Recommend an affordable replacement for my dying graphics card :)

Make a long story short, my graphics card is slowly reaching the end of its useful life. I'm getting PC crashes and graphic glitches throughout all 3D games.

Before anyone says, yes I've replaced the stock cooler and the heat sink, but sadly it suffered heat damage a few months ago and hasn't been the same since. PC software is up-to-date and been reloaded, so that's not the issue.

Regardless my GPU is old, so I'm looking for a affording replacement for the card, which doesn't involve changing the motherboard in any shape or form. Also I use dual monitors so I need one with two DVI ports on it.

I'm not looking to spend loads, only games I play are GW, Starcraft 2 and EVE Online.

I need a card that will be able to handle GW2 and that's it, most my gaming is Xbox these days.

I'm looking at a £40 - 70 (max) budget, but really the lower the better, should be able to get something decent for less then £50 by this time.

My specs

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System Information
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Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 3072MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3008MB RAM
Page File: 2158MB used, 3853MB available

Motherboard: AUSU P5B: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5B/


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Display Devices
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Card name: Radeon X1950 Pro
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.

Thanks for all advice in advance.

First off there is no decent card in this segment but ATI HD5670 or 6570.
We can't say if gw2 will work on the cards either. I think it's likely but nothing to bet on.

If you are lucky you should be able to find a GTX460 for around £100 which you would be way happier with and it should last you awhile, just to consider.
My advice is to put the extra money.

With my budget I'm likely going to go for the cheaper option, since I'm not looking for perfection, so the ATI HD5670 and ATI HD6570 will both work on my current motherboard?

I believe (if my memory is correct) you should be able to use any of the new radeon xpro series to upgrade (if your current one plays gw....)...I think we upgraded to the 3900 series a while back and can still play---though I still have xp...so I dont know about the os.

I don't really know how high/low prices are in the UK, but I'd side with Draca here and suggest something along the lines of the HD 6570. According to this list, it is slightly more powerful than what you had beforehand. The 5670 packs more power but is probably more expensive too. You're on a tight budget so I guess I don't need to tell you not to expect miracles from cards in this price range, especially in SC2 team games. Do you know of a good UK based website for buying hardware? I could look more into it.

As for the motherboard, it should handle any card fine since you have a PCI Express slot. I'd be more wary of your power supply. Make sure the card you choose will have enough juice to run properly, for example the HD 6570 requires at least a 400W power supply. Same goes for the 5670.

Well, ATI cards are meant for FPS type games. Nvidia cards are meant for your MMO type and such. An Nvidia card will work much better for you than an ATI card. Yeah ATI will work, but Nvidia will give you better results with what you are doing (game wise).

Recently been in the same situation my Nvidia 5600 gt packed in after 4 years of good service.

I saw no reason to go mad when it came to a new card as I would likely replace the machine within the next year or so.

Since my old card had 256 dedicated memory and could draw on system memory to reach 1 gig if needed I decided a moderately priced 1 gig card would more than equal it in performance and I was right.

I bought a Nvidia Geforce GT 220 I was after the 430 which was rated a bit better but it was not to be.
The 430 wasn't in stock and the machine was down till I got a card of some kind.

Roughly £60 for the card and its running the system just fine.
Processor Intel core 2 quad cpu Q6600 2.4
4 Gig Memory
Vista Home premium 32 bit
and I am using a 22 inch monitor at 1920 by 1080 GW is running well and I have everything maxed, ok I turned off post processing because I don't like it.

Any benchmarks to back that up? I haven't seen anything to back that statement up.


to OP: Yes you have a pce-e x16 slots which is the newest so any card will fit on your computer. I still urge you to reconsider the higher cost option is so much faster then in the segment you are asking for.

gtx460 vs hd6570 Other then heat and noise the GTX460 score almost twice as high.

@The Guildless: Yes the segment the op is in is mostly crap cards that is barley better then AMD/Nvidias integrated chips.

A other bit of information is that the Q6600 is still fast enough even with cards like gtx480 even tho you might have to overclock for that to work. I see no reason to change the q6600 just for gaming.

Where do people get crazy ideas like this? ..... Who knows.....


Anyway @OP - Tom's Hardware is a good source for info on what graphics cards are the best value at the moment:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...card,2964.html

And, from the looks of that, you want an AMD based HD5570, HD5670, or HD6670.

Thanks for all your advise everyone, likely I'll go down the gtx460 route if I find a good deal on one. If not I'll get a HD6570. I'm not a hardcore graphics nut and not fussed at it being perfect.

Cheapest 460 is nearly a hundred quid - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-139-OK

There's a 6570 for £56 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-263-SP or a 6670 for £65 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-262-SP

In the end I went for this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...odid=GX-165-OK

OcUK GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM

Reduced to: £79.99 inc VAT as well

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

Where do you get your info from? Complete rubbish, a card is a card. The fact I got an Nvidia card has nothing to do with the above btw.