Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

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jztemple2
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Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

Apparently my video card is dying. It's fine working on the desktop, in browsers and in non-3D games, but when I'm playing Planet Coaster or Project Cars 2 (among others) I suddenly get screens of a single color (just the color, no lines, text, nothing) and sometimes the game comes back on but sometimes the game crashes and I get an error message saying that the Nvidia process has stopped. So that to me means a dying video card.

I've had my current rig for 4 years, 4 months so I guess it was going to go sometime. My machine's specs are:

Power Supply: SilverStone® 750 Watt Modular
Motherboard: Asus® Z87 Plus
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 4770K 3.5GHz
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling
Memory: 1866MHz 2x8GB (16GB)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780 3GB
Hard Drive 1: Crucial® M500 SSD 480GB
Hard Drive 2: Western Digital® Black™ 1TB
Optical Drive: Asus® 16x DVD Writer
64-Bit Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium

I'm thinking that my processor and RAM are still good enough for new games. I play at 1920x1200 on my 27-inch monitor and have no interest in stepping up to 4K or VR support. I see that the upcoming The Crew 2 has recommended video card specs of "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) or GTX 970 (4GB) or AMD RX 470 (8GB) or better" so I figure that's my baseline.

I used to know a lot more about this stuff, but I'm old and out of date so any suggestions would be appreciated. I've changed out RAM and video cards before so I figured I can manage it. Thanks for any help :wub:

UPDATE: I did update the driver to the latest version just to see if that helped, but it didn't.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

By the way, this is what it is looking like when I go to a typical Steam page on my Firefox browser. The red polygons flicker on and off and move around:

Image
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by hitbyambulance »

by no means do you have to change out your CPU or RAM - i'm still on an eight year old i7 CPU and it's still hanging in there. it can handle most VR titles, even. i did go through three or four video cards in that timeframe (all but one purchased secondhand) - currently on a GTX 970, which is doing great.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

hitbyambulance wrote: Mon Jun 18, 2018 1:51 am by no means do you have to change out your CPU or RAM - i'm still on an eight year old i7 CPU and it's still hanging in there. it can handle most VR titles, even. i did go through three or four video cards in that timeframe (all but one purchased secondhand) - currently on a GTX 970, which is doing great.
Thanks for your recommendation regarding CPU and RAM, I think they are adequate as well. I've been looking at a GTX 1060 6GB with dual fans which is a reasonable price and has good reviews. I'm also looking at a GeForce GTX 1080 8GB triple fan for about twice the price, but I'm thinking that it might be more card than I need as I'm not playing on the PC as much as I used to and heck, I've been happy with my GTX 780 up till now.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

And my card just died :( . The new card arrives Wednesday.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by Montag »

Long ago I had a problem with a video card flaking out. It turns out it was the heat sink coming off. It is possible you are experiencing a cooling problem as well. If the card is dead go ahead and take it apart and check the heat sinks. You have nothing to lose.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by Daehawk »

The way you titled this thread......does your mobo require some proprietary card or something?
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

Daehawk wrote: Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:56 pm The way you titled this thread......does your mobo require some proprietary card or something?
Not that I know of, I just thought I'd mention the make in case someone knows otherwise.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

Montag wrote: Mon Jun 18, 2018 8:47 pm Long ago I had a problem with a video card flaking out. It turns out it was the heat sink coming off. It is possible you are experiencing a cooling problem as well. If the card is dead go ahead and take it apart and check the heat sinks. You have nothing to lose.
Woohoo, science project! :horse:
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

New video card is on the way. Now, to remove the old one:

Image

And it is removed:

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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

Here's the removed video card, a GTX 780:

Image

That piece on the right is a bracket that is connected to the card by three screws and is supposed to slide into a slot on the chassis, although on my rig it just laid on top of the top slot piece, but it still carried the weight. The uninstalled card, with the bracket removed, weights 2lb 1oz. The new card shipping weight is 1.85 lbs and from the images on the page apparently doesn't have a place to attach a bracket. I guess that's fine.

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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

And the long national nightmare is over! My new GTX 1060 arrived today and in spite of every attempt I made to drop things and other clumsy moves, I got it installed and the rig safely ensconced under my desk. And amazingly I managed to not only hook up all the cables correctly, but also I avoided smacking my head while under my desk.

I did get a surprise when I fired up Assassin's Creed Origins to give it a test. The game ran at less than my default 60 fps :shock:. I hardly expected that when I upgraded from a GTX 780 and was using the same settings... ah, that was it, the settings. When I first powered up with the new card, the GeForce Experience program optimized all the games I had installed that it recognized. So ACO was optimized to run at Very High, which was better than the mix of Medium and High settings I was using before. Sadly, I'm so old school that I couldn't tell that the graphics were upgraded.

