GPU possibly dying, is it worth to upgrade?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
R

ron kooby

Distinguished
Aug 20, 2011
5
0
18,510
Hi everybody, I've noticed trouble playing games lately. After about 5 minutes of gameplay on nearly every game, my FPS drop from about 30-60 depending on the game to (I'm guessing here) 5-10 for several seconds. I did a little googling and found out it might be overheating, so I fired up CPUID and found out...

My GPU has been hitting 115 degrees. Celsius.

I haven't cleaned it in a while, so that's first on the list tomorrow morning. I read somewhere (can't remember now) that if it goes over 160 Fahrenheit you probably need to reapply the thermal paste, which sounds like a COMPLETE ass whip to me.

Now, hopefully a good cleaning will do the trick (right? right? Bueller?), but if not I might just spring for a new card since my whole rig is four years old anyway. Here are my relevant specs:

Sapphire HD4850 512 MB
AMD Athlon II X3 435 ~2.9 GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H
8 gigs G Skills Ripjaw RAM
Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU
Windows 7 x64

Here's the big question (other than can I fix the thing): is it worth it to slap a new card in there given my MOBO and CPU? Or would it be best to just bite the bullet and throw together a new rig?

Thanks so much for your help and expertise.

Koob


EDIT: For grins, here's a screenshot of my temps: http://imgur.com/qbYMG1C
CPU seems to be just fine
 
Solution
C
My 4850 was being a right ah heck too. It was hitting around 105 in modern games (and struggling to get 35fps in the process).

-Cleaning out the fan / heatsink will help as mentioned.
-Re-applying the thermal paste bought me around 10 degrees (after 3.5 years it was pointless)
-I actually recently bought a cheap cooler to help things. I got a zalman vf900-cu for 3 quid on ebay that has helped too
-Finally case temperatures. My case doesn't have good airflow really so until I upgrade I just left the side off, that really helps.
Sort by date Sort by votes
C

Cons29

Splendid
Feb 10, 2010
5,456
1
26,960
you can try to clean the fins of the heatsink. also, if you are confident enough, disassemble the cooler and clean it, put some new thermal paste and put it back on.

as for the upgrade, yes, you have an old gpu already. and gpu's tend to bottleneck more than cpu's. And unless you have the funds, you can consider this as the first wave of upgrades, the cpu and mobo can follow
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

ron kooby

Distinguished
Aug 20, 2011
5
0
18,510
Thanks for the input, everybody. I'll try giving it a good cleaning and reapplying the thermal paste.

In the meantime, I've been shopping graphics cards. The 7790 and 260x are in my price range, but they're only 3 teirs above the 4850 on Tom's hierarchy chart. In your opinion, is it worth the cost to upgrade to one of those cards? I'm planning on running 1080p here soon.

Thanks again for your input.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

calza

Distinguished
Mar 18, 2013
338
1
18,815
My 4850 was being a right ah heck too. It was hitting around 105 in modern games (and struggling to get 35fps in the process).

-Cleaning out the fan / heatsink will help as mentioned.
-Re-applying the thermal paste bought me around 10 degrees (after 3.5 years it was pointless)
-I actually recently bought a cheap cooler to help things. I got a zalman vf900-cu for 3 quid on ebay that has helped too
-Finally case temperatures. My case doesn't have good airflow really so until I upgrade I just left the side off, that really helps.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Jak_Sparra

Jak_Sparra

Distinguished
Mar 31, 2006
519
0
19,060
I agree with some of what people are saying. I probably would not bother with changing the thermal paste unless you feel confident doing it.

If it was me I would clean the fan thoroughly until it is dust free. (My 7800GTX was a dust magnet and a ah heck for causing freezes and crashes when loaded with dust). Also You should consider, if possible, getting a 120mm fan and putting it on the side of the case so it draws air from outside of your case and pushes it over your card. I found this to make a massive difference for me.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

ron kooby

Distinguished
Aug 20, 2011
5
0
18,510
Hey guys, I dusted it out, reapplied some thermal paste, and hit only 60 degrees Celsius this time. Thanks for the advice, applying thermal paste was a breeze. I'm gonna mark this as solved, but is it possible that someone could give me a recommendation on the new GPU? Thanks again.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom