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my graphics died, should i upgrade or not?
Hi, my radeon 9800GT 1giga just died. What kind of card i should put in to replace it? i want something standard in anycase.
I have a intel duo E8400 and a 945GCM from ASRock (i think; not sure of the mobo, got the number from the bios)
And would it be better if i just upgrade the mobo and proc with it or not?
I planned to wait for GW2 to see if i really need an upgrade or not since the comp got upgraded like 2 or 3 years ago. But since the graphic died i don't know what to do now. I'm kind of scared to buy a graphic card to end up having to upgrade the comp in 3 or4 month, i don't think GW2 will need such a good comp though. I can throw in the money need for a standard upgrade if needed.
So
1 a graphic card name
2 upgrade or not, and with what if i should
Thanks
Comments
Just head to Best Buy or something and get a card. It doesnt have to be something so phenominal it glows and has super powers.
Id recommend the ATI Radeon brand. Cards are pretty well made, they're not super expensive, and they're reliable. I just bought a Radeon HD 4670. Went for about 80 bucks. Should run everything I need it too. I'll probably have to upgrade again in 5 years or so, but thats okay.
The card I recently had before the new one conked out due to a faulty fan that just quit. I dont know how to repair a fan attached to a card, so I just bought something new.
Ye thats what i used to do when i lived in a metropol, but now i'm in a very small town lost somewhere in the middle of a sea and have to rely on small retailers that don't always give very good advices and often give very ad, so i double check since i got few bad experiences, like cards that don't fit at all and stuff like that.
Please don't make uninformed posts that could be potentially detrimental to others.
The "945GCM" refers to the chipset utilized on the motherboard, but I'm assuming that you have at least a PCI-e x8 slot available as implied by the use of a 9800gt.
Back to the OP's question - purely intending to upgrade your graphics card, anything in the mid to upper end would likely be bottlenecked by your CPU regardless of the E8400 holding a respected place among legacy hardware.
My suggestion would be to save $700-$800 and build yourself a solid mid-tier gaming system. On that note, buying ANY computer component from Best Buy is a deep bow to rampant markups, whereas the same products with equal and in many cases better support can be acquired more cheaply from newegg.
If you're a bit tight on funding and can't swing a full system, the HD6850 sports an attractive price/performance ratio that would likely cover the level of settings the rest of your system could handle with ease. For a card without consideration to price, the GTX560 ti a marvellous product.
Another path is to attempt to invoke the warranty on your current card. It's worth a try!
Feel free to ask id you happen to have questions.
If you do just upgrade the card, please make sure to check the power requirements and make sure you don't have to upgrade your power supply as well. Many newer cards require additional power. You may already know this, but I'm just tring to help as I've Been down this road..lol
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908
I'd get that. Quite the sweet spot for performance ATM and still very cheap. It'll run whatever you throw at it @ 1680x1050, and quite a few things maxxed @ 1920x1080 (Crysis Warhead, if that's any indication). It actually takes less power at idle (30W) and about 10W more power at 100% load then that 9800, so you won't have to replace your PSU.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
If all you need is a video card to have a working computer again, then it's not so much a matter of "upgrade or not" - it's a matter of how much your able or willing to spend to fix the problem.
You can throw $75 US at a budget low end video card (or a 5-year old crappy card from Best Buy), and probably end up nearly where you started with your 9800. But when GW2 comes out, you may be disappointed, and if you decide to upgrade the rest of your computer, the video will be total junk and need to be upgraded (again).
On the flip side of that coin, you could spend $500+ US and have a kick ass GTX580 and throw in there, and have a working computer again. And when GW2 comes out, still possibly be disappointed - because you have a really nice graphics card but the rest of the computer is now holding you back.
I think - if I were in your predicament, I would go ahead and upgrade to something that will likely run GW2 well, probably be bottlenecked by your current system, but scale well with any future upgrades that you may decide to do if GW2 does end up needing them. Something along the lines of an nVidia GTX550 or an ATI 6870 ~should~ run GW2 acceptably provided they aren't bottlenecked too badly, and should work well with your current system (not requiring a new motherboard/CPU or power supply, as they use about the same amount of power (or less) than your 9800 did). That gets your computer up and running now with faster graphics than you had before - and likely will play GW2 well - but should you need to upgrade the rest of the computer is still a very viable and useable piece of hardware to go with your upgrades.
It's as if no one read my post. >.>
While your post holds some truth in regards of going out to Best Buy and throwing money away, it's still just another suggestion for the OP to consider. Yeah, he'll be bottlenecked, but currently he has nothing. Saving up doesn't seem like much of a choice despite how wise it would be under normal circumstances.
If anything, he could upgrade to a higher LGA 775 CPU as well later to further extend the life of his computer.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
How about that part where I put forth the exact same Idea that your post contained. Also, being too heavily invested in an older motherboard usually nets longer periods of lower performance. That option may be viable if LGA 775 were last gen, or even second to last, but at this point it's more feasible to move forward considering the E8400 is almost the pinnacle of 775 performance.
