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8600GTS Died On Me... What Now?

TehBluebear

TehBluebear

TehBluebear

Soldato
Joined
6 Dec 2007
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Dewsbury
Well, I knew something was going wrong when the performance in games seemed to be getting worse and worse, and after a few times when booting up it decided to not put out any signal, changing it's mind every few times and granting me access to my PC, it finally died, and I cannot get any signal from it at all.

Removed the heatsink cover, got out any dust, and checked the fan worked, just in case it was overheating, but nope. It served me well for three years. Back to my trusty 256Mb 6200TC salvaged from a storebought Medion PC. Other than half the screen being blurrier than the other, and the fact that I can't really play games at agreeable settings, it's all good.

So, my question is this: Can it be fixed? And if not, what would be a reasonable upgrade for less than say, £220? I was looking at 275's and 285's, but are 285's worth the huge price jump over the 275's?

PS: While I'd like to stay with nVidia (heard too many ATi horrorstories), I am willing to keep an open mind.
 
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£220 is too much to spend.

A £100-120 card will be a solid upgrade from what you had, pick an NV 260 or ATI 4870.

£30 extra will get you a 275 or 4890 which is the sweet spot. Not worth spending beyond that unless you want to break benchmark records (which you dont sound like you do)
 
Jolly good guys. Probably won't purchase one for a month or so due to a distinct lack of money, but all the same, cheers for the advice!

Going off what I said in the first post, is it likely that my 8600GTS cannot be saved?
 
TehBluebear said:
Jolly good guys. Probably won't purchase one for a month or so due to a distinct lack of money, but all the same, cheers for the advice!

Going off what I said in the first post, is it likely that my 8600GTS cannot be saved?
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If the fan is seized it's more than likely fried and done some permanant damage, certainly sounds that way to me.

Go for the 275 or even the ATi 4890 which has similar performance to the 275 but slightly cheaper :)
 
If its completely dead and it doesn't have anymore warranty, you might as well try to revive the card with the oven method :D
Just google "Revive graphics card with oven method"

You'll see what I mean by it :p
 
coupe69 said:
Go for the 275 or even the ATi 4890 which has similar performance to the 275 but slightly cheaper :)
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If I were in your position I'd do as the man says! :D £160 is where the money/performance planets align. However, Edgey does have a point - it's a lot of extra moolah for only 15% increase in peformance. It also depends on what resolution you do your gaming at, anything under 1920x1080 and the 260 is fine, anything at that or over, you'd want a the 275
 
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jamesgoss said:
If I were in your position I'd do as the man says! :D £160 is where the money/performance planets align. However, Edgey does have a point - it's a lot of extra moolah for only 15% increase in peformance. It also depends on what resolution you do your gaming at, anything under 1920x1080 and the 260 is fine, anything at that or over, you'd want a the 275
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That's one thing I've never been too sure on. What determines resolution, the monitor or the card?

On my 8600GTS, I was normally gaming at 1680x1050 on a Samsung Syncmaster 2253BW.
 
agree with some of the above. Get the GTX 260. It's much much faster than the 8600gts and will play everything at 1680x1050.
 
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Most people game at their screen's native resolution because it looks a lot better; a lot of screens look blurred on anything other than their native resolution. Your Samsung's screen's native resolution is 1680x1050, so that is the resolution you need to bear in mind when buying a new GPU, because you'll want to run your games at that res, simply because it will look better than anything lower.

The monitor itself can display different resolutions, but it is the graphics card that has to be told to display each of those resolutions; the screen is displaying the signal being pumped out by the graphics card. So the graphics card determines the resolution, it's just a question of matching the resolution being sent out of the graphics card and the native resolution of the screen for the best looks.

Wow, that's probably quite convaluted and I hope you understood what I mean!

The bottom line is a 260(216) or 4870 will have plenty of oomph for a screen at 1680x1050.
 
jamesgoss said:
Most people game at their screen's native resolution because it looks a lot better; a lot of screens look blurred on anything other than their native resolution. Your Samsung's screen's native resolution is 1680x1050, so that is the resolution you need to bear in mind when buying a new GPU, because you'll want to run your games at that res, simply because it will look better than anything lower.

The monitor itself can display different resolutions, but it is the graphics card that has to be told to display each of those resolutions; the screen is displaying the signal being pumped out by the graphics card. So the graphics card determines the resolution, it's just a question of matching the resolution being sent out of the graphics card and the native resolution of the screen for the best looks.

Wow, that's probably quite convaluted and I hope you understood what I mean!

The bottom line is a 260(216) or 4870 will have plenty of oomph for a screen at 1680x1050.
Click to expand...

Not at all convoluted, I understood well enough.

I shall get looking into the 260's and 275's and see which one my suffering bank account decides is the sensible option. is it worth waiting until the Members Market opens up, (250 posts isn't it?), or would I be better off buying new?
 
I have both cards ;) well a 280 that clocks better than any 285 ive seen, and I would say the overclocked 4890 is as fast, if not faster and £90 less ;)
 
jigger said:
I have both cards ;) well a 280 that clocks better than any 285 ive seen, and I would say the overclocked 4890 is as fast, if not faster and £90 less ;)
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Very bizzarre that, every review I've seen the 285 wins :confused: admitedly it doesn't beat the 4890 at every game (eg Grid), but from what I've read the general concensus is that it is a quicker card than the 4890.

I was under the impression the 4890 was more of a competitor for the 275. There is however no denying that the 4890 is a bit of a bargain at the mo.
 
jigger said:
Well it might seem bizarre, but its true.
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I think you may be looking at the review you posted with some sort of rose tinted spectacles on (or possibly just red tinted ;)) because the GTX 285 clearly beats the overclocked 4890 :confused:

BTW I'm not interested in 1024x768, 1280x1024 or even 1680x1050, hi res gaming is where it's at now and the Nvidia beats the ATi pretty much hands down at 1920x1200.

Furthermore the games that the ATi does win it doesn't do it by much eg. Crysis 1.2fps, Far Cry 2 1.6fps. The biggest win margin for the overclocked 4890 is in Stalker which is renowned for running better on the red teams cards, and even then it's less than 10fps.

So below are the 1920x1200 results which I've handily condensed down into a quick chart for easier reading :)

nvidiaati1.jpg


Best bang for buck card definately goes to the 4890, and if I was in the market for a new card It's definately the one I'd go for. But I'm afraid like I said in my previous post the fastest single GPU card still goes to the GTX 285.
 
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