Graphics card dead?

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Graphics card post-RMA options

Basically, as I plugged another fan in and launched the computer, it loaded for a moment and then reset. After that, it wouldn't beep and activate the monitor, although I could hear some other stuff activating. So I took an old GFX card and it worked. Looks like my new 7600GT is dead.

Now, question is, does something like this mean the card is most likely dead or do cards actually get up from this kind of problems? I know motherboards can charge up too much and then uncharge over a couple of days (this happens a lot in the summer), but don't know about graphics cards.

Also, what do you think about AGP 7900GS from nvidia or the Radeon 2K series? The Radeon 2K series looks like crap - 64 bit RAM bus, DDR 2 memory etc, but it seems to have very good results in games for whatever reason, despite such crappy architecture. Anyway, any suggestions? Can't afford switching over to PCI, btw.

 

chevalier, I am running a 7900 GS on my Dell and have had "almost" no trouble. I am running two monitors, a dig. Dell and a CRT. I did have a little trouble with NWN trying to run the latest downloaded driver from nvidia but the problem went away as soon as I reloaded the driver that came with my card. NWN 2 also had some problems also cured with the supplied driver reloaded. NWN 2 has some slow points witch I blame on older cpu but does run reasonably well and I play it often. remember this card has 256m memory NOT 512.

Forgot to add I am running XP not Vista.

[ October 09, 2007, 01:31: Message edited by: Old One ]

 

You mean PCI express. not PCI I presume.

The new Nvidia dx10 cards are not available in AGP.
Some Ati dx10 cards are. You like to game, so a slow ati AGP dx10 card is no option.

But to go for a 7900, sounds good if the price is right and you can find one. A new 7950gt cost around 210 euro, a 7600 gt 120.

The ati AGP hd2600xt needs an extra 6 pins powercable. Does your power supply unit have one? It not, the Ati is not an option and you are forced to a dx9 card. More than good enough. However if you have a new psu with the 6 block 119 euro, nice.

Perhaps an ati x1950pro for 139 euro. Better than your old 7600gt but less than the 7900gs but cheaper. 135.

It all depends on the money issue. What do you want to spend for a new card?

Me, I would buy the card that I had and save for a Pci express 2.0 mainboard as a base for a new pc.

Lastly there is such a thing as videocard scaling. Basicly it means that a high end graphics card is slowed down if the rest of the hardware like the cpu or the memory is not high end. If your old card was the max for your system, a high end card will works only a little better.

Sorry for asking more questions than giving answers.

 

Yeah, surely PCI-E. The old PCI would be no upgrade after all.

I suspected the new ATI series for AGP was crap. I mean, it's probably good for making an old PC into a media centre for the family, but that's about it. And sure, it'll handle modern games better than a GeForce FX or a slow series 6, or an old Radeon. Chances are the cards will show more power once DX10 games are out and there's stuff that GF Series 7 or Radeon 1950 series won't be able to handle.

My current plan is to wait and see what happens with my 7600GT. Since I'm looking for a job ATM, it's probably all the better for me that the GFX card is in repairs. And I already play just NWN2 and Warcraft 3 (Looking forward to 1) Mask of the Betrayer, 2) The Witcher, contemplating 3) playing NWN1 modules of renown, 4) getting a car racing game), which is going to take a further hit once I have the job because I'll probably need to slave away 10+ hours a day to get promoted... See the point? No sense upgrading the computer unless the pay is really good, so I can get the most out of the short time I have for playing games.

If the card dies I might even stay with the FX5900XT until I get a new computer, if I do. But if they offer replacement, I might be tempted to ask them to give me something newer/higher instead (like 1950pro) for a little extra.

 

In case anyone's interested, the card is being serviced, which is taking a while, but it means it was neither deemed my fault (improper use) nor replaced as dead, so it looks like it wasn't anything lethal.

 

The problem is the supply of cards. They told me, when my 9800 died, that there were no more replacement cards, so I got an cash offer. I think that a partial refund is the best you will get. I hope they still have a few.

 

Ha. The card was dead. They actually sent back an 8600GT instead of my 7600, but alas, it was a PCI-E version. The guy who sold the card to me gave them some good yelling and we're now waiting for what they will send him. Since 7600GT's seem to be out, I'm hoping for some 7800GS since 7900GS would probably be too good a bargain.

It's sort of good I don't have the new card yet, since I can focus on work and stuff.

 

Almost hit the jackpot. I found a 7900 gs still for sale.

 

So today I phoned the guy before going there and it looks like he didn't take the card with him today - his employee packed a Radeon x1650pro and a Radeon 2600pro, saying the customer would surely prefer that, remembering I sort of wanted a better card.

The problem is, x1650pro is definitely not a better card than 7600GT. No bloody way. It's older tech, older soft and performs worse in tests. In short, worse on all levels unless I'm missing something. But I don't think I am - I made a modesty check and checked it out once again, but nope. It's both worse and cheaper as well, so guess what I thought.

As for 2600pro, the problem is that it looks like the definition of a cheap Taiwan card and it's also cheaper than my 7600GT. It does seem to beat 7600GT in some tests, but I'm not sure. Here's a link where you can compare the technical parameters, as well as some test results:

http://gph.benchmark.pl/

Select "English" from the menu where it says "polski" and there you go.

The architecture of the 2600pro looks way crappier than 7600GT's, but it does have newer shaders, full DX10 and some other stuff, as well as 20% performance gain in 3DMark05 (little so in 3DMark06, curiously).

