Octopus Overlords

I've currently got a Geforce GT440 (Zoltac I think) that I've been using for a number of years. When I initially got it along with Windows 7, I had experienced several display driver failures that all got recovered, but it eventually settled down presumably due to driver updates and I never got many more. Tonight, on Win10, I experienced it on this OS for the first time. I had stepped away for a moment to find my screen blank (and this happened while in a game) and managed to get my computer rebooted, and Windows said there was a display driver failure and failed to restart it and loaded the Windows driver. Well, that got me thinking it might just be time.

So, assuming I do upgrade, what would be recommended?

I'm got an Intel i5 3.33ghz.

Anything coin miners don't use. Prices near the top have been insane for over a year.

Edit, also don't buy used, as they were all used for mining and were likely being abused for it.

1. I would not buy a video card today unless mine absolutely died.
2. If it DID die, and I had to buy one today, I would buy the cheapest one I could find that would still play my games at a decent rate.

Normally, I would buy one or two tiers below the top, but given the crazy prices currently, I would make an exception in this horrible buying climate.

Probably a GTX 1060 or 1050 Ti depending on your budget (again, me, the latter just because the current prices are insane, and they will eventually normalize).

Buying video cards retail is really insane right now. The prices are way too expensive.

I bought an Alienware PC with a 1070 GPU for $1,100. It was a massive upgrade over what I had. Prices are so crazy right now that it was almost like buying a GPU and getting a computer for free.

So I'd either look into buying a new system or continue holding out. You don't want to buy a card right now.

You could try walking into a brick-and-mortar electronics store and asking them if they have video cards in stock - and stressing that you are specifically looking for a card for gaming, not mining. Some stores outright hog the cards in the back and only sell them to gamers; others have instituted policies that they will only sell 1 or 2 GPUs at a time, and kept their prices at a reasonable level.

I would check Amazon and NewEgg daily looking for deals. You can find a card, but you have to act fast. I found a somewhat reasonable price on a 1070 tonight on Amazon ($330 for 3G - only 1 in stock or $399 for 6G). Link

As noted, it's a bad time. I hope my 970 will hold on for a while.

Prices have dropped a lot in the last month. A 1080 was $1200 now its like $660. A 1070 ti is $609. So they are coming down well. Still not what they should be.

Geez, $1200? Wow, Ok. I didn't know they were up to that high. That''d definitely be out of my price range, and even at $600. Have to count the exchange rate on these things. I'm hoping I can hold off until they get back down to more reasonable pricing. I'm hoping all it is glitchy drivers. But when the screen goes blank forcing me to reboot, that's not too good.

McNutt wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 2:32 pm I bought an Alienware PC with a 1070 GPU for $1,100. It was a massive upgrade over what I had. Prices are so crazy right now that it was almost like buying a GPU and getting a computer for free.

That's a good price. I was looking at CyberpowerPC (just looking) and the system I configed with a AMD Ryzen 7 and RX 580 still came out to be about 1100-1200 depending on how many little upgrades like silencer, overclocking, extra fans, etc. I add. Their Intel/NVIDIA system costs even more.

I think everyone's hoping that Nvidia (or someone) will start producing dedicated mining cards to take the pressure off of the graphics card market.

Cryptocurrency mining aside, you would also expect current-gen card prices to be depressed in anticipation of the next generation of graphics cards --based on previous cycles, Nvidia is past due for a new set of products. But AMD isn't especially competitive these days, so Nvidia is in no rush.

The current reality is two-year-old tech that costs significantly more than it did at launch. Dispiriting, to say the least.

Yeah, it's a shame that video cards have gotten hijacked for a different use. I guess it's because the GPUs being their own processing unit separate from the CPU makes them appealing to harness. Sucks for those of us who want to use them for their actual use.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 1:02 pm 1. I would not buy a video card today unless mine absolutely died.
2. If it DID die, and I had to buy one today, I would buy the cheapest one I could find that would still play my games at a decent rate.

Normally, I would buy one or two tiers below the top, but given the crazy prices currently, I would make an exception in this horrible buying climate.

Probably a GTX 1060 or 1050 Ti depending on your budget (again, me, the latter just because the current prices are insane, and they will eventually normalize).

This!

My GTX 670 died a few weeks ago and this is exactly what I did. I got a MSI 1050 Ti OC for $219 at Newegg. I paid about a $60 premium because of the asshat bit miners but I had no choice. I'm happy enough with the card but wish I had been able to wait for prices to drop. Like you I would normally have bought something a tier or two down like a 1070 Ti but not with these prices. The 1050 Ti will tide me over until I get a new system.

my aforementioned coworker apparently bought 250 Geforce 1070/1080 cards over the past three months at about $800 each to resell on Amazon for $1200 each

Wow he really screwed himself.

