So I need a new video card...

[Koyasha]

It seems that my venerable old Nvidia 8800 GTS has just given up the ghost, because I have flickering and odd red lines across my screen before it crashes my system giving me an nv...something error I don't really have time to read.

So, I'm going to go get a new video card, but I haven't kept up with the market and what's good and what's cheap, so I'm hoping for a few suggestions before I buy anything.  I heard that there's a new generation of cards coming out sometime soon, so I don't want to spend a lot on this one.  I need something as good or better than my 8800, and not too expensive, though if there happens to be something really good with only a little extra expense, that'd be good.  I like Nvidia cards better than ATI in general.

Anyone got any good recommendations?

[Evil Elvis]

The current nVidia chips are inferior to the ATI chips in every way, and from what I've heard, the next gen nVidia chips is going to be a huge letdown, and not worth the wait.

Get an ATI 5830/5850/5870, depending on your budget.  I'd recommend one made by XFX.

[Goreschach]

Can you wait a couple weeks? The new Nvidia cards should be releasing in that time, and while by all word on the grapevine says they won't be anything special, it does lead to the strong possibility of ATI dropping prices on the 5000 series cards shortly after, as they've currently been selling in most places for a pretty significant markup over MSRP.

And 5850 is probably the best choice for a gamer with a single monitor. I'd recommend going with a brand that has a better cooler installed. The reference one is nice looking, and does a good job cooling, but it's fucking loud.

[Lightstalker]

My Nvidia 9800Gt just gave up last week, I replaced it with a 5850 (28" 1920x1200 primary, 19" as 1280x1024 secondary).  Since I had a Dell the power supply was a paltry 375W, upgrading the video card also required a much larger power supply  (I used a hacksaw on the case and managed to stuff a 600W into the space).

NVidia has recently had trouble with their drivers (killing the cooling and burning out cards - I'm also on Win7 64 bit which appears to be even worse than normal for NVidia), if you can wait for NVidia's next release you might get a better deal on an ATI.  If you are impatient like me just buy it now and get back to using your system.  You don't want another reskinned chipset from NVidia or to risk their bad driver support, something must have gone quite wrong for NVidia to have fallen so far behind.  Their newest flagship card isn't even being compared to the ATI flagship, but the next tier down. 

[Koyasha]

I managed to get a cheap GTS 250 just so I can run the computer again, but I might swap that for the 5850 in a couple weeks if the price comes down on those.  I considered getting one now, but just too expensive and I might have more money in a few weeks.

Thanks for the advice.  Surprised nvidia's cards are doing so bad this time around, since they were doing so well last time I looked into it.

[NiX]

Consistency is not a hallmark of the tech world.

[Fabricated]

I don't know if I can stomach ATi drivers again. They've never been good. Ever.

[Nightblade]

I don't know if I can stomach ATi drivers again. They've never been good. Ever.

What's wrong with them? I've had an Ati4890 for awhile and I've had zero drivers issues. I had concerns grabbing it at first; but at lot of the driver complaints are antiquated at this point.

[BitWarrior]

I don't know if I can stomach ATi drivers again. They've never been good. Ever.

Oh shit, guys, I need some help - I appear to have time traveled back into 1999.

[Fabricated]

I don't know if I can stomach ATi drivers again. They've never been good. Ever.

Oh shit, guys, I need some help - I appear to have time traveled back into 1999.

Try like about 3 years ago. A long time in the tech world, but yeah.

[NiX]

Nerd bitching aside, I've been running my 4850 for a year and a half now without a problem.

[Minvaren]

The only problem with ATI drivers now is the bloated CCC.

Use ATI Tray Tools instead, problem solved.   

[tgr]

Nerd bitching aside, I've been running my 4850 for a year and a half now without a problem.

What happens if you alt-tab in and out of games 3 times in a row?

On my system, that caused bluescreens, without fail, so don't do that unless you've saved whatever you're working on.

[BitWarrior]

Nerd bitching aside, I've been running my 4850 for a year and a half now without a problem.

What happens if you alt-tab in and out of games 3 times in a row?

On my system, that caused bluescreens, without fail, so don't do that unless you've saved whatever you're working on.

Sounds like more of a system or game problem than the video card to me - I've been running ATI cards for years and years (historically because they were formally Canadian owned). Everything from TF2, WoW, Supreme Commander and more alt-tabbed exceedingly well.

