Could I just upgrade my graphics card?

[Ginnyfizz]

Hi everyone, and thanks for being so helpful in the other thread I made about building a new system.

To cut a long story short, my car is on Death Row and this finances dictate that replacing it may take priority over taking out finance to build a new rig. I am therefore asking if you think I could get away with a new graphics card for now. Posting this in general hardware as the current set up as a whole must be considered. But I do have good reason to believe that the very occasional crashing during some (but by no means all) games are related to the card - a red light appears on it at the time of the crash, and I have read a lot of anecdotes suggesting that the ATI 4850's are heat pigs.

My specs for you;-

ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core Processor
Zalman ZM1000-HP Heatpipe Cooled 1000W Modular Power Supply
4 Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB HDD (I think is F1....)
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive
ATI Radeon 4850 X2 1024Mb video card

Like I say, it loves almost all games EXCEPT RE5 and Arcania (The demo) and it hated the beta of FFXIV. Just the odd one.

Could I swap out the video card for a

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5850 iCooler V Turbo 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I see from the reviews that a number of people have replaced graphics cards on systems of a similar vintage as mine with that particular card and it has worked well for them.

Thanks in advance, friends!

 

[kain666]

Hi everyone, and thanks for being so helpful in the other thread I made about building a new system.

To cut a long story short, my car is on Death Row and this finances dictate that replacing it may take priority over taking out finance to build a new rig. I am therefore asking if you think I could get away with a new graphics card for now. Posting this in general hardware as the current set up as a whole must be considered. But I do have good reason to believe that the very occasional crashing during some (but by no means all) games are related to the card - a red light appears on it at the time of the crash, and I have read a lot of anecdotes suggesting that the ATI 4850's are heat pigs.

My specs for you;-

ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core Processor
Zalman ZM1000-HP Heatpipe Cooled 1000W Modular Power Supply
4 Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB HDD (I think is F1....)
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive
ATI Radeon 4850 X2 1024Mb video card

Like I say, it loves almost all games EXCEPT RE5 and Arcania (The demo) and it hated the beta of FFXIV. Just the odd one.

Could I swap out the video card for a

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5850 iCooler V Turbo 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I see from the reviews that a number of people have replaced graphics cards on systems of a similar vintage as mine with that particular card and it has worked well for them.

Thanks in advance, friends!

look at graphic coolers on the occ website

 

[Ginnyfizz]

Now THAT sounds like a plan! A much less expensive solution, thank you!

Here's an example of the contrariwise nature of the beast. I got the EA newsletter with an invitation to the beta of Medal of Honor. And THAT game runs at a whopping frame rate with no reboots. Yet try RE5, Arcania or FFXIV and BANG!

Cooler has got to be worth a try as the card is usually OK and handles a heavily modded Fallout 3 and Oblivion fine.