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Need advice on buying a graphics card

Notorious Lee

Notorious Lee

Notorious Lee

Associate
Joined
1 Jan 2007
Posts
355
Good afternoon,

I have recently just had a problem with my desktop PC which i built a few years back now.

The other day when i switched it on i got 1 short & 3 long beeps which indicated i had a graphics card problem so today i re-seated the card & everything was looking good & booting up until smoke started coming from it & a high pitch screech. After observing the card it looked like one of the chips had blown because it is black & burnt.

So i am in a predicament as i need to verify whether it was actually a faulty graphics card or is my motherboard causing the graphics card to blow. So i don't want to spend a fortune on a graphics card if it's my motherboard causing the problem.

If i do buy a new graphics card i would be after purchasing a decent card so my question is would i be able to use the latest nVidia 590 graphics card in the Asus P5Q Deluxe motherboard which has 6GB DDR2 RAM & an intel Quad Core Processor QX6700 or would i be wasting my money?

The graphics card i have (or had) is the GTX8800.

Thanks.
Lee.
 
Hi there,

Unfortunately the only way to test if the motherboard is at fault is to either test it with a new graphics card or RMA the board. However, a visual inspection of the motherboard would be a good idea - to see if any apparent component failures spring out to you.

That said, if you are running a well used 8800GTX then it is probably more likely that it is the card, not the board at fault.

As for a new card, first thing - I would not suggest going for a GTX 590 - they are not good cards and are known to cook themselves. Instead go for on of the single-GPU Nvidia cards from the GTX 500 series or one of the AMD 6000 series.

As for whether your system is up to a new graphics card - assuming the board is working OK, then the P5Q Dlx has a PCIE v2.0 x16 slot - so fully compatible with any modern high-end graphics card. May I ask what make and model number PSU you are running? - as you will definitely need to check this is up to running one of the power hungry new graphics cards. Finally, the QX6700 CPU is still pretty decent - but in many games it will be your performance bottleneck if you go for a new high-end card. As a result I wouldn't suggest going for anything much faster/more expensive than a £250 GTX 570 or HD 6970, even if you overclock your CPU to the max.
 
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Thanks very much for your advice.

I am using a Corsair PSU but i cannot remember the power rating without checking. It's at least 600 watt.

That's my worry if i buy a new graphics card then my motherboard blows it up because it's a faulty board.
 
It's a tough one, in terms of average framerates - two middle range cards (like a HD 6850) in crossfire will usually beat a top-end single-gpu card (like a HD 6970).

However, usually the minimum framerates of the the single, faster card will be higher - resulting in a smoother gaming experience (even though the average framerate is lower). Also, microstuttering can be a problem (see here). Also, if you are running at high resolutions or using high-res textures then 1GB of video RAM may not be enough. Since using multiple cards in crossfire does not mean the VRAM of the cards is added up (so 2 x 6850 1GB cards in CF means you still have a total VRAM of 1GB, not 2GB), so getting a card with 2GB for the GPU (like the 6970 or 6950 2GB) would be beneficial in these circumstances. Finally, for Crossfire to give you a good performance increase over a single card, you usually need to wait for optimised drivers to be created and released.

Therefore, on balance, I would suggest buying the fastest single-GPU card you can (under £250) and any extra money you want to spend on your PC - put towards a mobo/cpu/RAM upgrade.
 
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