This entire ATI-has-bad-drivers myth needs to die - they've been excellent for a very long time now.

[rrazcueta]

As a former console gamer with his first PC... it makes me happy to hear the same bickering bullshit happens over on the PC end.

And by happy i mean

[tgr]

It was an XP install from the ground up, so there should be no issues with residual drivers. Bought and installed the gtx285 and installed it without removing the ati drivers, and it worked just fine, system's hardly ever been more stable. And I went through 6-7 different versions of the ATI driver, and I've never had any problems with any of the nvidia cards I'd had the previous years. The video card was also the only thing I changed.

I had decided to give ATI a test, since they were the underdog, and they were supposed to deliver good performance compared to nVidia's offering, but the end result was that I felt I couldn't trust that the system would stay online and stable for more than 2-3 weeks tops, because it would appear to just suddenly bluescreen for no apparent reason. Figuring out the alt-tab 3 times deal was a relief, since it made the behaviour predictable. Going back to nVidia (without reinstalling the entire OS, or removing the drivers beforehand or whatever it is they say you need to do when changing brands).

Some background info: I never reboot unless I have to. I'll happily have 2-3 months of uptime on my personal gaming box, and the only reason I reboot is to install windows updates. That's it. Anything else means that it is failing and is too unstable. Yes, I'm weird like that.

[NiX]

What happens if you alt-tab in and out of games 3 times in a row?

On my system, that caused bluescreens, without fail, so don't do that unless you've saved whatever you're working on.

Nothing. I alt tab a lot too. Sounds like you might have a memory issue.

[Tebonas]

Your background info explains it all. I always found the memory management of Windows XP doesn't allow for long uptimes. You have the choice between blue screens and the system crawling to a halt if you try.

[tgr]

Your background info explains it all. I always found the memory management of Windows XP doesn't allow for long uptimes. You have the choice between blue screens and the system crawling to a halt if you try.

I could reboot, start a game, alt-tab 3 times, and boom, bluescreen. With nvidia, on the same hardware and OS install, after pulling the ATI out? 30-60 days, rock solid.

If anything, I'd have to say that if it isn't the drivers, then the ATI videocard would have to have physical problem, but I find it odd that it would only happen when I alt-tab 3 times. It was very specifically ALWAYS 3 times.

[BitWarrior]

I could reboot, start a game, alt-tab 3 times, and boom, bluescreen.

Some background info: I never reboot unless I have to. I'll happily have 2-3 months of uptime on my personal gaming box, and the only reason I reboot is to install windows updates. That's it.

Apparently you could, but you didn't.

[tgr]

I could reboot, start a game, alt-tab 3 times, and boom, bluescreen.

Some background info: I never reboot unless I have to. I'll happily have 2-3 months of uptime on my personal gaming box, and the only reason I reboot is to install windows updates. That's it.

Apparently you could, but you didn't.

Which part of that is inconsistent? Bluescreening is not rebooting, that's bluescreening. Rebooting is me telling the machine that it has permission to restart its OS, not it having the audacity to just up and restart itself.

I currently have 42 days 20 hours 19 minutes of uptime. I can.

[Ingmar]

I don't know if I can stomach ATi drivers again. They've never been good. Ever.

Oh shit, guys, I need some help - I appear to have time traveled back into 1999.

Try like about 3 years ago. A long time in the tech world, but yeah.

ATI drivers have been fine for years in general. Also worth noting, Nvidia recently released a set of drivers that fucked up the fan speed settings and melted a bunch of cards. 

I don't think there's really much to pick between the two companies in that sense at this point, its all down to price and technology now.

[Sheepherder]

If anything, I'd have to say that if it isn't the drivers, then the ATI videocard would have to have physical problem, but I find it odd that it would only happen when I alt-tab 3 times. It was very specifically ALWAYS 3 times.

That's not such an odd behavior.  Instability is usually a sign that a component is being overclocked past it's capacity, it's voltage is too low, or it's latency is too low.  When a component begins to fail, it also creates similar symptoms.  Both are a result of a transistor putting out electronic noise after its state flips, which in a system with looser timings or lower clock speeds happens less frequently because the erratic output voltage has more time to stabilize.

The three strike rule may be as simple as a transistor in a cell of memory putting out an increasingly erratic signal with every switch in a short period of time.

