasn't hot), and tried again. Same thing.

So, my first question is has anyone else experienced this? I'm assuming yes, and my guess is someone will say heat issues. My second question is, what is a good replacement/upgrade? My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R, which only has PCI-e x16 1.0 (I think?) so I don't think I can get any 2.0 card.
 
We should combine our threads!!! I'm in the same boat as you minus the hardware failure. I've looked at benchmarks but am still unsure. What kind of budget are you on and what resolution are you gaming at?
 
OP, if you are not going to use a sig then please list all your pc specs every time you need some upgrade advice.
 
Looking for something < $200 I'm thinking. I game at 1680 x 1050. I've been reading around, and I think my motherboard is actually pci-e 1.1, so it could handle a 2.0 graphics card. But, I think it won't run at the 2.0 speeds?
 
If your card still has warranty left you could try RMAing back to EVGA. If you're just looking for a new card in the less than $200 price range you should consider the HD4890 or GTX260. Often times you may be able to find the GTX280 on sale on this forum if you don't mind used hardware. Considering your resolution, any of the mentioned cards will suffice and will work fine on your motherboard. :)
 
Card is long over warranty. Just ran SpeedFan and the GPU is at 64 C (idling). So I think it's running a tad hot! :)
 
What's the difference between the HD4890 and the GTX260, besides GDDR3 & GDDR5 (and obvious 1GB vs 896MB)? I've heard that the ATI cards are a lot better than NVidia now, is that true for this matchup?

Thanks!
 
buji said:
Looking for something < $200 I'm thinking. I game at 1680 x 1050. I've been reading around, and I think my motherboard is actually pci-e 1.1, so it could handle a 2.0 graphics card. But, I think it won't run at the 2.0 speeds?
Click to expand...

2.0 is backward compatible, it will work in 1.0 just has half the bandwidth, but unless you are running the most powerful of cards I don't think you will get close to that limit. Basically you won't be very limited by 1.0. Under $200 you should look at the 5770/4890. 5770 is more "future proof" with dx11 but the 4890 currently outperforms it at the dx9/10 level.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_1.0

buji said:
What's the difference between the HD4890 and the GTX260, besides GDDR3 & GDDR5 (and obvious 1GB vs 896MB)? I've heard that the ATI cards are a lot better than NVidia now, is that true for this matchup?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Just look up benchmarks between the two, I believe the 4890 performs better in most games and also overclocks better. When people say ATI is better than nVidia right now it is because nVidia's fermi architecture has yet to release any kind of main stream gaming card to compete with ATI's 5000 series.
 
pretty sure the 4890 is a little faster (I believe it was supposed to compete with the 275 where the 4870 was the answer to the 260).

as for which is better, it's really personal preference IMHO. Go with the better price... you'll be happy with either card, coming from an 8800 :) I upgraded to a gtx260 (216 core version), from an 8800GT and it was a pretty impressive upgrade at the time
 
Got the GTX260, and it's running pretty well. Do I have to remove the old drivers still, and if so, what's the best way in Vista?
 
buji said:
Got the GTX260, and it's running pretty well. Do I have to remove the old drivers still, and if so, what's the best way in Vista?
Click to expand...

you can, but you don't have to (I don't think you do atleast, since the drivers are the same for pretty much every modern card).

when you run vista for the first time, after installing the card, it should automatically do everything for you. You can uninstall the old ones first, install the card and reinstall them if you'd like though
 
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