Argh, dont you hate fried graphics cards

[meaty-btz]

Toasted mine, hard to tell if its a memory failure or something more chipset related.

The artifacts lend me to feel I lost some memory, but the inabillity for it to function at certain resolutions leads me to believe I lost the something in the controler.. driver is failing on load but at least I can run in safe mode haha.... bleh

Either way, so what are people into when it comes to GFX cards these days? I don't really pay attention to consumer level cards unles I have to, Pro cards, sure. But I don't run Pro cards in my home machine. I do not have 500 to 1K to drop on a card.

Card is an older Nvidia 9600GS, its been enough for a few years. Had hoped to get more time out of it. I am not exactly in a positive monitary position at the moment.

[Hige]

Well, your choices are simple you can get one of the new Nvdia 450/ 460 or opt out for Ati's 4850/6850 both are really good choices and they are about 100-250 dollar price range, hope that helps. As far as manufacturer I'd stick with EVGA for nvdia and Diamond for ATI.

[JDay]

The GTX 460 is a very good card, they can be had for $150 and up. I have one and it has no problem playing most games at 1920x1080 with the graphics quality turned all the way up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121390

[meaty-btz]

Well, pulled out the ole card and it was BFG tech OC 9600GT. I recalled the lifetime warranty so I go looking for a number to call for warranty service and lo and be hold, BFG is out of buisness! DOH! Headed over to work where I remembered I had a scrapped computer that was headed for the junkheap. Dug through it and salvaged a DELL PCI-E 9300GE, bleh. Hey, it works. Also, I don't have to buy a new card till I get some $$$. At least I am working again.

I heard some problems with the new Nvidia Cards and certain OGL drawing functions. That of course is of great concern to me because I utilize OGL often (Photoshop PS1 uses OGL acceleration, and Maya, LW, Blender all also use it for screen-draw and refresh).

I honestly don't game much. I play L4D/2 when bored and in the need for some mindless gore and violence, and CIV-V when I want to take over the world. Rest of the time I am programming or doing art.

[JDay]

I heard some problems with the new Nvidia Cards and certain OGL drawing functions. That of course is of great concern to me because I utilize OGL often (Photoshop PS1 uses OGL acceleration, and Maya, LW, Blender all also use it for screen-draw and refresh).

I have no issues with my GTX 460 and Photoshop CS5.

[MikeH1]

Mine was easy to diagnose, the actual fan blade with motor windings was sitting on the bottom of the case. Fried GPU maybe?

[UltraLNW]

460 is being axed and replaced with 560. Apparently a very nice card.