Worth saving?

Hi All:

My sons systems gpu died (EVGA 8800GT 512)

He has
AMD 5000+ BE dual core @ 2.9Mhz
MB- Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S-4
Mem 16Gigs DDRII

Is it worth a new vid card and upgrade the chip? If so, what newer cards would work as a single, and maybe even SLI.

FWIW- He's not a heavy gamer. However he does play games like COD 2 etc.

Thanks
dd

In my honest opinion if your son isn't a heavy gamer, I recomend a decent one of geforce GT240 or something from the radeon 5800 (I believe) range. Basically stuff under say $150.

GT240 1GB should last him some time, it is a decent card, and for the rig he has got already, it shouldn't be a problem to run. It will definitely run CoD2....

Unless you want faster, in which case I suggest looking into GTS and GTX260.
I mean, with THAT much RAM, it only seems right to put a proper big gpu.

Personally, I own a 9800GT, not bad, plays easily COD modern warfare (2007 one) on highest details. As well as NFS SHift. and many more, But can be expensive, and I dont even know why as it isnt extremely great.

Anyway, aim for a card with 1gb at least, games only get mroe demanding so its worth investing in the future.

Last thing, if you are not scared of huge electricity bills, at least look at 295GTX. It is 2 cards in one so PhysX and others will run ultra smooth.

That is completely worth saving IMO. Any more I am looking at single core systems and having to really look for a valid need/use for them.

The CPU is fine unless he is a heavy gamer, upgrade the GPU to a decent 2xx series and it will do fine for most games probably.

I am running a couple 8800GTS 320's still, a couple 9800GTX+, and depending on the rig, some 2xx series cards for HTPC, file server, etc use.

Does he really have 16gb of RAM though? That seems extreme overkill for this rig though. What OS?

SAVE that computer!
Sell 8gb of that ram to offset the cost of a new graphics card (GTS 450 $90 after MIR). I just saved my Athlon 4200+. I bought 2gb of ram so it has a total of 4gb, a used Zalman HSF to overclock the cpu, and a GTS 450. My old 939 socket computer can now play Battlefield BC2. You just need a VC!
Again, SAVE that computer!

Could do "the oven trick" on that GPU also for the time being.

edit: that is a rediculus amount of ram too!!! man 8gb+ would do most people no good at all unless you are virtualising machines...

Thanks for all of the replies.

"Does he really have 16gb of RAM though? That seems extreme overkill for this rig though. What OS?"

LOL I agree 100%. Waaaaay to much RAM... He thought his meme was bad so put that on his christmas list. THen finds out its the card and not the mem.lol

As I read info on the MB, it seems it can be flashed to use the newer AM2+ and AM3 chips... Nice.

O/S is XP Home Edition

"Zalman HSF to overclock the cpu"

That is what he has also. Temps are never a problem.

Thanks again for the replies and feedback.

dd

XP home edition, unless he is running 64 bit version then his OS cannot even see past 4 gig???? like was stated above put 8 gig of that up for sale. Even if he is running 64 bit OS he would be hard pressed to use 8 gig of RAM. use that to help pay for the new GPU.

Also yes it is worth saving I have a 6000+ right now that I am using as a benching/backup system and for small or single app. computing like you are describing that is plenty of computer.

He may have a deal working on a slightly used EVGA 460 1g.

No matter what he ends up with, thanks again for all the input.

dd