[tgr]

That's not such an odd behavior.  Instability is usually a sign that a component is being overclocked past it's capacity, it's voltage is too low, or it's latency is too low.  When a component begins to fail, it also creates similar symptoms.  Both are a result of a transistor putting out electronic noise after its state flips, which in a system with looser timings or lower clock speeds happens less frequently because the erratic output voltage has more time to stabilize.

The three strike rule may be as simple as a transistor in a cell of memory putting out an increasingly erratic signal with every switch in a short period of time.

That's a possibility, but it has to be a very specific problem that is only triggered by switching modes, because nothing untowards happened as long as I didn't do that. I could play the same game for 12+ hours, I could also use the machine for everything else. It was rock solid for 1-2 months at a time as long as I just didn't alt-tab out of games.

That's why I've been more inclined to think it's some sort of driver bug that makes it leak memory or something when changing video modes like I did. I'm not going to buy a new ATI card just to try out your hypothesis, however. I'm not that interested in finding out what it might be.

Actually, I just thought of another possibility. I have 2 monitors, a 30" and a 24". the 30" runs at 2560x1600, the 24" runs at 1920x1200. It might be that the bug is triggered by my abnormal resolution, and that I wouldn't have had that problem if I had limited the 30" to 1920x1200 or something similar. It's hard to say, and I don't feel like testing out this hypothesis either, as I really do not feel like fiddling with the innards of my computer again.

[Kageh]

This entire ATI-has-bad-drivers myth needs to die - they've been excellent for a very long time now.

I own a 5870, bought a couple weeks in advance of the Fermi launch since I witnessed EU prices actually going up instead of down, and thought if Fermi is really good (and I miss 3D Vision), I can still sell used without too much of a loss. I have two monitors attached via DVI. My experience so far:

Powerplay implementation constantly fucks up the second I enable ATI Overdrive in the CCC or use an alternative form of overclocking (MSI Afterburner). Note that I don't need to actually overclock anything, merely enabling/unlocking overclocking functions screws everything up. By "screws up" I mean that the 2d clocks drop to 157/300 and constantly jump around to 400/600 or 400/900 causing unberable flickering and ghosting of either one or both displays. The problem is aggravated in games which somehow cause the card to go 2d from 3d when displaying loading screens or in-game movies (WoW loading screens, BF:BC2 loading screens and custcenes), and can always be reproduced by alt-tabbing from a game to the browser for example.

There are lots of threads on the problem. A few examples:

http://www.overclock.net/ati-drivers-overclocking-software/633195-dual-monitor-flickering-ati-5870-a.html
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=106500
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/283348-33-5870-dual-monitor-screen-tear-flickering

And so on.

Overclocking might not be something widely used, but you'd assume many of the "enthusiast" buyers dabble with that - especially since it is built right into the drivers. As it stands now, using a regular driver feature makes your card unusable on a dual monitor setup (yes, it is *that* bad).

I fixed my problems by custom editing the card bios to the higher clocks and flashing it, but before that I've tried 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3a and none of those fixed the problem. I would have hoped something that severe can be fixed in 3 months.

Other than that, the 5870 is a great card, and the power draw figures are very impressive for the performance. I had an OCed and undervolted GTX280 before this, and the 5870 runs cooler, quieter and way faster. I was expecting something like 10% according to benchmarks, but subjectively it feels like another league. I do miss 3D Vision a lot though  Next week we should have the definitive Fermi benchmarks.

[Kageh]

Heh, talk about coincidences. 10.3 final drivers have been released, and they seem to fix the jumpy clocks problem 

[Minvaren]

I could reboot, start a game, alt-tab 3 times, and boom, bluescreen. With nvidia, on the same hardware and OS install, after pulling the ATI out? 30-60 days, rock solid.

If anything, I'd have to say that if it isn't the drivers, then the ATI videocard would have to have physical problem, but I find it odd that it would only happen when I alt-tab 3 times. It was very specifically ALWAYS 3 times.

To be honest, I did see this around the time I had my...  9800pro AGP, I think?  I was playing CoH at the time, and I remember trying not to need to alt-tab 3 times so I didn't crash.  I didn't have problems once I went to the x1950pro PCIe.  Not sure if it was card, drivers, or interface; but I remember that the last few serious AGP cards had some issues on both sides.