crapy clawn forums

So my ATI 58xx (i cant remember what, higher than 50) is dieing, and I want to cheaply replace it with something close or better.

Any ideas?

Budget?

I look forward to reanswering this in equal depth two months from now.

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I'm not a girl...er, guy.

Also, what's be better bang for buck, getting an extra HD 6950 so I have two, or replacing with a newer, prettier card?

I'd like to spend under $100, but no more than $150.

I may not do it at all and just call it until I get a new PC.

NVidia GTX 650 and AMD 7770 come in around $125. GT 640 and 7750 are $90-99.

Most current games will be playable with medium detail on either card as long as you keep AA turned off. The 650/7770 will give you about 10-20% higher framerates than the 640 and 7750.

If you have a 5870, neither card is going to perform as well. The 7770 will be about 20% slower. The 5870 was a $250-350 card and the last couple generations of cards haven't boosted performance over the last gen as much as the 5xxx series did.

Two 6950's crossfired would perform better than a single 7950 and cost you less money, but you'd have to buy a used 6950 on eBay since they're no longer available new.

A used 6950 2GB goes for about $190 or less and a 7950 goes for $300 new.

Regardless, I'd probably wait for the 8xxx series to come out. You have a card that performs pretty well for current games and the 8xxx series should be out by summer. If you're ok holding out until then, you can get a new generation of card or maybe a pair of discounted (but brand new) 7xxx cards to crossfire.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 7577-L012B

Thoughts on this card?

Performance will be really similar to a GT 640, and for $70 after rebate that's a great buy. It'll run CS GO and other games with older engines just fine.

I've never owned an MSI card, but they're generally reliable from what I read. I'd go for it, at least as an interim card.

I'd pick up a used 6870 (or just wait) over that. HF has a few, e.g. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1 ... light=6870

You could also try to figure out why your 58xx is going bad and try to fix it if it's something simple like a bad cap/fan

^^ it sounds like he has a bad fan, but is there any way to get a replacement without buying an entire aftermarket cooler and fan?

I personally wouldn't buy a video card used, since there's no warranty. It might work fine for a little while, then suddenly crap out. I'd rather pay a little extra for one I know is reliable.

I've never been overly concerned with warranty on used stuff. Reliability with hardware tends to follow a 'bathtub' curve, so if it's not defective out of the box or soon after, odds are good that it'll last a long while.

If it's just the fan, you can pick up an OEM or aftermarket fan for much less than a newer/slower graphics card.

FWIW, I'm running 2 used 6950's that the PO had flashed to 6970's. Have run them for almost a year with zero problems. A few months back I was unhappy with their daily idle/full load temps, so I took the sinks assembly off them, blew out the fans, and re-applied grease (headlight grease, a lawlerific 50c mod because I couldn't find any of my million tiny bottles of thermal paste). Dropped temps a few degrees, so no complaints.

I've previously been scared of used hardware, but had the same realization heretic had.