And now's the part where you suggest me a new GPU! YAAY!

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I think my graphics card (GeForce 6600) is losing its heatsink or something, because when I use graphics-heavy applications (aka games) the whole damn comp locks up hard, requiring me to frob the power strip button; hooray for on/off button functions implemented as a SOFTWARE function! The thing is also screaming hot to the touch as well even at idle.

I'm going to update my drivers to rule that problem out, but I suspect that won't fix it. I really wish nVidia would make it easier to monitor temperatures. I also disabled automatic-reboot in order to try to get whatever error code the BSOD spits out so I can Google the bastard.

EDIT: Title edited to reflect changed operating requirements

[Darth Nostril]

Definitely sounds like overheating, check whether all the fans in your system are working.
Simply remove the side cover when it's idling and see if all the fans are spinning, especially the one on your graphics card if it's getting that hot.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Definitely sounds like overheating, check whether all the fans in your system are working.
Simply remove the side cover when it's idling and see if all the fans are spinning, especially the one on your graphics card if it's getting that hot.

I think the bearing on the thing's gone Kaputchka. Solution: buy a new gfx card, I guess.

[Darth Nostril]

Unless the card itself is totally fried you could hunt round for a replacement fan, doesn't even need to be the exact same fan, you can frankenstein it on with Blu-Tak, superglue or cable ties.
Doesn't look pretty but it works.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think my graphics card (GeForce 6600) is losing its heatsink or something, because when I use graphics-heavy applications (aka games) the whole damn comp locks up hard, requiring me to frob the power strip button; hooray for on/off button functions implemented as a SOFTWARE function! The thing is also screaming hot to the touch as well even at idle.

I'm going to update my drivers to rule that problem out, but I suspect that won't fix it. I really wish nVidia would make it easier to monitor temperatures. I also disabled automatic-reboot in order to try to get whatever error code the BSOD spits out so I can Google the bastard.

Does your card have a shroud around its onboard fan? In my card, the spaces between the cooling vanes inside the fan housing surrounding the fan were packed full of dust and I recently spent a good 10 minutes cleaning the thing out, removing all that infernal dust. After that, all problems went away, random lockups and heat alarms.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I think my graphics card (GeForce 6600) is losing its heatsink or something, because when I use graphics-heavy applications (aka games) the whole damn comp locks up hard, requiring me to frob the power strip button; hooray for on/off button functions implemented as a SOFTWARE function! The thing is also screaming hot to the touch as well even at idle.

I'm going to update my drivers to rule that problem out, but I suspect that won't fix it. I really wish nVidia would make it easier to monitor temperatures. I also disabled automatic-reboot in order to try to get whatever error code the BSOD spits out so I can Google the bastard.

Does your card have a shroud around its onboard fan? In my card, the spaces between the cooling vanes inside the fan housing surrounding the fan were packed full of dust and I recently spent a good 10 minutes cleaning the thing out, removing all that infernal dust. After that, all problems went away, random lockups and heat alarms.

Probly gonna try that before I boot the POS in the morning. I live with a smoker, so I bet 90% of it is tobacco tar. In the meantime I've effected Objective Interim Field Expedient Kludge: Point Fan At Exposed Innards of Das Computermaschine. It appears the screwups have been screwed back down for now.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

And I cleaned the damn thing. Two notables: I think dust bunnies are one of the most insulating substances known to man, and I NEED A NEW FUCKING FAN FOR THE CARD (which will probably devolve to 'I need a new card' because i don't feel like hunting around for a fucking fan). The stupid little shit has given up all pretense of trying to spin!

[Ace Pace]

Over the chat you gave a budget of around $75. In that price range, ebay might net you an old 7800GT or something, but I can find a MSI R4650 with 512MB of wasted RAM, or an MSI N95GT, with the same useless amount of RAM.
From the benchs I can see on Anandtech, this should provide quality preformance (re: high settings without AA) at anything below 1600x1200[1]. Since you're in the $75 price range, I'm guessing you don't have a 20 inch and up monitor, so these reccomendations should be good.

