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TheKeyboardDemon

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TheKeyboardDemon

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#1  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon
@HitmanAgent47 said:
"

Well if you can find one that cheap, then I guess that's probally your right option. Just remember for gpu's you get what you paid for, don't expect the best, however it's defintely better than your 8800GT. It should be enough for most games.

"

I have always stuck to that mid range point for hardware choices, it's always been trying to balance performance and budget. I have seen a 5830 in action, the 5770 should perform almost as well as this, maybe a few fps difference, but running with max settings on a 22" screen at 1080p I have seen this manage 45 fps, I would expect my mobo and ddr2 ram to knock that down to around 30 or so as the PC I saw it on had the AM3 chipset, ddr3 + a 3.4ghz Phenom cpu. 
 
Need for Speed: World was running at 60fps on my 8800GT (could explain the near meltdown!) so the 5770 should manage that easily. I also play Counter Strike: Source from time to time, my 8800GT would get around 185fps, I'd not have any issues there.
 
Thanks to another thread you posted in, I now know about V-Sync and can check to make sure it is not switched on in games for better frame rates, though my monitor can't run any faster than 72hz it might still help to boost fps if I turn it off where I can. 
 
As for my 8800gt I have removed the heatsink and found that the GPU was covered in thick layers of thermal paste, much more than I thought would be normal, I've cleaned it and then discovered my thermal paste had run out, so will buy some on the way to Uni (evening classes) and put this together tonight. Any recomendations on how much paste I should use? I was always told a small amount no bigger than a grain of rice.
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TheKeyboardDemon

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TheKeyboardDemon

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#3  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

I looked at GTX460s and couldn't find any in my budget, cheapest was £150. I found a 5770 for £85, it's pre-owned but not been used much. Also I'm in UK so prices are different after currency conversion. A new 5770 is around £120 a new GTX 460 is about £160, my budget was under £100.

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TheKeyboardDemon

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#4  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

Would a fan that fills the slot under the graphics card help at all?  
If it does then I might just apply some new thermal paste and put my 8800gt in my daughter's PC so we can have that for LAN games when we have visitors round. I was looking at some Benchmark stats on the 5770 and this scored twice as much as 8800GT on the same test, so I will still stick with the upgrade for my PC and then upgrade another PC with the 8800GT.  
 
@HitmanAgent47:  I think it's a good idea to try and salvage or reuse the card, thanks for the suggestion. If new thermal paste works I might look at getting a new heatsink as a more long term measure.
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TheKeyboardDemon

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#5  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

@GetEveryone: I wasn't planning on an immediate upgrade, I was thinking about a more long term view. 
 
What motherboard do you run?

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#6  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

I was thinking about re-applying thermal paste after reading your first post, I have some TIM Cleaner and Arctic Silver knocking around in my tool box, but thought about it for a while and decided against it. 
 
My approach to PCs is to start with a fairly mid range PC, then upgrade parts to address bottlenecks. My 8800GT was an upgrade as my graphics performance wasn't particularly good, at the time my HP PC (the first PC I've ever bought!) had  an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz (not the best CPU at time I got it) and was adequate for a mid ranger. During this time I also upgraded my 19" monitor to a 23" but I only started having these issues when I got rid of that and built my current PC (specs above). It's only when I had a setup that wanted more from my 2 and a half year old 8800GT that the issues started. I'm guessing it's becuase my previous set up was not as demanding.
 
In my opinion new thermal paste would have been like giving it an extra few months, but all this would do is keep it going for a bit longer and then I'd have to replace it regardless. So I'm going with the school of thought that says, 'If it's dead bury it, don't put it on life support'. It means my next planned upgrade, getting the mobo upto an AM3 chipset and 4gb DDR3 ram will have to wait a bit longer. Then the cycle can repeat, as I'll be back at that point where the mobo will support a better CPU, which might need a stronger GPU, and raid or SSDs or SSDs in a raid configuration. Where will it stop!

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#7  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

Need for Speed: World tried to get things so that players would only go up against players of a similar level, but that's another game that didn't quite get it right. The issue that they have is that a level 11 player can go into a tier 1 race and find he is racing against a level 25 player in a tier 1 car. Though that level 11 player can still beat the level 25 player, the initial thought might be OMG he's level 25 etc... 
 
Though this might not be just the player selection tools it might also be be due to their not being enough players playing enough of the tracks for the level 25 players to find suitable opponents on courses that match their level.

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#8  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

Thanks guys, I have checked with the bank of Mrs Demon and she reluctantly agreed to allow me to spend no more than £100 on dealing with this issue. w00t. Upgrade!!!
 
Radeon ATi 5770 now on order! £50 cheaper than the 5830 for very similar specs so can't complain. It will also be my second ATi card, I've had almost every series of nVidia card since around 1999/2000.
 
Hopefully I'll be able to post back in a few days to say problem solved.

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TheKeyboardDemon

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#9  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon


No, fan noise stays constant. and I checked my motherboard and CPU temps. Mobo was at 24 and the CPU was at 29 degrees centigrade. 
 
 Here are some screen shots I took when the issue flared up while I was posting my original  message. 

No Caption Provided

 

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TheKeyboardDemon

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#10  Edited By TheKeyboardDemon

I started experiencing stability issues today whilst playing Counter Strike: Source (playing in offline mode), the screen froze a couple of times and allowed me to continue and then covered in artifacts, the PC locked up and then I had to restart it.
 
When it restarted Windows reported an nVidia driver issue, so I have uninstalled version 258.xx and restarted. Then I used Driver Cleaner Pro to remove all traces of the old driver before installing the latest version 260.99, and restarted, but the problem still persists.
 
When I go into the drivers control panel and select 'Adjust Image Settings with Preview' the 3d rotating nVidia logo gets corrupted and this leads to by PC crashing.
 
I'm running an AMD Phenom X4 955 (3.2ghz CPU)
Asus M3N78 SE mobo
BFG nVidia 8800GT 512mb + factory overclocked to 675mhz
2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR 2 (800mhz)
Windows 7 Ultimate-N 64 Bit
 
If anyone can suggest a solution, or better still fix or replace it for me(wishful thinking), it would make me so happy. :D