My other option is paying 210 PLN (that's 84 USD or 60 EURO, but dollar has fallen here) for a Radeon x1950pro replacement, which is IMHO more than the real difference between 7600GT and x1950Ppro.

Or I can simply get a 7600GT back. Getting 7800GS is non-option because he doesn't have it and with his rates, I suppose it wouldn't be worth the difference.

What would you suggest?

 

the test looks like it is done whit pci express, not agp.

If the rest of you pc is descent, the 1950 is a high end card. If it it is to old. the 7600 first, the 2600 second.

So it comes down to your current pc. Is it good enough for the 1950? If so, the 1950.

 

PIV 2.6c (Northwood), 512M/800MHz
1 GB DDR1/400MHz (Dual Channel)

HDD and DVD are ATA (100 and 33). The PSU is a 350W Codegen, which might not be enough for x1950, I'm afraid.

 

Put your money in your piggybank, take the 7600. I do not think that you have the 6 pin to feed the 2600 in AGP. If not possible, adapters for 4 pin standard molex to 6 pin are for sale.

 

I don't have the 6 pin, but 7600GT already required the 6 pin and included a 4-to-6 adapter, which I still have, so I could use it.

What I worry about is that my rig already hampered down the 7600GT a bit, which means I was getting 3DMark scores of 11700 where I'd get over 13000 with a newer CPU etc. I imagine the loss of performance with x1950pro would be greater, plus imagine the effect of double the power consumption on my PSU.

It's basically a Codegen PSU at nominal 350W feeding the following:

PIVc 2.6 MHz/512M/800 MHz
Abit IS7-E mobo with two sticks of 512 MB DDR1/400 MHz
A WD1200JB or whatever the name of the HDD - an ATA 100 drive that performs at 133 level thanks to something in the architecture
Some old LG DVD drive
One 92*92 fan, preferably also one 80*80 fan
SB Live!
Onboard LAN, onboard additional USB
Keyboard and mouse wireless with an adapter

Not so horribly much, but I'm afraid the 40W difference between 7600GT and x1950pro could make a difference. I'm not sure, but it's possible the first 7600GT died because of plugging in one device too much.

I've asked the guy to look around for a Radeon 2600XT - the XT version has DDR3 and a huge advantage over 7600GT in 3DMark05, as well as still a big one in 3DMark06, and it's just marginally better in 3DMark03, meaning it can take old games too (2600pro has 20% advantage over 7600GT in 3DMark05, a slight one in 3DMark06 and a huge disadvantage in 3DMark03). So, it looks like the 2600XT is indeed more powerful than 7600GT, as well as having at least checklist support of DX10, newer shaders, higher OpenGL. The price is practically the same as that of 7600GT. So if the guy wants just a couple of bucks for the swap, I'll give him because the card seems to have some future. It also outputs 45W compared to 7600GT's 38W and the big 66 of x1950pro.

 

I have an hd2600xt gddr4. Sapphire is the best ati card brand and has a xt in agp. refresh the catalyst drivers often, or go for the omega drivers. Those are made by an enthousiast. the dx10 drivers are still not top notch, but whitout vista no problem for you.

Memory is at an all time low in price. 49 euro for a 1 gig kit 2x512. Stil much, but it helps.

 

From what I've read for the last couple of hours, X1950Pro is better than HD 2XXX series AGP, atleast in gaming. Didn't look so much into video editing etc.
Should have atleast 30A continuous on a +12V rail.(I'm pissed that I didn't read about this before I ordered my Sapphire X1950Pro, My PSU is only zalman 400w 18A +12rail.)
and the biggest bottleneck seems to be cpu in most cases, people reporting about 1/3 FPS drops since upgrading to X1950Pro . Cpu is hampering the GPU.
Cpu should be atleast 3.0GHz, pref. dualcore. Something about Cpu being busy with just one core to calculate something and not calculating enough data to GPU? Or that is atleast what I gathered.

NOTE! This is my impression and how I understood what I've read.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks! It did help a lot since I was wondering about x1950pro, you know, close to getting it. I'd like the card, but yeah, 350W and a 2.6c Northwood, that's not up to my current 7600GT. I think I'll skip this expense and put the cash towards the new computer, at least mentally. I'd take a 2600XT, though, since it's faster and takes just several Watts more power.

 

Finally, yeah, I've taken the 2600XT. Wonder if I'm going to regret this. However, I had to pay 20 USD, not 60.

 

Finally. Have fun. remeber ati ofton comes out whit new drivers, at this moment about every month. At the moment catalyst 7.11. The omega drivers are, as far as I know now, XP only.

 

The problem with this new card, the HD2600XT is that while it beats GeForce to fast performance in games, it generally starts lagging behind the more options you turn on. Since I play in small resolutions (1024*768 until I buy a new monitor - probably still CRT because I don't like LCDs, seriously), this doesn't probably affect me as much. The colours on the screen seem to be a bit better.

Additionally, since my brother's computer's PSU didn't have the 4-pin plug for PIV motherboards, I went to the compy bazaar today and got a used (several months) 480W PSU for 12 euro. It's a little bit above noname level (ColorsIT), it probably handles around 400W in reality. It comes with a big low-rotation 12cm fan, which might be nice. And it has SATA power connectors already without adapters, so some advantage over my old unit. Perhaps I'll buy this computer a SATA drive before I give it to someone or use it for something else than main computer.