Need to replace my GeForce 9500 GT (256MB) Video Card

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Yep, you read that correctly, I’m running a fairly old video card and have been for years! The problem is, the fan (on the video card) is dying on it and I’m sick of the noise that dying fan is producing.

I don’t do a lot of gaming, so I don’t need a powerful card. In fact, my case is fairly small length wise, so a large card is difficult to fit in anyhow. It is PCI Express, so that is my first requirement, secondly it needs to support dual output (I can’t go back to a single monitor), and lastly, it needs to be under $50.

I’ve actually been considering just trying to replace the fan on the card itself, but I haven’t taken the time to look at how this fan is mounted and whether or not I’d be able to do that (as the card works well, and it does what I need just fine).

So here are my requirements as a summary:

  1. Must be PCI Express
  2. Must support 2 monitors
  3. Must be under $50
  4. I prefer an older model so it has a better guarantee of working in Linux (optional)

So now I leave it to you, would you replace the card or try and repair the fan? And if you’d replace it, what would you replace it with and why?

Thanks all!

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I had an old ATI 256MB graphics card I have just changed and needed to upgrade the power supply from a 350W to a 500W.

Buying a decent power supply was around £50, luckly I was given the graphics card. If I had to buy both I was contemplating buying a new computer!

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I have a 750 W power supply right now as there are a lot of internal drives I use for several purposes (most of which I’ve been moving to NASes as of late).

So I definitely have more than enough power for a newer card (plus I literally replaced my Power Supply twice over the past 6 months because I blew it out twice within 3 weeks).

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So I definitely have more than enough power for a newer card

That’s OK then, I thought I would mention it as it could be an unforeseen cost.

Bad luck with the power supplies; that is one reason I went for a more expensive one as I could have brought one at the £20 mark.
I found it a pain to get all the cables in and I have a large ATX case.

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The thing that will drive the cost up is having two video outputs.

I’m assuming that you would prefer digital outputs.

Here’s one with two DVI ports: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130789

Here’s one with HDMI, DVI, and VGA: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131338

You can adapt HDMI to DVI: http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023104

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Cool, my monitors are unfortunately VGA, but my current card is a dual DVI, so I already have adapters to go from DVI to VGA. Maybe you can answer this for me, as I’m sure this isn’t an issue.

Ont he first item you recommended, one of the comments had:

Cons: running 2.20 GHz E4500 Core 2 Duo processor, but still can’t play HD videos. Won’t stream 720p/1080p videos on youtube. Using Windows Media Player or BSPlayer can’t watch HD videos smoothly.

This really throws me off, as I’m not sure why that would be the cards fault entirely. As I have a much older card and I don’t have those issues… (and I do a lot with video conversions – but I don’t typically play a lot of video on my machine). So would that have likely been trying to output from the HDMI to a TV?

For the second item, I really like the idea of it being fan less. That would definitely ensure it doesn’t get noisy and for $10 (after rebate), I really can’t go wrong…

I’ll likely buy the second one to test it, since it is well within my budget and will do what I need. (although I’ve never really been an ATI fan, so now that AMD owns them… I’m not sure what to think)

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You can go from HDMI to DVI to VGA. However, you can probably just use the DVI and VGA outputs and ignore the HDMI output.

Ont he first item you recommended, one of the comments had:

[quote]Cons: running 2.20 GHz E4500 Core 2 Duo processor, but still can’t play HD videos. Won’t stream 720p/1080p videos on youtube. Using Windows Media Player or BSPlayer can’t watch HD videos smoothly.

This really throws me off, as I’m not sure why that would be the cards fault entirely. As I have a much older card and I don’t have those issues… (and I do a lot with video conversions – but I don’t typically play a lot of video on my machine). [/quote]
It could be anything. Browser issues, flash issues, too many programs running in the background, malware infection. I doubt it’s the hardware’s fault. You really shouldn’t be using WMP either since it’s bloated software. VLC is better.

So would that have likely been trying to output from the HDMI to a TV?

