Okay so I'm planning on purchasing a new card tomorrow, and was just wondering how much of a performance boost compared to the 8800GTS 640mb I originally had would I see if I bought one of the following:

1) GTX260 896M DDR3
2) GTX 285 1.0G DDR3

OR

3) ATI HD 4890 GDDR5

Wait. You're telling me my card is getting hot, from running my bloody desktop?! Holy hell if I want to run a game then I guess I'll be needing at least 15 of those fans on high speed.

Yeah my card has a fan, but it's nearly 4 years old now (Bought it when it was fresh out of the factory), and I'm worried that it's just going to die of natural causes/old age(If only we are all so lucky).

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my graphics card and perhaps pimp out my cooling system now that I have a fancy paying job, and so I was wondering if you guys could recommend some solid 250 - 300 dollar cards... preferably from nVidia since I'm a biased fanboy, have never had any problems with mine, and always here AMD/Ati (whatever their new merger name is) users complaining about their HD xxxx having graphical glitches with numerous games.

Don't mean to hijack your thread... actually I do, but anyways, I have a 8800GTS and I just got a similar problem, and am now afraid of turning my computer on lest it go "poof". Basically, I came back to my computer today to find the screensaver frozen in place, with a bunch of blue dots scattered randomly across the screen like sand. I try restarting, and the screen remains black. I begin to panic thinking my monitor is not working, and so I restart again.

This time the computer does boot up, only I get some strange message talking about settings being changed etc and if I wanted to configure them or keep them default. I choose default. Then I get the Windows Safety Mode startup message and choose to run Windows as normal. Now at first it seems everything is working just fine. Then I realize I can't move the mouse, the lower right part of the desktop is covered in a huge blurry square, and random flashes of black lines and blue sparkles dance around the screen.

Before I could scream in fear the computer goes "POOT" and restarts. I panic and shut it off completely before it tries to rise from the dead once again. Am I also having a graphics card problem?

Beforehand. Although personally, I would play Baldurs Gate 2. If I recall correctly you weren't able to run in part 1, and that made getting around really, really, really damn slow.

Send a copy to Rotten_Pie and recieve +1 votes for Gordan Freeman in the Ultimate Hero Vote-off!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey I'm bored as hell while I occupy my time masturbating to hot kinky porno can you guys give me a nice, solid, long list consisting of the best Half Life 2 mods to get, so good it just splooges out awesomess?

I'm in the tire.

Me and Baby Hitler Melon. (both taken two years ago)

aka_Static

I have manic depression, but most people never realize I am depressed. I cope with it. It can be hard when a lot of bad things happen in my life, but I eventually bounce back. Never been suicidal though. It's just a part of life. I think too many people are sensitive, and are being wusses about it.

SickBoy724