Video card advice

[Tortilla]

My main gaming rig developed a new and annoying habit over the weekend. It reboots itself after about 30 minutes of game playing. It seems stable in non gaming situations so I immediately suspected the video card. Taking a peek inside the system revealed that the fan on my Ti4200 was not turning. Now I'm unexpectedly in the market for a new video card.

Since this isn't my regularly scheduled upgrade cycle I'm hoping to avoid buying the newest and greatest thing. I had planned to wait a year and get a cutting edge PCI Express card as part of a full PC replacement. I'm just looking for a decent deal on a good gaming 3D card to last me ~ 12-18 months.

A quick search through newegg showed some decent deals on a GeForce Ti4800 for about $150. For $175 I can get a 9600 Pro or GeForce FX5600. I'm leaning towards the Ti4800 as it seems like the best price/performance match. Are the extra $25 for the 9600 Pro or FX5600 going to get me any noticeable improvements? Any other models I should be eyeing?

[Alan Dunkin]

I'd stick with the 4800 for now, that's not bad. I don't think there'd be any substantial improvements/detriments either way.

--- Alan

[John Reynolds]

I'd spend the extra $25 and get the 9600. It supports DX9, has substantially better anti-aliasing (if you care about that), and its shader performance is quite superior to that of the GF FX boards.

[awdougherty]

or you could just replace your 4200 for about 80$ to tide you over until the next upgrade cycle. My understanding is that the 4200 doesn't perform all that differently than the mid range newer cards, just better AA performance and direct x 9 support (do any games take advantage of this yet?)

[Lunch of Kong]

Or you can spend $5 and replace the fan. There might not be any permanent damage.

[Tortilla]

Or you can spend $5 and replace the fan. There might not be any permanent damage.

I'm betting on permanent damage. When I realized the fan was out and I couldn't play games I freaked out badly. After some gibbering and raving, I calmed down enough to panic. Then I went madly scrounging through my old PC collection for a suitable fan. The annoying thing about the fan on my Ti4200 is that it is one with the heat sink. They are built together and not seperable on my board. Not able to face a weekend without internet access (Time Warner Cable sucks . . . long story) and without PC games I decided to apply a creative "fix" to the board.

I attached another fan of the same diameter on top of the dead fan/heatsink combo. My attachment method was not pretty but the jury rigged setup did initially alleviate the problem. I went from 30 minutes of gaming to 3 hours of gaming before things whacked out. Over the course of the weekend that 3 hour time frame kept degrading. Now I'm back down to about 30 minutes before I need to give the system a cooling off break. The piggybacked fan is still working fine so the card has apparently been injured more and is less resistant to heat. I know I'm treating my card very badly and it's going to die the final death soon if I keep treating it this way. Since I plan to keep treating it this way, I'd better order a replacement ASAP :)

[XPav]

My Ti4200 roasted itself eventually. Heat will cause longterm damage.

I bought a Tyan Radeon 9600 Pro.

[Lunch of Kong]

My Ti4200 roasted itself eventually. Heat will cause longterm damage.


I gave my ti4200 to a friend, and the fan died, but his crash was catastrophic. All of a sudden his kid screamed "daddy, whats wrong with the screen"? BF1942 had turned into a bunch of blocky blobs.

So, maybe Kraaze has a few more days before that happens.