No, the video card doesn’t really care what the display device is. The resolution doesn’t really matter with 2D graphics, as long as the resolution is supported by the video card. You really only notice performance issues with 3D graphics (ie, games) if graphics settings are set too high for your video card for the particular game/application you’re running.

For the second item, I really like the idea of it being fan less. That would definitely ensure it doesn’t get noisy and for $10 (after rebate), I really can’t go wrong…

I’ll likely buy the second one to test it, since it is well within my budget and will do what I need. (although I’ve never really been an ATI fan, so now that AMD owns them… I’m not sure what to think)

I’ve been using ATi cards for over 10 years. My only complaint with them is that games that were specifically designed for nvidia cards (Borderlands, for example) don’t always support antialiasing on ATi cards.

Overall, ATi cards tend to give the biggest bang per buck compared to nvidia cards with similar specs.

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I should be able to just go VGA to VGA and DVI to VGA though right? Leaving the HDMI port empty?

Good, that was my thoughts too, that it couldn’t be just the cards fault. And since I run Linux, I can’t ever use WMP… nor would I if I could. VLC has been my friend for many years.

Cool, for $10, it seems worth my investment to try it out, worst case scenario, it burns out due to not having a fan.

One last question you might know :slight_smile:
I noticed it advertises a PCI Express 2.1, from a programming standpoint, that means it isn’t a big difference from PCI Express 2.0 (which I know my board supports), but I can’t find anything about my board that states 2.1 is acceptable too. Do you think there would be an issue here? My gut says, it should be fine.

Thanks

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Yep :slight_smile:

Good, that was my thoughts too, that it couldn’t be just the cards fault. And since I run Linux, I can’t ever use WMP… nor would I if I could. VLC has been my friend for many years.

Yeah, sometimes the comments aren’t from the most tech savvy crowd. I only start paying attention to the comments if multiple commenters are reporting the same issue. Then I’ll investigate on some tech forums about it.

Cool, for $10, it seems worth my investment to try it out, worst case scenario, it burns out due to not having a fan.

As long as you have an exhaust fan in your case, it won’t be an issue.

I noticed it advertises a PCI Express 2.1, from a programming standpoint, that means it isn’t a big difference from PCI Express 2.0 (which I know my board supports), but I can’t find anything about my board that states 2.1 is acceptable too. Do you think there would be an issue here? My gut says, it should be fine.

The 2.0 and 2.1 cards and interfaces are cross-compatible with each other. The only big difference is the available bandwidth on the motherboard’s PCI Express interface. If your motherboard has PCI Express 1.0 or 1.1, you likely won’t be able to use a 2.1 card without a BIOS firmware update because there are differences in the amount of power supplied by the motherboard between 1.x slots and 2.1 cards.

That said, what motherboard are you using? If you’re not sure, you can use this tool to find out: http://www.piriform.com/speccy

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I’m using GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

So I’m confident it should support either of the two cards you recommended.

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Yep, that motherboard is running PCI Express 2.0, so basically any video card will work with it.

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Awesome, Thanks! I’ll follow up once I get the card and get it installed. Hopefully it is a painless process (sounds like it should be).

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Uninstall your current video card’s drivers first before you remove it. Then, shut down, remove the card, install the new card, then install the new drivers. This procedure tends to prevent any potential driver conflicts.

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Hmm… not sure how well that equates to Linux, as the driver I’m using is built into Xorg, so I didn’t specifically install one. But I’m sure I can figure it all out :slight_smile: Should take roughly a week for me to get the card, and then the fun begins! :slight_smile:

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There is also http://www.amazon.com/PNY-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-VCG96512GXPB/dp/B00141CIZO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389211436&sr=8-2&keywords=GeForce+9500+GT+(256MB)+Video+Card

I believe it’s a more recent (possibly not the latest) version of your current one. Whatever one you get, triple check that it’ll physically fit into the case and not foul the airflow of anything else.

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Thanks for that. I’ll fall back to that one if I don’t care for the ATI one :slight_smile: As I bet it would simply plug in and take over where my existing card is at, no changes/drivers necessary.

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Ah, I gave you the Windows procedure. I have no idea what the failsafe linux procedure is (if there even is one).