Etheric42
02-18-2012, 10:44 PM
I have a Dell XPS (2x3.2 ghz processor running XP) I bought in 2008 or 2007. My graphics card (an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT) was giving up the ghost. I play a lot of League of Legends and apparently their coding doesn't play well with NVIDIA (according to their forums). My GPU would heat up to 80+ degrees, then I'd start developing artifacts, leading eventually to full system crash. I figured it was getting old and dying (I have cats and I was negligent about cleaning out dust/hair so the fan was probably on its last legs anyway) so I should replace it.
A decade ago I was pretty up-to-date about computer info and how things worked, but along the way I lost track of what things I need to look out for in a piece of hardware. Seeing my graphics card was something like 6 years old, I assumed nearly any off-the-shelf mid-low end card would vastly outperform it. After all, I didn't pay big bucks for the 8800, it is just what came bundled with the machine.
So I pick up an ASUS 6670 for 70 bucks, take it home, slap it in, and it runs LoL perfectly... but it does seem to take a bit longer to load games than it used to. Probably just my imagination.
Then I decide to dust off Shogun 2: Total War. Not only is it unplayable, but I just navigating the menus and start-up take forever and I have not been successful in getting into the video options to turn it down enough to play.
Then when browsing a forum, I see this rather scary remark:"a Radeon HD 6770 is closer to a NVidia 8800-series card.
But if you need a card under $100 try looking for Radeon HD 6750 which is only a little bit slower than 6770."
!!!!
So my card, which is very old, and factory pre-bundled is probably SUPERIOR to the one I picked up off the shelf?
Is that right?
Do I need to take this card back, suck it up, pay an extra 50 bucks (or more) for a card that is EQUIVALENT to my old one?
Surely I'm just imagining things... but if I do need to take this bad boy back to Fry's, what should I pick up in its stead? I'd hate forking over a chunk of change for marginal benefit, especially when I had assumed a marginal bit of cash was going to net me a solid upgrade.
A decade ago I was pretty up-to-date about computer info and how things worked, but along the way I lost track of what things I need to look out for in a piece of hardware. Seeing my graphics card was something like 6 years old, I assumed nearly any off-the-shelf mid-low end card would vastly outperform it. After all, I didn't pay big bucks for the 8800, it is just what came bundled with the machine.
So I pick up an ASUS 6670 for 70 bucks, take it home, slap it in, and it runs LoL perfectly... but it does seem to take a bit longer to load games than it used to. Probably just my imagination.
Then I decide to dust off Shogun 2: Total War. Not only is it unplayable, but I just navigating the menus and start-up take forever and I have not been successful in getting into the video options to turn it down enough to play.
Then when browsing a forum, I see this rather scary remark:"a Radeon HD 6770 is closer to a NVidia 8800-series card.
But if you need a card under $100 try looking for Radeon HD 6750 which is only a little bit slower than 6770."
!!!!
So my card, which is very old, and factory pre-bundled is probably SUPERIOR to the one I picked up off the shelf?
Is that right?
Do I need to take this card back, suck it up, pay an extra 50 bucks (or more) for a card that is EQUIVALENT to my old one?
Surely I'm just imagining things... but if I do need to take this bad boy back to Fry's, what should I pick up in its stead? I'd hate forking over a chunk of change for marginal benefit, especially when I had assumed a marginal bit of cash was going to net me a solid upgrade.