OP, if you're still here, please post your PSU specs as everyone else has been talking about.
Easy there, tiger. I was talking about your idea to save up money for a newer computer when that's really not an option (as shown in "Saving up doesn't seem like much of a choice despite how wise it would be under normal circumstances". Replacing the motherboard and CPU would require new RAM and then you're already looking at another large sum of money on top of the graphics card.
Idle and Load for the 6850 are almost the exact same as the GTX 9800 (with a 10W higher 100% load and 30W lower idle), so his PSU is irrevelant.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
Hence why I offered up multiple courses of action. Yeah my rhetoric is probably abrassive atm, I'm tired. The reason I asked for the PSU specs is in the event he did want to upgrade completely, the PSU is often a salvageable piece of equipment capable of transcending multiple computers.
Grab a mrdium level graphic card (eg.: ATI 6700 family) and use our money for next gen graphgic card : they'd be much better than actual (28nm technology!)
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
The 6700 series is merely a rebranded 5700 series, which is unfortunate. The 6850 is a mere $25 more, for an average of 33% better performance.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
Ye the psu is a ms-pro 550 atx P4, and i know its a bad psu, but its still working (one of those bad advise i listened naivly). I woudn't be surprised if someone tell me the graphic card fried because of it. I wouldn't mind replacing it either, i'm pretty sure its the weakest part in my build now.
Well...assuming it's fully functional, 550w is plenty for your current rig and also sufficient for your rig + a new card. When you build a new rig, however, it's advisable that you upgrade to a more reputable PSU.
Your first problem is that your card doesn't exist. There is a Radeon 9800 XT and a GeForce 9800 GT. You probably have the latter, as the former didn't come with 1 GB of video memory. If you did have a Radeon 9800 XT, then getting eight years out of it before it dies is pretty good.
"Just head to Best Buy"
No, no, no. Best Buy might not carry a single card that is a decent value for the money. And if there is, then you probably won't be able to find it.
"Id recommend the ATI Radeon brand."
You buy a particular card, not a brand name.
"Cards are pretty well made"
Different board partners have different designs, some of higher quality than others.
"they're not super expensive"
Depends on which card you get. A Radeon HD 6990 is super expensive. But you shouldn't get that.
"I just bought a Radeon HD 4670. Went for about 80 bucks."
Ouch. When my dad built a computer a while back, he got a Radeon HD 4670 for $45 after rebate. It was so cheap because it was basically a clearance price on an obsolete card. And that was way back in 2009. You paid nearly double that in 2011?
"Ye thats what i used to do when i lived in a metropol, but now i'm in a very small town lost somewhere in the middle of a sea and have to rely on small retailers"
That's what e-tailers are for. If UPS will ship to your house, then you can probably get a good deal buying a card online. Where, roughly, do you live? Your profile says Croatia. Are there any e-tailers there? Find one and I could probably find a card there that is a good value for the money.
"I woudn't be surprised if someone tell me the graphic card fried because of it."
It's hard to track down the precise reasons why a part died, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a bad power supply contributed to it. I'd need to see what is available to replace it to recommend something else, though.
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My advice would be, get a reasonably nice video card and power supply now. Plan on keeping those two parts when you replace the rest of the computer eventually. Maybe you'll get another year or two out of it. A Core 2 Duo E8400 is a little dated by now, but it's not woefully obsolete to the degree that it absolutely must be replaced immediately.
As for where to buy, it would be good if you could give a link to a web site that you can buy from. Even if I can't read most of the text, I know enough brand names and model numbers to pick something out, and numbers are probably the same, so I can see relative prices.
First thank you all for your responses.
And yes i can go with a graphic card and a power supply, that would be good to wait for a later upgrade. As said i didn't planned to upgrade, and yes i think one more year was what i was planning. I don't know how much the config will handle GW2, i will see then.
Here is the links from a internet web page; hte price are around this here, first are the graphic cards, second are the psu
http://www.ve-mil.hr/Cjenik.aspx#Grp2_Simbol=grafkart&c=000000
http://www.ve-mil.hr/Cjenik.aspx#Grp2_Simbol=napajanja&c=000000
I could probably give 2000 kuna top to give a price range for both. 1$ = 5.2 kuna.
yes if you can you should replace the mobo also
you can get good quad core or 6 core from amd for relativly inexpensive
ifg you cange mobo get a 69xx something dont go lower if you go 6xxx serie if you go lower just get a 5xxx on the cheap.will do has good and be probably cheaper (if you buy online and seek bargins)
in my experience, if you can upgrade you should upgrade. Quizzical seems to have a good grip on things so only one more thing.
i would add that buying a card that is only one model away from the latest and greatest is a good option for a number of reasons. 1. its typically cheaper and 2. the drivers and bugs that sometimes accompany a card have been hammered out and 3. if they havent been its easy to find out whether the card is actually crap or not and finally, 4. the performance is probably not going to be terribly far from the most recent model.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Your processor and mobo are getting old. They are a big bottleneck in terms of performance. I would upgrade those as well. i5 2500k processor and P67 mobo should do it with GTX 570 or equal card. However, 600 series from Nvidia will be out soonish as well.