If you're coming from a GT 440, then I think a GT 1030 is the way to go. It's a big improvement, it's a new gen card, and most importantly it's as cheap as you can get.

Use it until prices on the card you really want come down to normal, whenever that may be. My reasoning is this: I'd rather spend on a 1030 now and a 1060 later, at normal 1060 prices, than spring for an overpriced 1050 Ti now. That's because you have a decent i5 so ultimately a 1060 or more is what you want. Buying a pricey 1050 Ti now then upgrading to a 1060 equivalent later? No, I wouldn't do that.

If you can live with a 1050 Ti, for instance if you don't play graphics intensive games, then it makes sense to just get that now.

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:37 pm If you're coming from a GT 440, then I think a GT 1030 is the way to go. It's a big improvement, it's a new gen card, and most importantly it's as cheap as you can get.

Use it until prices on the card you really want come down to normal, whenever that may be. My reasoning is this: I'd rather spend on a 1030 now and a 1060 later, at normal 1060 prices, than spring for an overpriced 1050 Ti now. That's because you have a decent i5 so ultimately a 1060 or more is what you want. Buying a pricey 1050 Ti now then upgrading to a 1060 equivalent later? No, I wouldn't do that.

If you can live with a 1050 Ti, for instance if you don't play graphics intensive games, then it makes sense to just get that now.

using that line of reasoning, why not go for a used card? or even a used nice card. even if it's been used to heck cryptiomining, i would expect it would last long enough, if the price is right.

I can buy a used PC locally with i5 / 1050ti for under $500. It ought to be a hefty upgrade over my laptop's 445M from 8 years ago. Now to save up that kind of $$$...

Here's a 1050 for $83. Amazon

For those of us who can't afford it, there's always

PC Building Simulator

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:37 pm If you're coming from a GT 440, then I think a GT 1030 is the way to go. It's a big improvement, it's a new gen card, and most importantly it's as cheap as you can get.

Thanks. Yeah, I figure anything would be an improvement over the GT440 at this point.

So, driver crashed again last night. I was in ATS and stepped away for 5 minutes to find the screen blank. I hadn't updated the driver since the initial Windows 10 installation, so I decided to do that today and registered to get the game ready driver. So, hopefully that helps somewhat with stability.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 31, 2018 2:45 pm So, driver crashed again last night.

I've learned from bitter experience with two different cards that constant driver crashing usually means that there's a part of the card that's gone bad. It works okay until something tries to access the part of the card that's bad and then it blows up the driver. If you still get crashes after your latest driver updates, that may be the issue.

Yeah, I figured that was the case. I think that when it was happening earlier on when I first got the card it was mostly the 2D display driver that got fixed via driver updates. But these latest driver crashes have both happened while I was in-game, and both times in the map screen, so it can't be a coincidence. And I'm guessing 3d drivers crashes are harder to recover from compared to display drivers that tend to be recovered pretty seamlessly, at least from my earlier experiences with it happening in Windows 7.

Would a card getting too hot cause a crash like this?

Yes, but that also means your memory is getting a bit iffy.

Well, my memory has never been very good.

Oh, you mean THAT memory. Yeah, thanks for the confirmation on it. I guess I'll have to start looking. I think it must have had this card for 4-5 years, so I must be ready for an upgrade.

Whelp, another crash tonight while in game. I guess I won't be doing any gaming for a while until I get a new card. *sigh*

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:26 pm

gameoverman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:37 pm If you're coming from a GT 440, then I think a GT 1030 is the way to go. It's a big improvement, it's a new gen card, and most importantly it's as cheap as you can get.

Use it until prices on the card you really want come down to normal, whenever that may be. My reasoning is this: I'd rather spend on a 1030 now and a 1060 later, at normal 1060 prices, than spring for an overpriced 1050 Ti now. That's because you have a decent i5 so ultimately a 1060 or more is what you want. Buying a pricey 1050 Ti now then upgrading to a 1060 equivalent later? No, I wouldn't do that.

If you can live with a 1050 Ti, for instance if you don't play graphics intensive games, then it makes sense to just get that now.

using that line of reasoning, why not go for a used card? or even a used nice card. even if it's been used to heck cryptiomining, i would expect it would last long enough, if the price is right.

aforementioned coworker said he's selilng off the last of his video cards and getting out of the mining operation. so there might be a price correction in sight.

