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Dead 8800GTX - What to replace it with?

Lodger

Lodger

Lodger

Associate
Joined
11 Oct 2007
Posts
6
Hi all,

So last night I fire up COD4 (I'm sooo addicted to that game), join a server and bang - lots of screen corruption, Vista attempts to reset the nVidia driver and fails so I'm presented with a nasty bluescreen of death. Upon reboot the POST screen also shows corruption with garbled text and lines/artifacts all over the screen. A hard reboot later, I'm back into Windows, fire up Left 4 Dead and the same thing.

An analysis of the crash dump shows nothing more than a timeout waiting for the driver to respond to a reset. So I can only assume my card is dead, probably due to overheating with it being the middle of summer.

My CPU is watercooled but I guess the airflow in the case just isn't good enough to extract the amount of heat this card kicks out under load.

So the big question is - What do I replace it with? I bought the GTX for just shy of £300 so it's getting on a bit now. I don't really want to spend that much on a card again but I've not looked at the Gfx Card market for a while so I'm a bit out of touch. I've heard good things about the ATI HD 4870 but I could use some expert advice.


My System:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400 (3.21GHz)
6Gb DDR2
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Thermaltake Kandalf LCS case
Vista 64 Ultimate Edition
 
Just a thought, but is the card still under warranty?
If so send it back and get yourself a working replacement the same standard or better :)
 
It's an XFX 8800 GTX. The vents are nice and clean but the problem still persists. I can't find the warranty card (everything else but), however looking at the XFX site regarding warranties, it looks like a dead end.

I've also just realised that ATI Crossfire is out of the question unless I upgrade my Mobo as it only supports SLI (the clue was in the name!). So I'm stuck with nVidia as I can't afford to replace both.
 
If you want a basic replacement, small but reasonable upgrade the HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 can't really be bettered on price £97.99

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-100-HT

If you were considering SLI, the Asus ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 @ £241.99 would be a good option and require no mobo upgrade.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-174-AS

The HD 4890 would be an intermediate option if you didn't want to spend more than £150.

I'd like to include an Nvidia option, but you will be paying at least £20 more for similar performance.
 
 
Today, I will be mostly gaming at 1680x1050 :D (least until I get a new monitor). In terms of budget, I'm willing to spend up to £250 on a card as long as: It's worth it - I won't have to upgrade for a long while - I'm not going to have any compatibility issues.

I will admit to turning into a bit of a power hungry monster when I get the opportunity to upgrade, so the HD 4870 X2 is looking very tempting at the moment. However after looking at the ATI 4890 & GTX260 specs, the decision isn't getting any easier!

My worries with the 4870 X2 are:

  • My OCZ 720W PSU will hack a hairball if I throw this card at it
  • My now 3 year old M2N32-SLI (nForce 590 chipset) Mobo will have compatibility issues with what is effectively a Crossfire card (please correct me if this is an unjustified concern)
  • It simply won't fit in my case!

My only concerns with the cheaper options are that in a year's time, I'm going to need another upgrade.

I also see that the general concensus is to go with ATI instead of nVidia. I've always been an nVidia fan to be perfectly honest, although thinking back now, this is the third nVidia card that has failed on me. Do the ATI cards have a better track record for reliability or have I just been unlucky with nVidia? I also have a nagging worry about compatibility issues with the ATI cards with my current hardware, or are these completely unfounded?

Whatever card I decide on, I am strongly considering water cooling it as the pump in my case will easily cope with a both a CPU and GPU. Is this feasable? If so, what is the best way of achieving this? Should I put the GPU block before or after my CPU block? If this is a topic for a separate thread, just say and I'll make another post.

I really hate making these decisions so I really appreciate all of your advice!
 
Last edited:
Given the Mobo and PSU you have maybe the HD 4890 or the GTX275 would be the best ones to consider.

I'm sure you can work out which make and version is best for you, just by looking at the clock speed, warrenty and price. :D
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1403&sortby=priceAsc

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1410&sortby=priceAsc

Your mobo is PCI Express 1.1, so I'm not sure (maybe someone here knows) the HD 4870 X2 might be bottlenecked by this?
 
Thanks for all your replies guys. In the end I went for the HD 4890 1Gb. The 4870 X2 seemed like a waste with my current Mobo, since I can't see myself upgrading that until I do a full CPU/MB/RAM upgrade, which won't be for a while!

Thanks again guys, I would've been lost without your expert opinions.
 
If you are sure you have no warrenty then I would take off the heat sink and put some AS5 on
and some new pads for the memory and try it.
Then wait for more price drops when the new cards come out soon.
 
The beauty of the 4870x2 is that all the crossfire is handled on the card itself, meaning the board deosn't need xfire in order to run the card, and in many cases there will be a slight increase in performance over two crossfired 4870s as the overhead required for communication between the two cards is less. If faced with such a circumstance, I would have opted for the 4890 as I have an xfire motherboard and could get two, but for a non xfire board 4870x2 is a beaut
 
I just got the gainward gtx260 and it is exellent for the money and at the res you stated will play all games well but the card you went for is another sound choice so you cant go wrong especially at the price ocuk have these cards at ;).
 
Lodger said:
So last night I fire up COD4 (I'm sooo addicted to that game), join a server and bang - lots of screen corruption, Vista attempts to reset the nVidia driver and fails so I'm presented with a nasty bluescreen of death. Upon reboot the POST screen also shows corruption with garbled text and lines/artifacts all over the screen. A hard reboot later, I'm back into Windows, fire up Left 4 Dead and the same thing.
Click to expand...

Have you seen this: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792

You might be able to fix your card by putting it in the oven. Not sure if its safe but hey, someone did it and it seems to work, many others have tried it. :D
 
xiphrex said:
Have you seen this: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792

You might be able to fix your card by putting it in the oven. Not sure if its safe but hey, someone did it and it seems to work, many others have tried it. :D
Click to expand...

I'm actually considering giving this a go! I guess I've got nothing to lose and if it works then my better half gets a new Gfx card :D I will of course post the results.

Naturally because I'm getting the 4890, I'm itching to upgrade the rest to compliment it! My bank balance however is saying noooooo. I know there will be a bottleneck with my current mobo/cpu but it shouldn't be that bad should it?
 
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