Thinking of Stepping up my video card

[miffy495]

Hey folks. I've been out of the PC building game for quite a while now and have no idea what cards are good anymore. I got my current desktop waaaay back in '07 and when trying to run DXHR on it, I am made very sad. My processor is still capable, though not the best thing ever (intel CORE2 quad-core at 2.4GHz), but my 8800 GTS video card is gasping for air. I don't have a bunch of money to spend, but am thinking that an upgrade may be in my price range. I have completely lost the thread on what is good these days though, so I turn to you folks for advice. What is a decent mid-range video card these days? I'm looking to hopefully spend less than $200.

EDIT: Some quick (uninformed) searches make the GTX 550 seem appealing. Any thoughts?

[Nappi]

You may find your answer here.

[miffy495]

You may find your answer here.

Ah, yes. I will peruse that. Thanks for the tip.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes! Also, I think my graphics card is almost too powerful for the rest of my PC (not that I'm complaining). A XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 probably would have sufficed my machine, but I'm very happy with what I've got (Radeon HD 6870).

It's possibly worth getting a ballpark idea of the difference you're likely to see by comparing benchmarks here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

[Nappi]

It's possibly worth getting a ballpark idea of the difference you're likely to see by comparing benchmarks here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

That chart is pretty confusing. How can HD 6950 outperform HD 6990 (which is more or less two HD 6950 taped together)? There should be no competition:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6990-antilles-crossfire,2878-5.html

Here's the latest Tom's Hardware's graphics card recommendations:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997.html

[miffy495]

Hmmm... a 6790 is looking tempting then. Those of you who know these things: Is my processor up to the task of handling higher-end games if supported by this card? I don't want to drop $140 and then have to keep cranking things down anyway...

EDIT: Just ordered the 6790. Hopefully it makes things much prettier. 4 years is a long time in video card years...

Edited August 31, 2011 by miffy495

[Brannigan]

Hmmm... a 6790 is looking tempting then. Those of you who know these things: Is my processor up to the task of handling higher-end games if supported by this card? I don't want to drop $140 and then have to keep cranking things down anyway...

EDIT: Just ordered the 6790. Hopefully it makes things much prettier. 4 years is a long time in video card years...

Should be good. I'm running a core 2 duo 3 ghz with a gtx 460 and can max out most games.

[miffy495]

Sweet. Things have been chugging for a while now, so I'm looking forward to this. Last time I played a big release on my desktop was Starcraft 2, and I was cranking down pretty much every setting on it. When I loaded up Human Revolution on it this afternoon, I couldn't believe how nice the game looked compared to my laptop, but then I tried moving forward and there was crazy screen tearing and horrible frame issues. Immediately went back to the laptop where it looks worse but runs so much more smoothly. I then got an email from my landlady telling me how much they were reimbursing me for having to live out of my apartment for 4 weeks and decided that I could afford a video card.

[miffy495]

Ok, so now something has happened and I'm looking for different advice. I was just messing around on my desktop, seeing what I could do with the current set up in anticipation of the new card arriving and decided to load up Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, as it's something of a looker. Played it until about halfway through the first race when my desktop experienced a hard lock-up. So, damn, right? Thing is, I now can't get it to boot back up. I can turn it on and it will make all the regular whirring and air circulation noises, and all the proper little blinky lights on it will blink, but no signal will get to my monitor. I can even open and close the DVD drive with no issues. It seems like it booted up, but I can't get a video signal to confirm this. After a while of not being able to log in, it shuts down again. Did my old video card just completely poop itself and die, or is this something else? With a new card on the way, it wouldn't be the end of the world if the old one gave up the ghost the day after ordering its replacement. On the other hand, if something more serious happened I'd be kind of choked, especially given that I just ordered a new bit of hardware for it. Any thoughts?

EDIT: After looking at Thunderpeel's thread from a couple of months back, it seems his card (exactly the same card I am replacing, actually) died in the same way that (I hope) mine just did. Mine does not make the Windows log in chime that I can tell, but it may be stuck on an earlier screen. Still, it would be nice to hear from some informed thumbs about what may be the cause of this sudden trouble, and maybe hear some worst case scenarios as well.

[Brannigan]

Ok, so now something has happened and I'm looking for different advice. I was just messing around on my desktop, seeing what I could do with the current set up in anticipation of the new card arriving and decided to load up Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, as it's something of a looker. Played it until about halfway through the first race when my desktop experienced a hard lock-up. So, damn, right? Thing is, I now can't get it to boot back up. I can turn it on and it will make all the regular whirring and air circulation noises, and all the proper little blinky lights on it will blink, but no signal will get to my monitor. I can even open and close the DVD drive with no issues. It seems like it booted up, but I can't get a video signal to confirm this. After a while of not being able to log in, it shuts down again. Did my old video card just completely poop itself and die, or is this something else? With a new card on the way, it wouldn't be the end of the world if the old one gave up the ghost the day after ordering its replacement. On the other hand, if something more serious happened I'd be kind of choked, especially given that I just ordered a new bit of hardware for it. Any thoughts?

EDIT: After looking at Thunderpeel's thread from a couple of months back, it seems his card (exactly the same card I am replacing, actually) died in the same way that (I hope) mine just did. Mine does not make the Windows log in chime that I can tell, but it may be stuck on an earlier screen. Still, it would be nice to hear from some informed thumbs about what may be the cause of this sudden trouble, and maybe hear some worst case scenarios as well.

If it's actually shutting down on it's own it sounds like it's getting to windows, so I'm guessing the card just pooped itself. You'll know for sure when you get the new one of course

[Thompson]

Definitely sounds like a dead card to me, I would be surprised if it was anything else.

[brkl]

Usually you get BIOS error tones if your GPU is dead :/

[Brannigan]

Usually you get BIOS error tones if your GPU is dead :/

Nonsense, it obviously auto-configed into braille mode.

[syntheticgerbil]

I keep reading this thread as, "Thinking of Stepping on my video card."

I guess now you can though.

[miffy495]

So I opened up the case, unplugged everything, and reassembled it to make sure that everything was connected properly. I even gave the video card extra breathing room by moving my XFi (yeah, I have a dedicated sound card. I like living in the late 90s) a couple slots lower to increase airflow around it. Booted into Windows just fine, but I'm afraid to run any games now lest my card poop itself forever. Can't wait for the new one to arrive.

[brkl]

I've been thinking of getting a new one! But the one I want is 170€.