You should be able to play GW2 quite comfortably with the mentioned system.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
I hope there are some large taxes mixed in with those prices, because otherwise, they're charging you a fortune.
For a video card, if you've got a case that can handle it, I'd probably go with the "MSI N460GTX OC, 1GB DDR5 256-bit, DVI, HDMI" for 1225. From MSI's web site, the only card they have that fits that description has their "Cyclone" cooler, which is decently nice. More importantly, it's a real GTX 460, and not a 768 MB or SE version.
If your case is kind of marginal, I'd try this instead:
http://www.ve-mil.hr/opis.aspx?prikaziTemplate=0&Sifra=1014559
That's a little more expensive for about the same performance. But it will use less power than the GTX 460, and probably send some of its heat right out the back of the case.
If you're using a low monitor resolution (say, 1680x1050 or lower) and would rather bring your budget down some, then you could try the "Sapphire Radeon HD6770, 512MB GDDR5, HDMI, DVI, DP" for 839. The 512 MB of video memory will be fine at lower monitor resolutions, but a problem if you want to run games at 1920x1080 or higher. The card will also be quite a bit faster than your old 9800 GT.
For power supplies, I don't like their selection too well. While they've got a lot of Corsair power supplies, they're mostly older and discontinued models. I'm not familiar with aMaze, Spire, or Inter-Tech, but judging from prices, I'd say to stay away from those brands.
The Corsair VX550 was excellent when it launched, but that was four years ago. It's still pretty good, though:
http://www.ve-mil.hr/opis.aspx?prikaziTemplate=0&Sifra=1012108
If you want a modular power supply, you could try the OCZ ModXStream Pro 600 W for a little cheaper than the Corsair VX550. It's not as good, but it's decent enough, and it is modular. Corsair's CX series is functional for people on an extremely tight budget, but was very short lived, as it wasn't very good. The CX V2 series fixes some deficiencies in the CX series, but that site only has the older CX series. The CX series also uses inflated wattage claims, so you'd probably want the 600 W model if you grab something out of the CX line.
If you can find another e-tailer or two, I'd be interested in comparing prices, as it's quite possible that another site would have vastly better deals. In the US, for example, if you only find Best Buy's site, then you'll end up vastly overpaying as compared to what you could find on New Egg, Tiger Direct, or Amazon. Or in the case of Amazon, what is on the site, but that you can't necessarily find, as their search function is horrible. There might not be that much competition in Croatia, though.
Ah, but those can be upgraded completely separately from the video card. If the video card is what needs to be replaced today, then he could get a new video card today, and replace everything else at some other time. If he decides that he needs to replace the processor in a year, then there will probably be some much better options available then. I'd somewhat expect to see Ivy Bridge quad cores and two module Bulldozer processors for fairly cheap by then.
Guild Wars 1 was extremely light on processor usage. On my current desktop, while running Guild Wars, the processor declares itself idle and clocks down. This doesn't hurt performance at all; the game is just that light on processor usage. Guild Wars 1 also runs pretty well at max settings on my netbook, with only 40% of his processor performance. If ArenaNet is as good about easing up on processor usage in the Guild Wars 2 engine as Guild Wars 1, then GW2 will likely run smoothly at max settings on his 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, if he's got a video card that can handle max settings. A card like the Radeon HD 6770, Radeon HD 6850, or GeForce GTX 460 will probably be able to run Guild Wars 2 smoothly at high settings, and possibly but not necessarily at max settings.
Don't talk about taxes please, first they charge 22% on all products, and second i got double charged because most of my revenues come from a country and i live in an other, and even though they have so called agreement to not double charge taxes, they still manage to do it perfectly well and legally without any hope for me to avoid it (they both use different taxe systems that don't overlap). So i have to give 45% of my revenues only from the 2 main taxes to feed up governments, i don't want to imagine how much ends up in their pockets if i had to add them all
Here is an other web dealer that should be better (and im' not very regarding price wise i have a flexible budget):
graphics : http://www.optimum-online.hr/kategorije.9fcec93794554dc5a8e40747daf498fc.graficke-kartice.aspx
psu : http://www.optimum-online.hr/kategorije.1a0926560d6a4580bd0abe34c847c177.napajanja.aspx
The second site you linked definitely has better prices. For a power supply, I'd try this:
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.2a93ce2f18574ad586b3fecc23e1e1fd.napajanje-sea-sonic-s12ii-520bronze-ss-520gb-520w.aspx
Pretty good quality, and plenty of wattage for anything you might get unless you have a vastly larger budget than you're letting on.
