Damn video card crapped out

[DREDIOCK]

Umm. Guys. I just need to know what would be a better card then the 8800GT

Worst comes to worst I'll eventually redo the entire system around the video card

[titanic3]

Umm. Guys. I just need to know what would be a better card then the 8800GT

Worst comes to worst I'll eventually redo the entire system around the video card

Well what's your budget? The GTX 690 is the fastest GPU out there but it's $1000. 

[DREDIOCK]

I want somethign that doesnt break the bank. Say between $125 anf $150 or so.
Preferably EVGA so I dont have to change drivers

[Chalenge]

Well what's your budget? The GTX 690 are the fastest GPUs out there but it's $1000. 

Fixed but not actually true. Two GTX 680s are faster with the same number of GPUs.

[titanic3]

I want somethign that doesnt break the bank. Say between $125 anf $150 or so.
Preferably EVGA so I dont have to change drivers

A GTX 650Ti, or Radeon 7770. Both are $120-140. If you want EVGA, go with the 650Ti. Oh, and you can look around on Amazon or eBay if you're feeling risky for used cards, I bought a used 6870 for only $110. Original price was $190. 

Fixed but not actually true. Two GTX 680s are faster with the same number of GPUs.

Well, single slot GPU(s?). There's photos of a quad GTX 690 setup. Which is....insane to say the least.

EDIT: Found it.  

[BaldEagl]

Drediock, as you know your and my systems are very close to one another and it actually looks as though you listened closely to my recomendations at the time of your build (just after mine).

My question to you is this; did you ever take the cover off your video card to give it a good cleaning?

I'm just curious as my old 8800 GTS is still running great but it did have the advantage of the dual slot heat exhaust.  I've had mine apart twice in about five years and the first time the heatsink was caked in dust.

BTW my PCP&C 750 (same timeframe) died and I replaced it with an 850W modular Corsair.

As to your question, if I'm remembering things right, I'd go with a 560ti or 660ti at this point, stock clock then OC it through NTune if you want to.

[DREDIOCK]

Drediock, as you know your and my systems are very close to one another and it actually looks as though you listened closely to my recomendations at the time of your build (just after mine).

My question to you is this; did you ever take the cover off your video card to give it a good cleaning?

I'm just curious as my old 8800 GTS is still running great but it did have the advantage of the dual slot heat exhaust.  I've had mine apart twice in about five years and the first time the heatsink was caked in dust.

BTW my PCP&C 750 (same timeframe) died and I replaced it with an 850W modular Corsair.

As to your question, if I'm remembering things right, I'd go with a 560ti or 660ti at this point, stock clock then OC it through NTune if you want to.

Actually I take a shop vac to the entire thing a few times a year. Never had the cover off  of the card untill I just popped it out. It had some stuff on there. But wasnt caked.

[Skuzzy]

LOL.
This is the system I built 4 years ago when PCP&C was still a good brand

Sorry, I misread.  Thought that was a list of things to buy. I was in "build" mode.

[Skuzzy]

AH is extremely reliant on CPU. Check out my thread and how I figured it out.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?topic=341708.0

If you had played other games, ones that utilizes theGPU to its max potential, you would've seen a much better FPS.

I upgraded from a Radeon 5570 to a 6870 (slightly slower than a 7870), and my FPS in AH did not improve at all. My FPS in other games (Battlefield 3, Rise of Flight, Crysis/Crysis 2, etc etc) did, from 20-30FPS on low at lowered resolution to 60FPS on max settings at 1080p.

I had a Core2Duo E7500 as well. I then went to a Q9550 @2.83Ghz. My FPS in AH jumped. I could set every detail on and still have 30+ FPS in conjunction with my 6870 (but in a remote area with only 1 or 2 planes around). However, I prefer to have a solid 60fps through out (even in big 30+ players areas), so I lowered the unnecessary details.

TLDR: AH is 75% CPU 25% GPU. Upgrading your GPU isn't going to do much. However, if you play other games, then it is a very well spent investment and a 7870 is a very good card.

This contains a lot of bad information.  Not sure where to start.  The testing methods was flawed.  Just FYI.

If you update a video card (actually going to a faster card) and do not see an improvement in the frame rates, it is due to the cards resources being consumed or the CPU being the gating factor.  Yes, changing the CPU will also help as good flight simulators do demand more from the CPU than those other games you mentioned.

In any game, if you are CPU bound, a better video card is not going to help.
In any game, if you are video card bound, a better CPU is not going to help.

Matching the right CPU to the right video will deliver a balanced system.  Flight sims require more CPU than other games, so you want more CPU to start with.

Aces High can resource starve any video card on the market, at the moment.

[titanic3]

This contains a lot of bad information.  Not sure where to start.  The testing methods was flawed.  Just FYI.

If you update a video card (actually going to a faster card) and do not see an improvement in the frame rates, it is due to the cards resources being consumed or the CPU being the gating factor.  Yes, changing the CPU will also help as good flight simulators do demand more from the CPU than those other games you mentioned.

In any game, if you are CPU bound, a better video card is not going to help.
In any game, if you are video card bound, a better CPU is not going to help.

Matching the right CPU to the right video will deliver a balanced system.  Flight sims require more CPU than other games, so you want more CPU to start with.

Aces High can resource starve any video card on the market, at the moment.

How come MSI Afterburner only showed 70% usage when I turned on 8192 shadows? Turning it down to 4096 drops the usage to 30-40%. This was the only thing affecting my GPU usage. Even the environmental slider changed practically nothing. If AH could starve any GPU, what settings does it? Antialiasing aside and at 1920x1080 resolution.

As for AH demanding more CPU than other games...running BF3 even on low pushes my CPU (Q9550) to near 80-85C (I don't play it long so I don't worry about it). Running AH, temps are around 60-70.

[Skuzzy]

How come MSI Afterburner only showed 70% usage when I turned on 8192 shadows? Turning it down to 4096 drops the usage to 30-40%. This was the only thing affecting my GPU usage. Even the environmental slider changed practically nothing. If AH could starve any GPU, what settings does it? Antialiasing aside and at 1920x1080 resolution.

As for AH demanding more CPU than other games...running BF3 even on low pushes my CPU (Q9550) to near 80-85C (I don't play it long so I don't worry about it). Running AH, temps are around 60-70.

How the hardware is apportioned to handle the requested resources is not in control of the game, or any application.  It is in control of the driver.  The resource load is portioned out, into system RAM, as the driver see fits.

The tool you are using is never going to be able to tell what the actual resources a game is asking for.  Only the game developer will have access to the real demand the application is asking for.

According to your information, computers with Intel video chips should run the game no different than an ATI 7990 as long as you have a fast enough CPU.  Good luck with that.

In a perfect computer system, all the hardware would be under equal loads with no one piece of hardware waiting on the other piece.  Does Aces High benefit from a fast CPU?  Absolutely.  Does it benefit from a high end video card?  Absolutely.  The trick is to marry the two items in a way where both are running as fast as they can, all the time.

If your video card is the bottleneck, the CPU will not be under as high a load as it could be.  If the CPU is a bottleneck, the video card will not be under as high of a load as it could be.  If the video card is forced to use the CPU for resources, then everything gets out of balance, quickly and the system will basically stumble around with nothing running at its highest potential.

[AAJagerX]

Dred, I run a system that's very similar to what you have (Corsair 700w PSU, and 4Gb DDR3 though).  I've got an XFX ATi 6870, and I've found it to be a pretty decent pairing to the e8400.  I run most of the eye candy (no shadows on others), a little bit of A.A., and usually hold a solid 60 fps in almost all situations.  Even in a large furball, I only see drops of <5 fps.