Video card dead? Wife's going to kill me.

[alaverax]

Hey everyone first time poster but long time creeper. I installed a new PSU yesterday because my old one went out. Now I'm having video card problems, my board hangs on the VGA LED so I'm guessing it's gone bad but I've had trouble with my board too. I fought with it all day and it showed a gray screen twice maybe.

Problem is my wife is not going to be happy about buying a new one she doesn't even want me using a computer. It took a ton of work to get a new PSU out of her. I've only got maybe 100$ to spend plus my 20$ newegg gift card that came with my PSU not sure I can swing much more out of her. I need something to play Skyrim @1650 x 1080 or replace my old card which was a MSI 4890 OC. Any ideas? What I really want is a 7850 or 560 Ti, a married man can dream....

Here's What I've found open box or refurb:
3870x2 1GB for 90$
6850 1Gb for 92$
GTX 550 TI 1GB 101$
7770 1GB for 113$

I don't want a very big downgrade if I can help it and would like an upgrade. I couldn't find any game benchmarks comparing cards out now to mine so i'm just guessing what's close. I'm going to try and get some trouble shooting help over at the ROG Asus forums because I've had some mobo problems but I think the card is dead.

[Bei Fei]

Get the 7770

[mockingbird]

Get the 550Ti... Not as fast as the 7770, but a better product overall.

[Splave]

tell your wife you enjoy playing on the comp and get what you want? doesnt she want you to be happy

[b1lk1]

Get the 550Ti... Not as fast as the 7770, but a better product overall.

You response makes little sense. How can something be an inferior performer yet be a better product?

[alaverax]

tell your wife you enjoy playing on the comp and get what you want? doesnt she want you to be happy

She doesn't care, she really hates computers and inparticular me using them ever.

[mockingbird]

You response makes little sense. How can something be an inferior performer yet be a better product?

Driver-wise... Better TV-OUT, better driver stability, longer term support (7770 is hot stuff now, as soon as the next gen is released AMD will completely ignore it as if it had never existed in the first place). There's a reason why older nVidia hardware has a much better resale value in the long term.

[zanzabar]

the best of those is the 6850 (i assume you made a typo as the 6580 is not a card.) but have you done all of the trouble shooting like removing the graphics card and cycling power and reseating the cpu and resetting the cmos with the cpu out.

Driver-wise... Better TV-OUT, better driver stability, longer term support (7770 is hot stuff now, as soon as the next gen is released AMD will completely ignore it as if it had never existed in the first place). There's a reason why older nVidia hardware has a much better resale value in the long term.

amd has much better TV out with proper overscan settings and native audio over hdmi support. with drivers go and look at the problems with the g80 with newer games is sli they are still there NV only gives some support since it is similar to the g92 that they still sell, and old NV cards hold the same resale value of amd as near nothing.

[CrazyNutz]

I'd go for the 6850.

amd has much better TV out with proper overscan settings and native audio over hdmi support.

NV has had native audio over hdmi on everything since the gt210/220/240 days. Also they work great on every TV I have (four in total from various manufactures)

[mockingbird]

amd has much better TV out with proper overscan settings and native audio over hdmi support.

Not anymore...

with drivers go and look at the problems with the g80 with newer games is sli they are still there NV only gives some support since it is similar to the g92 that they still sell, and old NV cards hold the same resale value of amd as near nothing.

G80 and G92 is history... No G92 parts made it into the old series, and I think the last G9x part was the GTS250 (260 and above were the next gen with the fixed chips)... GTS450 was NOT G9x.

And regarding the resale value, go on eBay and look up the prices of Radeon 38xx/48xx/49xx VS nVidia GTX260/28x... I bought a non-reference XFX 4890 for $20 (The reference 48xx have an inherent design flaw, not to mention the debacle of the 5xxx cards with improperly programmed roms - albeit a fault of cardmakers at the time, not AMD)...

[zanzabar]

when did NV fix HDMI on higher level cards, from what i heard about it they used pass through with the driver and did not have an on card solution like amd did and previously they only did audio from HDMI port.

the g92 was still sold as OEM only into the 5 series mobile and official in the 3xx.

what is this problem with the 48xx, i made sure to get a reference 4890 for the voltera pwm so i could change the voltage and get stable power where the other non reference early on had no voltage changing. do you mean the driver problem with over current protection with what amd called malware, or that the pwm needs proper cooling and some fan profiles were not working properly.

[metachronos]

Maybe you should just divorce your wife. How can she hate computers? Does she realize what year it is?

[PatRaceTin]

wife always horrible

[OCX600RR]

6850 will have the best performance out of all the options.

[Bobsama]

6850 will have the best performance out of all the options.

And a reasonable power consumption to match. HD6850 for its price & performance.

[thebanik]

She doesn't care, she really hates computers and inparticular me using them ever.

Many many of us on XS are married......And I believe most of our wives dont like our passion for computers but still they bear with it, just like we bear a lot of their fancies.....:p

[mockingbird]

when did NV fix HDMI on higher level cards, from what i heard about it they used pass through with the driver and did not have an on card solution like amd did and previously they only did audio from HDMI port.

I'm sure that by now, after they've had many hardware revisions with the new GPUs, they've addressed this.

the g92 was still sold as OEM only into the 5 series mobile and official in the 3xx.

Not true. NONE of the 3xx parts were G9x based. Have a look here and here.

As for the 5xx series, this is for sure not the case... If there are no 3xx or 4xx G9x parts, why would there be G9x 5xx parts?

what is this problem with the 48xx, i made sure to get a reference 4890 for the voltera pwm so i could change the voltage and get stable power where the other non reference early on had no voltage changing. do you mean the driver problem with over current protection with what amd called malware, or that the pwm needs proper cooling and some fan profiles were not working properly.

Yes, ordinarily, reference cards are more desirable, I agree... But the 48xx VRM has a design flaw. Read about the red LED syndrome. Only 2xxx, 3xxx, and 6xxx and above cards are safe. I have an original 2900XT here. It's a thing of beauty, but my non-reference XFX 4890 is much, much faster (Non-reference 48xx are safe, but they will not overclock at all).

[alaverax]

Thanks everyone, I found a comprehensive video card list putting my 4890 just above the 550 Ti. Fathers day is coming, so I think I can swing a 6850 if my 4890 doesn't work after my mobo returns from rma.

[Meaker]

Wow, you need to grow a pair and stand up for yourself more......

My wife would not want me spending hundreds on hardware and to be honest I should not be, but within reason I am free to spend what I want. If that's on computer stuff then so be it. Especially if it was a needed replacement for a broken item.

[CrimInalA]

The best tip i can give is to get another wife . :p