Ok, so i'm officially in the market for a card now. Got some good advice, and I think I've possibly found something?

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... 4&CatId=28

That seems to be a relatively decent price given what's going on currently, and it's the Canadian price on top of that. That's a 4GB card.

This following one is 2GB:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... 3&CatId=28

Not entirely sure what they mean by SC?

And something they call a D5:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... 3&CatId=28

I like the first card. Its cheaper than the other one and its a ti edition which is the better one plus its 4 gig. These days a 2 gb card is not worth buying when you can afford a little more. I just started looking so other than price Im not sure why the 2nd ti card is more.

Congrats man. New video cards are always exciting.

EDIT: I cant figure out what a D5 video card means different from a normal OC card. Also are you in Canada? I see you are looking at Tigerdirect. You can use Amazon right? They have the 1050 ti OC 4 gig for a little over $50 cheaper. Not sure you'd save on crossborder shipping though. And their return policy is a breeze in case of troubles.

Oh..SC is the same as OC...SC = Superclock OC = Overclock. EVGA usually use the SC abbrv.

Personally the way mine and some others have burned out after a few years that come factory overclocked Im inclined not to get one like that. But frankly that is hard to do now unless you can find a founders card.

I think it's been calculated that Bitcoin needs to be at $8700 or above for miners to turn a profit in the US with no cheap electricity or something like that. People who have cheaper juice can get by for less. The home miners are getting out now and Newegg seems to actually have decent cards in stock with proper prices.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:48 pm I like the first card. Its cheaper than the other one and its a ti edition which is the better one plus its 4 gig. These days a 2 gb card is not worth buying when you can afford a little more. I just started looking so other than price Im not sure why the 2nd ti card is more.

Yeah, I'll likely be ordering the first card. Seems to be quite a good deal.

EDIT: I cant figure out what a D5 video card means different from a normal OC card. Also are you in Canada? I see you are looking at Tigerdirect. You can use Amazon right? They have the 1050 ti OC 4 gig for a little over $50 cheaper. Not sure you'd save on crossborder shipping though. And their return policy is a breeze in case of troubles.

Yep, looking on Tigerdirect because we've had very good experiences with them. Bought a refurb laptop about a year ago from them, and ended up getting quite a deal. Most of my experience from Amazon is they won't ship electronics to Canada unless I buy from the Canadian version of the site, where the prices are typically higher. Anyway, this will likely tide me over until something better comes along. It had come to the point where I couldn't even game with this current one. I think I've been due for a card upgrade anyway. Options are a bit limited here. NewEgg's Canadian site is vastly overpriced, so I didn't even look there.

So quick question: I'm not sure which PCI-e I have. Some cards refer to 2.0, some to 3.0. Let's say I buy the 1050 Ti which says it uses PCI Express 3.0, would I still be able to use it if I only have 2.0? My current GT440 is a PCI-e 2.0.

I would think that the documentation for your motherboard would have that info. What motherboard do you have?

As mentioned in the OP: I've got an Intel i5 3.33ghz.

Edit: And after doing a bit of research, I understand that PCI-e 3.0 is backwards compatible. Ok, that's good. Because apparently my board has 2.0.

You can download CPU-Z free. Its a tiny little info program. It will show you a lot of info and one tab is motherboard. It IDs mine right so should your's too.


All PCIe slot versions are backwards compatible so a 3.0 card will work in a 2.0 minus any benefits a 3.0 would provide.

Yeah, I feel a lot more comfortable about making the purchase now. So, 1050 Ti, here I come!

Edit: Oh and plus, I read recently that Nvidia is not going to be supporting their Fermi based cards anymore, which my GT440 was one of.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/0 ... g-systems/

Tell me how the future is

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:26 pmusing that line of reasoning, why not go for a used card? or even a used nice card. even if it's been used to heck cryptiomining, i would expect it would last long enough, if the price is right.

There are several reasons I've found that keep people from going used. First, to get an older card with equivalent performance usually means needing a beefier power supply. An HD 7970 gets you 1050 Ti level performance but not at 75W. If you already have the power supply then this doesn't matter, but how many people using weak videocards have 500 or 600W power supplies with the 6 or 8 pin connectors to match? Another consideration is heat/noise. More power use means a card that is going to run hot and therefore under load it'll be noisier. Some people want a quiet computer. Then there's no warranty.

Yeah, I was actually pretty pleased to see that the card I chose had the power requirement of 300W, same as my current card. It was explained to me that these days, more powerful cards can in fact be more energy efficient. I'm hoping that this means the trend to power use will lower instead of rise.