Starting to get artifacting related probably to overheating. I took it appart thanks to an extra small screw set I borrowed, but the obstruction is inside metal it looks like, short of dipping the whole thing in acid or replacing the cooling unit I don't know what do do. and since I was contemplating putting together a budget system anyway might as well start now.

 

Is anyone current on graphics cards. 2gb, good performance v price ratio is what I'm looking for.

Not sure what you have, but assuming it's not worth replacing the cooler - though reassembling it with new thermal paste is a possibility.

 

 

State of the graphics card market, in gaming terms, is pretty simple at the moment:

The minimum I'd recommend = 7850

Best value = 7950

A little bit more = 670 or 7970

 

 

There have been no announcements of any meaningful upcoming products so these recommendations will hold for a while yet.

Edited January 29, 201313 yr by Humanoid

It's some kind of special edition HD card. It's got tons of heat conductive metal tubes sticking out of it. Hard to fit it  in the case. A shame, because it was really silent the first year I had it.

 

Theres no harm in experimenting a little on it I suppose. Might learn a bit about what to do when the next one becomes clogged.

So you are looking for a new silent Card with 2GB of GDDRx memory and a ton of heatpibes as a replacement for what exactly and at what Price range? Hard to fit, is it a small case or just a very big Card?

I'm looking at the Asus HD 7950 right now. It's got 3 gb texture ram, which is not really needed but I do like the cooler. It tested best under full load (sound wise) of any of the series, takes up a manly 3 pci slots and has reportedly broken clean off due to its weight. A makeshift support of some kind shouldn't be too hard to fashion though. 

 

 

 

 I only need to cram a sound card in at the bottom. Should be alright. 

Toms Hardware got a test of HD 7950 which verifies that it is indeed a quiet clunky one.