My computer is 6 years old and hasn’t had any upgrades since it was built. After many diagnostics, I have determined that my Geforce 8800GTS 640mb no longer works from hardware failure. I’m not looking to upgrade just yet, but what would be a good cheap short-term replacement for it?
Before I make any recommendations, what is your max Watt rating for your PSU?
As your Max PSU power rating will affect what video cards you can get without upgrading your PSU.
But I say look in the $50 to $75 dollar range. Check out Newegg as they have some nice deals.
[edit]
Okay I looked at the specs of your original Geforce 8800GTS 640mb, it requires a 400 Watt PSU with 20 amps on the 12 volt rail.
So I am assuming you have at least a 400 watt or better PSU. I going to stick with Nvida for you as you already run a Nvida card.
So I recomend the following
EVGA 02G-P4-2645-KR GeForce GT 640 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $89.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130796
OR
ASUS ENGT430 DC SL/DI/1GD3 GeForce GT 430 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121448
Good and cheap is relative terms as it gets highly opinionated. The 2 above are considered cheap cards yet still offer some degree of performance.
Next time please mention what size budget you are working within.
The 640 would be a sidegrade and 430 a severe downgrade. Neither very good deals at all.
I generally recommend radeon 7750 as a solid cheap, capable, and extremely versatile card (seeing as it doesn’t need extra pci-e power and doesn’t create much heat). It’s much stronger than your 8800 gts 640 as well. They’re as low as $75 on newegg after rebate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709&IsNodeId=1&Description=7750&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20
Nvidia doesn’t really compete well on the low-end. But if you did want on of their cards you’d be better off used since geforces have greater used discounts due to used radeon prices being tied to their cryptocurrency mining capability.
Also I’d check the warranty on your current card, assuming it isn’t prebuilt. EVGA in particular has lifetime warranties on many of their models, such as that one.
I notice that most newer cards are referred to as:
PCI Express 2.0 x16
or
PCI Express 3.0 x16
And newer motherboards also have a version number mentioned before the ‘x16’. Does it matter? My old Gigabyte 965P-DS3/S3 mother board has one PCI Express x16 slot (doesn’t refer to itself as 2.0 or 3.0). How will I know if it can run 3.0 x16 cards??
I will also look into that warranty
I don’t still have the invoice for the dead card. And I don’t think I ever registered it online. I don’t think I am eligible to take advantage of the warranty.
Too often lifetime warranties on a Video card is the lifetime of the Card’s product cycle and not a human lifetime.
So many cards that say life time warranty, if you read the fine print spells out to a 6 to 24 month window. A deceptive and shameful practice but unfortunately the law is on their side.
Oddly Warranty laws do change from state to state with some states do not accept a time limit for said warranty. Sometimes the company that gives the warranty screws you by offering what they consider a “side upgrade” even if in actuality the card would be a downgrade.
OP asked for a cheap short term card, suggesting he either going to upgrade later on or replace his PC.
I decide to treat this as being thrifty rather than offer something that would be a upgrade.
That motherboard has PCI-E 1.1 I believe. But it doesn’t matter, only means you’re missing out on a few percent performance increase over a 3.0 motherboard on a 3.0 card. Still fully compatible.
Another thing to consider, if your mainboard has onboard video, just use that for the time being. Summer is looking to be a great time to do a build if you can hang in there for a few months.