Before buying, wait for reccomendations based on American posters. I do not neccesarily know how to get the best deals, or where the best prices are. Someone might find a 7800GT at a low price, an HD4670 at those prices, anything

[1] This does not include Crysis, Ass Creed or any 2008 games

Also, this is about the 4670, which preforms roughly (my estimates) 10% better than the 4650 I mentioned.

The 3850 trails behind sometimes, but the 3870 generally maintains a performance lead. You can now find 3870 starting at around $100 (GeForce 9600 GT also falls into this category), and we'd rather spend the extra bit of cash and get added performance. (Ed: Updated to reflect current prices.) The value is still lower at a lower price than other hardware that's more expensive. We pointed out this problem in our recent 9500 GT review as well: spending less money gets you disproportionately less performance. It's similar to how we see diminishing returns for increased spending at the very high end.

The 4670 doesn't change the game enough to say that spending more money isn't worth it, but the 4670 does lead at its price point and is good enough for anyone with a 1280x1024 monitor to have a good experience. We even see some advantages that would allow us to enable 4xAA at these low resolutions and enjoy playable performance. This card isn't going to change the world, but it fits a niche. Throw in the lower power requirements and smaller form factor and you have a great card for moderate gaming.

Unlike the 9500 GT, this card isn't an epic fail at its price point. We would still like more (we always do), but what we've got isn't bad. This is hardware based on a new architecture (meaning it has all the latest features and bug fixes like working AA hardware), unlike NVIDIA's competitive offerings. We can play most of the games we tested at 1280x1024 (a very cheap very widely used panel size) with high quality settings and some of them do well with 4xAA enabled as well.

So this (almost) rounds out a top to bottom RV7xx lineup from AMD - we're still waiting on one more part. The hardware does outperform the competition at the same price point (though that isn't saying much), and we even get playable performance at 1280x1024 (a key target resolution for budget systems). If you want gaming performance first, however, you will still need a more powerful GPU - we'd recommend spending a little bit more like the HD 3870, 9600 GT, or 8800 GT, and if you can swing it the HD 4850 and 9800 GTX+ offer excellent performance at the $180 price point. On the other hand, the 4670 works great as a Jack of all trades.

In light of all that, what's the verdict? If you just can't spend that extra ~$20, this is absolutely the card to buy right now. This might be the 4850 or 4870 of the sub $100 market, but the problem is that the sub $100 market still doesn't provide the kind of gaming performance we would like to see compared to the rest of the market. It's easy to argue that people pay a premium for the best performance out there, but it just doesn't make sense on the lower end. For the people who need a card that fits this niche and price point, the 4670 is the card to pick up unless there's a great sale or rebate offered on a higher performing part. With lower prices, small fluctuations can really stir things up. But the 4670 gets our nod when it comes to current street prices and AMD's suggested pricing.

As you can see, if you save up, you can get serious improvements (20 bucks, 20% pref boost) and other such things. Wait and see.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

One thing to consider is whether you're on PCI-E or AGP, as 6600 GT was made in both slots IIRC. Is the slot you plug your card into blue or brown colored?

[Ace Pace]

One thing to consider is whether you're on PCI-E or AGP, as 6600 GT was made in both slots IIRC. Is the slot you plug your card into blue or brown colored?

Einy said it's PCI-E over the chat.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

One thing to consider is whether you're on PCI-E or AGP, as 6600 GT was made in both slots IIRC. Is the slot you plug your card into blue or brown colored?

Einy said it's PCI-E over the chat.

Ayup. PCI-E.

One thing to consider is whether you're on PCI-E or AGP, as 6600 GT was made in both slots IIRC. Is the slot you plug your card into blue or brown colored?

Brown like ya mama's starfish so yeah, PCI-E.

[Beowulf]

AGP was typically brown, and PCI-E is typically blue or black.