I'm currently installing Ghost Recon Wildlands. That was a game I had to tweak and tweak to get both a decent frame rate while not looking too horrible. I'm hoping that it will fulfill my expectations.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by Daehawk »

I still dont get good frames in Wildlands even after tons of tweaking. Lucky dog you. Congrats. Did you use driver cleaner to remove all your old drivers then install the new ones? A 1060 is a sweet spot for sure. Do those have 6 gigs of ram?
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

Daehawk wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:46 pm I still dont get good frames in Wildlands even after tons of tweaking. Lucky dog you. Congrats. Did you use driver cleaner to remove all your old drivers then install the new ones? A 1060 is a sweet spot for sure. Do those have 6 gigs of ram?
I'm still waiting on GRW to load, but I'll post how it goes. I didn't use a driver cleaner to remove old drivers as I was going from a GTX 780 to the GTX 1060, so I figured the Nvidia manager would take care of it, and it seems to have done this. And yup, it's the 6 GB version, the full title from Amazon is "PNY NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB XLR8 Gaming Overclocked Graphics Card". Sounds good to me.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

I installed Ghost Recon Wildlands and gave it a whirl. For some reason I couldn't get the GeForce Experience to optimize the game for me, so I just went in-game and fiddled with the graphics settings. I tried Ultra first, but I couldn't get the frame rate to go much above 30. I switched to Very High and the frame rate runs very close to 60 all the time. And of course being old school I can't tell the difference.

One of the reasons I got this particular card is that it has 6GB of VRAM. However, the only time GRW seems to need over 3GB is when running at Ultra and then it was about 4.7GB. I guess I'm future protecting myself when I got the 6GB, just like in 2014 when I got the GTX 780 with 3GB of VRAM.

GRW looks mighty pretty at Very High by the way :wub:. I'm seriously thinking of starting the whole game over again, since I really liked it the first time through. Or maybe I'll just wait for the Steam Sale tomorrow and see what shows up.

Getting this card made me think about something back in my fraternity days, which were the early seventies. Our frat house has a color TV, which wasn't all that common back then, especially since we usually has less than a dozen brothers sharing the costs. And we had one brother who would complain and complain if we weren't watching a program recorded in color, since he thought we were wasting the capabilities of the TV. Now I can almost see his point, I mean, I need to play some graphically intense games now just cause I have the new card, right? :D
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

I downloaded the new The Crew 2 open beta and gave it a try. The readme in the game notes:
1.0.2b Recommended Configuration (suitable for 60FPS):

OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
Processor: Intel Core i5-4690k @ 3.5 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 @ 3.2 GHz or better
RAM: 8GB
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) or GTX 970 (4GB) or AMD RX 470 (8GB) or better
DirectX: DirectX June 2010 Redistributable
Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card with latest drivers
Hard Drive: 30 GB available space
Peripherals: Keyboard required, XBOX 360/XBOX ONE controller optional (or compatible controller)
Resolution: 1080p
Video Preset: High
With my new GTX 1060 I am indeed able to sustain, most of the time, 60 fps running at 1900x1200, which is a bit more than their suggested 1080, with the graphics preset set to High. I did try Ultra but the frame rate did drop to the low 50s and even the high 40s at times. And I really can't tell the difference between Ultra and High, so good for me :roll:

One other thing, this GTX 1060 has dual fans and it is quiet. My computer case has three fans (four if you count the power supply) and it is almost silent. Very nice.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by gameoverman »

The 3gb 1060 is also about 10% slower than the 6gb version, so even if you're not needing more than 3gb vram right now you still have a boost in performance. That's not a small thing since the 1060 is meant to be a 1080p card, and you are at slightly higher than that, so every bit of performance helps.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by JCC »

Yes, the 1060 really replaced the 970 (not the 960). I am still rocking a 970 in my gaming PC and it's been great for 1080p gaming. The 1060 (6G) card was a remarkable bargain at its initial MSRP of ~$250. But, being able to get one today at $300 is still a nice deal given what's happened to the market since its release. And, I paid $330 for my 970 well before the bitcoin madness drove the prices up. Seriously, the 1060/1070 updates were awesome upgrades whose reasonable prices were destroyed during the majority of their life cycle due to the bitcoin crap. What a pisser.

I hope you enjoy the new card!
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by jztemple2 »

JCC wrote: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:26 pm I hope you enjoy the new card!
Thanks! I've been replaying Ghost Recon Wildlands and it looks great. Because I am running Very High graphics at 1200 rather than 1080 it does dip down ocassionally into the low 50s but it's hardly noticeable.

Of course now I'm wondering if I should have stepped up and gotten something more powerful, but this ought to keep me happy for a couple of more years and by then my rig will be six years old and I'm sure I'll be itching to replace it by then.
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Re: Need new video card for an Asus® Z87 Plus motherboard

Post by Daehawk »

I should reinstall it and test it on the gtx 950 I was given by a fellow OOr. Last go at it was on a gtx 770.
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