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New Gfx card

Lambster

Lambster

Lambster

Associate
Joined
23 Apr 2011
Posts
14
Hi all,

I'm looking for some help with buying a new Gfx card :)

I bought this PC bundle:
"Titan Goliath" Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz @ 3.40GHz Quad Core DDR3 System" - ATI HD 5850 card currently
from OC in Feb last year, and the ATI card inside has been having serious problems for about the last 3-4 months :/ I've tried all sorts of things to work out the issue (but tbh I am not in any way an IT expert, so am shooting in the dark really..). It seems to be a heat issue though, and frankly the puny fan on the card itself seems pretty weeny, and the card feels hot. If I take the side of the machine, turn the gfx fan up to 70% AND the internal PC fans to max then it starts to stabilize, but otherwise the screen constantly flickers / goes black/white/pink etc which forces me to manually switch off..

Anyway, I've simply had enough now, I can't play any games, since as soon as it hits 40 degrees the above happens.. And having the fan at 70% is ear bashingly loud! :\

So, I am thinking of giving in and buying a new card, I really don't want to go with ATI again, every other NVidia card I've had has never died like this so am wanting to go that way, I have about £300 to spend (but would prefer less if poss) and am after a decent-ish framerate in games like WoW, Civ/various newish PC games (although I don't play any FPS so that could maybe be taken into account).

Any recommendations would be great :D

Thanks guys, Lambster
 
If you're convinced it's a heat issue, you might be better dealing with that - otherwise a new card is likely to also have the same problem. Consider a replacement (quieter as well as more effective!) GPU cooler, or have a think whether the case is lacking in ventilation and thus should be replaced?

Definitely be cheaper to do either or even both the above, and if your gaming is along the lines of WoW and Civilization, I can't imagine you'd come even close to pushing a 5850's limits!
 
Because of the two games you listed (WOW and Civ V, both vram whores), I recommend the following nVidia cards if you hate AMD that much:

GTX 560 Ti 2GB
GTX 480

However I'd still choose AMD HD6950 2GB (best bang for the buck).
 
eddiew said:
If you're convinced it's a heat issue, you might be better dealing with that - otherwise a new card is likely to also have the same problem. Consider a replacement (quieter as well as more effective!) GPU cooler, or have a think whether the case is lacking in ventilation and thus should be replaced?

Definitely be cheaper to do either or even both the above, and if your gaming is along the lines of WoW and Civilization, I can't imagine you'd come even close to pushing a 5850's limits!
Click to expand...

Hi Eddie,

When I say it's a heat issue, I think that the card itself cannot cope with any heat above about 36-38 degrees, which was absolutely fine for almost a year. I've checked the other components inside the machine and they all seem to be being cooled fine, so think perhaps the card must be damaged perhaps...? Is that possible?

I wouldn't have a clue where to start with adding / updating fans and cooling systems myself, so I would need to get someone else to do that.. Hmm!

Cheers everyone for comments so far :)
 
well. cooling improvments towards graphic card area (expansion cards) if fairly easy.use a exhauset fan on the side near where u feel the most heat. and a intake on the front.

if this is how you are allready configured then i would come to believe the card is somehow starting to fail.

the games you listed wold segest RTS games. thus meaning n-vidia is pretty much a solid choice.

i advice the same nvida cards as previously mentioned.

a failing card does seam unlikely to happen this early and at such low temps. unfortently i cant think of anything else it could be. please do allow someone else to agree befor listning to the failing card thought.
 
Hi Stretched :)

The machine was built by OC and came with 2 quite decent internal fans and the HD / SSD all seems to stay a nice cool 28-32 degrees when I do checks. It just seems to be the Gfx card which gets hotter, and this is on 0% 'activity' according to the ATI 'Catalyst Control Centre.' As I say, as soon as the card temp goes above 36/38 degrees, the screen starts flickering, games crash/flicker or more often now, the screen just goes black/white/pink and I'm unable to do anything but switch off. I agree it seems really soon for the card to fail though, a more IT focused friend has said it's entirely possible though, he came and looked at the PC and couldn't seem to find any other hardware issues (and said the usual 'try re-installing window's' and see if it helps..). Not sure how it would help... Hmm, I really don't want to spend needlessly but am loath to pay a 'fix-it' shop to look and end up paying even more..!
 
right. well your cooling for such a think is more then appropiate. seams like the only problem where im looking at things. if you can. if posible you should use another GFX that is known to work perfectly fine. this should just conferm this and then thats half the problem out the way.

look on the bright side. you gain some experiance in the war of man vs consumer PC :)

i assume your warranty has ran out witch is never a nice thing.
 
@ Stretched,

Yes there was only a 1 year warranty on the PC bundle from OC, although I notice that if you buy the parts separately then you seem to get a longer warranty on the Gfx cards.

I don't have another Gfx card to use for testing, which definitely makes sense to do.. I will ask around some friends and see if anyone can help out :)

Thanks for the advice, mucho appreciated!
 
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