[Ace Pace]

If you have a modern nVidia driver, one that includes the nVIdia control panel, you can check the lower left corner, System Information, and see what sort of bus it is.
The same information should be in the older drivers, I just can't recall how to get at it.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

If you have a modern nVidia driver, one that includes the nVIdia control panel, you can check the lower left corner, System Information, and see what sort of bus it is.
The same information should be in the older drivers, I just can't recall how to get at it.

Says Bus: PCI Express x16.

[Seggybop]

What's your CPU / RAM / etc? budget?
It's absurd to make recommendations without knowing the details of your system.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

What's your CPU / RAM / etc? budget?
It's absurd to make recommendations without knowing the details of your system.

Athlon64 3700+ S939 (need upgrade!)|1GB PC3200|$75 +/-20

[Seggybop]

That CPU is truly sad by current standards. I used to have an Athlon 64 @ 2.2ghz, which IIRC is the same speed as the 3700+. I had an ATI X1950PRO as my video card with that, and it seemed to be working happily enough. It was only after I sold the card to a friend who installed it with a C2D that I realized how horribly the card had been bottlenecked by the CPU-- fps were 2x, 3x higher on average.

I recommend something like a Radeon 2600, which depending on the memory speed are around the performance of that X1950 I used to have. Here's one for $20 AR (better deals are available if you look around). This card is also really slow, but nevertheless it will still be bottlenecked by your CPU. Use your remaining $55 to see if you can find a used 939 X2 CPU, which would be very beneficial.

[FSTargetDrone]

And I cleaned the damn thing. Two notables: I think dust bunnies are one of the most insulating substances known to man, and I NEED A NEW FUCKING FAN FOR THE CARD (which will probably devolve to 'I need a new card' because i don't feel like hunting around for a fucking fan). The stupid little shit has given up all pretense of trying to spin!

Well, it's moot now since you are now looking for a new card, but dust is just insidious. I use an air compressor with an empty airbrush to blow the dust out and then a vacuum to suck out the rest. It's nothing but a pain. I used to keep the tower on the (carpeted) floor, because it uses up so much acreage, but after a recent move I've resorted to keeping it on my work table, just to try and cut down on the dust and cleanings.

[Ma Deuce]

This is exactly how my old Ti4200 card died: GPU fan seized due to dust buildup and by the time I discovered the source of the problem, it was too late. My PIII 1GHZ CPU almost died the same way; the computer slowed to a crawl, and then wouldn't even boot. As soon as I figured the fan has seized, I remove the fan and the heat sink, and the processor itself was so hot, it actually burned my hand. At that point I was sure it was finished, but after letting it cool off, I installed it with a spare fan, and it worked just fine, and it's still going strong right now.

[Crayz9000]

Athlon64 3700+ S939 (need upgrade!)|1GB PC3200|$75 +/-20

Need upgrade? Ya think?

I'm running my old Athlon XP 2200+ with 768 MB RAM and a PCI GeForce 5600... I can play Unreal Tournament (the original) at an ungodly framerate even with all textures and effects (under Linux, even) but any newer games, or even a Quake 3 engine game with all the effects turned up lags down to about 10-20 fps.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I don't know if I agree that a CPU upgrade is so terribly imperative. 3700+ is a 2.4 GHz CPU, which isn't bad, and most games still don't benefit that much from dual-core even in this day and age. I went from the exact same CPU to a Core 2 Duo and the difference wasn't nearly as dramatic as I thought it would be. Just get a 9600 GT or something. I'm sure they're no more than $90 these days, and they're amazing GPU's.

[Chardok]

What say you all about the HD 2400 Pro?

[Seggybop]

A 2400pro is only worthwhile if you can get it for $10. It was never really meant for playing games, more for video decoding. The 2600 is about 2.5x as fast.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Keep in mind that at least 90% of my heavy-duty video processing will have everything to do with games of the FPS variety and scant to do with anything else.

And yes, dust is THE MORTAL ENEMY! Hatesesssss it!!