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Okay, so yesterday was zyxst's and my anniversary, and apart from a cute stuffed toy for her collection and a good meal out, we haven't really gotten each other anything yet.

...and her video card is giving signs it's on its last legs - when monitor is turned on first thing in the morning, the monitor maker's logo pops up like usual, but the display flicks on and off a couple of times, and most critically, from time to time the fans on the vidi card will get REALLY LOUD.

She's currently running a GeForce 530 that's probably a couple years old now, and I'm thinking the fact that she is recording, editing and 'publishing' Let's Play videos pretty regularly (four different ones every week) might be putting a little more demand on her system than the usual gamer and forum-denizen.

So the question is: what would be a good replacement video card for this intended purpose; from what I remember of her mobo SLI wouldn't be possible.

Also, she's got an Intel Core i7 2600 at 3.4GHz, and 8Gb of RAM; I don't think either of those are bottlenecking things but would upgrading either help matters?

Anyways, any advice would be appreciated, and thanks in advance for same!

Honestly, I don't know where the 530 falls in the spectrum of cards, but for benchmarking/comparison, I find Tom's Hardware good for seeing how well things compare. Conveniently they just posted their best card for the money list a couple of days ago, so depending on how much money you're willing to spend, they'll let you know which cards will give you the most bang for your buck!

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: March 2013

What would be your budget?

Okay, now I'm starting to worry that there also might be an issue with the monitor itself...

I'm probably thinking $200ish range for the video card, and yeah, she's got a 300W power supply that's been in there for a couple of years, and I'm not averse to upgrading that, too if the vidi upgrade needs it.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net

Thats what I use for a quick comparrison on video cards. The 530 GT is currently the number one for mid range cards, but it's a drop in the bucket of what a 200 dollar card can do.

Your power supply will definitely need to be upgraded if you're looking for a 200 dollar vid card though. Probably 500w is a safe bet.

empath wrote:Okay, now I'm starting to worry that there also might be an issue with the monitor itself...

Not doubting your technical skill or knowhow or anything empath, but as a long time computer fixer, I have to ask: Have you tried switching the monitor's kettle lead?

Not that that'll help with the video card being on its last legs, but monitors tend to be sturdy things until they get dropped

I'd suggest the GTX 660. But however, I'm not entirely convinced the fault is in the video card - it might be in the power supply instead.

Speaking from personal experience, every time my gfx card has died on me I got artifacts all over the screen. Is the gfx card fan getting clogged up with dust?

Edit: Just a thought - I've never seen a gfx card with a variable speed fan. If it gets loud, the bearing might have gone on it or it could be clogged up with dust, making it cool the GPU inefficiently which causes heat damage to the card.

Yeah, I've been worrying it's a shot bearing in the GPU's fan - thus the thing getting really loud, leading to the card damage you mentioned.

Years back, I'd had the same thing with another video card with two fans; it'd got quieter which after some loss in performance, I checked, and only one of the two fans was working - the other was seized up completely - and the label on the casing of the card had been peeling back from the heat.

The power supply may also be at the point of diminishing performance in its life cycle.

And as for the monitor...well, this is x years (as in 'y months' is evenly divisible by 12) for it; I remember getting a flat-screen monitor for myself xmas time one year...and getting one for her anniversary time/tax refund time (late march), and well, my monitor simply stopped turning on back just before THIS XMAS. Hmmm...


Heck, PSU, GPU, monitor...maybe I'm just better off salvaging the RAM and just getting her a new PC altogether?

Could always try to borrow a friends video card to test on your machine. That'll tell you for sure.

Or plug the monitor into the onboard GPU