I'm in need of a new video card, my 8800GTS 320mb is dying. My budget is in the 200-280 dollar range.
I play at 16x10 when possible, I have a widescreen display. So what would be best for my money? I was looking at a 9600gt 1gb version, but would that outperform an 8800 g92 512mb?
I'm in need of a new video card, my 8800GTS 320mb is dying. My budget is in the 200-280 dollar range.
I play at 16x10 when possible, I have a widescreen display. So what would be best for my money? I was looking at a 9600gt 1gb version, but would that outperform an 8800 g92 512mb?
Make sure it really is your video card thats failing and not another component in your system (psu, motherboard etc)
The problem with the 8800GTS 320 is that games crash randomly after 20-60 minutes of play. Sometimes it bluescreens and the computer reboots, the bluescreen error is with nv_disp with an 0x0000008ea error code. Other times the games just suffers from severe articfacting and then freezes. When I alt tab out to the desktop it is in like 256 color mode and 640x480 res or worse.
The temps are all normal. Memtest runs just fine. HD has no problems.
Yeah doesn't sound to good. The artifacts pretty much give it away. You could always try uninstalling and reinstalled new drivers. I assume you did that already.
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Reply to jay2tall
I've tried everything I can think of, I made a thread about it on this forum titled "video crash at least once a day".
I tried different drivers, I have enough virtual memory (double what my RAM is). I forget the exact model of the PSU but its an Antec PSU 550w. I would love to fix this card but I can't find a way to do so. Im opened to suggestion. Im not keen on spending another ~250 on a card that will barely be an upgrade from what I curretly have.
At the moment Im running the latest nvidia drivers, winxp pro sp2, a64 4200+ x2, 1gb (512x2) mushkin memory, 250gb WD sata 7200rpm HD, my virtual ram is 4gb (4x my RAM size which should be plenty, maybe even too much). If I left out anything else important please let me know.
Message edited by rfatcheric on 05-02-2008 at 05:04:51 PM
Well, from what I have read the G92 chip WOULD be a pretty big jump for you.
If you are certain its the GPU, and your budget is tight, the 8800GT can be had for about $180, and you will not be dissappointed.
Your entire system is aging (I just replaced a very similar set up because it just wasnt as stable as it used to be. Might be worth saving your pennies and taking a leap to some new technology!
Message edited by rallyimprezive on 05-02-2008 at 05:19:00 PM
------------------------------EVGA 750i FTW ¤ Intel E8400 @ 3.6ghz ¤ EVGA 8800GTS 512 ¤ 2GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 ¤
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB ¤
MCSE, MCSA, Comptia A+ N+
Reply to rallyimprezive
Yeah an 8800GTS/512 wouldn't just be a small jump for you, it was be a VERY noticeable difference. My 8800GTS just spanks my old x1900xtx OCed out the wazzo. And that would be just lightly under what you currently have going on.
As mentioned your system could use a little updating. You should really get at least 2GB of RAM, that will REALLY help in current games. DDR2 800 memory is SO cheap its retarded. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146565
Also, I would look at Overclocking that 4200+ they can usually be bumped up pretty well over their stock clock. That will also give you a nice increase.
the 8800GTS/512 is $250 or under for certain brands and some have rebates. You can always go for an 8800gt which will give you very similar performance on a budget. You can get an eVGA 8800GT for $160 after rebate, which would still STOMP your current card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130318 I like this MSI one with the sweet cooler and OC http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127329
Message edited by jay2tall on 05-02-2008 at 05:41:09 PM
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Reply to jay2tall
I am planning on updating my system in the next few months. I will be using whatever card I get in the new system as well. I wanted to be able to take my current card to the new system but it doesn't look like thats going to happen.
I'd love to be able to take my card and test it in a freinds system but I just dont think thats going to happen
Yeah testing it would be the best choice. Can you make the card fail? or do you have to play several hours to cause it to stop working? Maybe a local computer show would be willing to test, but you know they will charge you like $20
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Reply to jay2tall
Thats one of the problems, I can't find anything to reliably make it fail. If I play a game for 20-60 minutes it WILL fail, but I dont feel like running hour long games multiple times to try and nail down the problem.
Does anyone know a good video stress test I can run that might make it fail more reliably? I tried the test that comes with ATI tool but that wouldn't make it fail.
Kind of sounds like a heat related issue to me dude. Just for kicks and since you are getting another card perhaps anyway, I would get a pci slot cooler fan to stick under it and try to pull some heat off. Newegg has one for 4.99 supposed to move 42 cfm. I'd get something like that myself, if it doesn't work, you can use it on your next card to extend it's life. If it works, you save 200 bucks.
I have a PCI slot cooler. The card runs around 47c idle and about 52-55 under load, depending on what game im playing. I also kicked the fan speed up to 100% using nTune just to see myself if its heat.
I looked like heat to me at first too, but the temps im getting dont reflect that.
A good item to try is remove the stock cooler, clean off ALL the stock goop, and reapply with a good thermal paste. Maybe the GPU is being cooler well, but not the RAM. The Artifacts would be from overheating or bad video RAM.
I will be visiting an old computer shop that I used to work for tonight to do some troubleshooting. What I'm looking to do is test my card in another system to see if it has the same problems. The issue I'm going to run into though is making it crash. Is there anything that someone can recommend that will push the video aside from just playing a agame like crysis? Is there a benchmark program or stress test program I can run that might do the trick? I've tried the ATItool test thing, but that doesn't cause problems, it only seems like graphic intense games at 16x10 or higher cause problems, if I run at a lower res w/ no eye candy it seems to do ok as of now, but I think its slowly dying.
It used to be that if I ran a game like WoW in windowed mode it wouldn't crash, but now even then its starting to cause artifacts even windowed after a certain period of time.
At this point I hope it is the video card, if its something else I think I'll wind up going w/out a computer for a while till I can upgrade the whole thing, no sense in replacing a mobo or chip at this point.
A good item to try is remove the stock cooler, clean off ALL the stock goop, and reapply with a good thermal paste. Maybe the GPU is being cooler well, but not the RAM. The Artifacts would be from overheating or bad video RAM.
This is a great idea, I never thought of that. Would AS5 be good to use on a GPU? Its all I have laying around, leftover from the cpu. Or is there some other kind of paste thats better for GPUs?
Though if you wanted, for 200 you put together a cheap AMD system. So if it's something else, it may not be as bad as you think. If you have a lot of parts to reuse.
Message edited by ohiou_grad_06 on 05-02-2008 at 08:22:04 PM
This is a great idea, I never thought of that. Would AS5 be good to use on a GPU? Its all I have laying around, leftover from the cpu. Or is there some other kind of paste thats better for GPUs?
I've tried many kinds of paste. As long as it is a good thermal paste they are all the same. AC5 is expensive for how little you get, but yeah it should do the trick. Much look and see if the RAM has those FAT squishy pads, you may need to try and salvage them if they don't come in direct contact with the heatsink. Let us know
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Reply to jay2tall
Video card is bad Used a new video card to test, and everything was fine. Put my old card in another system and it had the same problems in the same timeframe that occured in mine.
Video card is bad Used a new video card to test, and everything was fine. Put my old card in another system and it had the same problems in the same timeframe that occured in mine.
Guess its time for a 8800GTS g92
Thanks again for all the help
Yeah it's time to put the ol girl down. The new GTS is a great replacement. They are rock solid and run like a champ.
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Reply to jay2tall
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