If you feel some dire need for higher wattage, then this is pretty good:
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.c1855efb4ae548849f8258683a4f9b35.napajanje-corsair-tx650-v2-650w.aspx
That's a rebranded Seasonic power supply that Seasonic doesn't sell under its own name. If you're desperately trying to save money on a power supply, this will work:
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.3367bc70b58241c0bd8cc7039463ca15.napajanje-corsair-cx600-v2-600w.aspx
In spite of the "600 W" rating, that won't offer any more wattage than the Seasonic S12II 520 W that I linked above. They're both 40 A on the +12 V rail.
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For a video card, how about if I just post a bunch of options that are a relatively good value for the money, and let you pick what you want from there?
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.20649c8be7454b8b80f9544969e811c9.vga-xfx-pci-e-radeontm-hd-6770-1024-mb-ddr5-mhdmi-2xdvi-hd-677x-zhlc.aspx
That's a Radeon HD 6770, which is perhaps 50% faster than the card you had. The cooler on it doesn't look terribly effective, though.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.1a47df173d144cd687af3ed5bab3ecca.vga-sapphire-pci-e-radeon-hd-6770-1gb-ddr5-vapor-x-11189-01-20g.aspx
That's also a Radeon HD 6770, and it's more expensive, but it's a much better cooling system that will keep the GPU pretty cool even under heavy loads.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.67019feb2c8e48818c8dca1eefebe91a.vga-xfx-pci-e-radeontm-hd-5830-1024-mb-ddr5-hdmi-2xdvi-dp-hd-583x-zafc.aspx
A Radeon HD 5830 is long since discontinued, and basically on clearance now. It's still a decently modern card, and it supports DirectX 11. It's substantially faster than a Radeon HD 6770, but it uses a lot more power.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.b8c70079a1924304a78b57d3451b14d0.vga-msi-pci-e-n460gtx-m2d1gd5-oc-1gb-ddr5.aspx
That's a pretty good value on a GeForce GTX 460 1 GB.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.0840a6044a494fae81a7e2b784be8014.vga-xfx-pci-e-radeontm-hd-6850-1024mb-ddr5-dp-hdmi-2xdvi-hd-685x-znfc.aspx
A Radeon HD 6850 will perform about the same as a GeForce GTX 460, and a little better than a Radeon HD 5830. The 6850 will use less power than the GTX 460.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.04c63d19121b412d99a77dbd65019bd7.vga-xfx-pci-e-radeontm-hd-6870-1024mb-ddr5-dp-hdmi-2xdvi-hd-687a-znfc.aspx
A Radeon HD 6870 is the next steup up in performance. It's external exhaust, so the card will work even if you don't have a ton of case airflow.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.d341f49c335a4b3ca40d2925061b82c1.vga-gainward-pci-e-geforce-gtx560-ti-ddr5-1gb-384bit.aspx
A GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the next step up in performance after that. I don't particularly trust Gainward cooling system or build quality, though. Gainward used to make AMD cards, but AMD didn't like their build quality and refused to sell them more GPU chips.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.a1bd6360379d479c93c6dd4940404cec.vga-xfx-pci-e-radeontm-hd-6950-1024-mb-ddr5-2xdp-hdmi-2xdvi-hd-695x-znfc.aspx
A Radeon HD 6950 is comparable to a GeForce GTX 560 Ti, or perhaps a little better. That particular SKU gets quite a few negative reviews on New Egg for some reason, so I'd make sure you have plenty of case airflow if you want it.
http://www.optimum-online.hr/detalji_proizvoda.630384a627ef45ca9395158bfd4306e1.vga-msi-pci-e-n560gtx-ti-twin-frozr-ii-1gb-ddr5.aspx
That's another GeForce GTX 560 Ti, so it should perform about the same as the previous two cards. MSI's Twin Frozr coolers are really nice, though, so you don't have to worry about the card overheating.
To give you some idea of the performance spread, a GeForce GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD 6950 will get you about double the graphical performance of a Radeon HD 6770.
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Do you know what case you have? And more to the point, how much airflow your case has? Something that is safe to put in a case with four 120 mm fans isn't necessarily safe in a case with only a single 80 mm fan for airflow.
Thanks for all the links. I think i'll go with the last link, the msi 560gtx ti, and the Corsair tx650 v2, 650w just so i don't have to change it soon, 520w seam a bit short.
Air flow? i have no idea, there is no fan especially on the box, just the fans from the components, and the graphic card is the only one taking place in the cards slots, if it mean anything. I just know it is a superpower "esprit" case i baught in my second last config, that mean around 4 year ago, i think its a minitower.