After several years of great service my nVidea 7900gs is dying. Games have quickly become unplayable due, I assume to VRAM failure. Causing artifacts such as these (link below) and several stuck pixels.
I am running a Intel E5200 with a small OC and 4GB Ram all on an ASUS P5QL Pro. I am only using a 1028x720 tft so don’t push resolution but like higher textures and AA.
I have around £100 ($150) to play with so as an nVidea fanboy I my first thought is the nVidea GTS 250. It may just be a re branded, slightly tweaked 9800 GTX but it will give me a good but not dramatic performance boost and get me gaming again with the added DX10 capabilities.
Or should I do the unthinkable; jump ship and pick up an ATI HD4850 or If I can find a good deal a 4870?
Well, what power supply do you have? That would be one thing to consider with a video card upgrade, as those are a major power draw besides the CPU.
Personally, I like nVidia’s drivers over ATi/AMD as far as use goes, but the Radeon HD’s are quite competitive. However, at 1024x768, I would just look at what’s cheaper, because you’re not going to get to a stage where either one is going to make a major difference. Double that resolution, then differences will show, but not at what you use now.
[QUOTE=“jgolby, post: 152324”]
The PSU is an ASUS 360W that come as standard with the ASUS TA210 chassis. So low power consumption is a plus.
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Uh, 15A on the +12V is really, really low, not to mention it coming with the case…yeah, that’s something you really should think about replacing if you want to avoid other problems down the road. In all reality, something with 30A on the +12V rail would be a very good idea to have. As a rule of thumb, if the power supply comes with the case, it’s likely junk. It sounds like a bargin, but really, it’s not and can come back to bite you. You don’t need an 800W unit, but something in the 500-600W range will be plenty and should be fairly easy to come across around the $100 USD mark. Look for Corsair, Seasonic, Thermaltake, or Antec.
