can anyone recommend a good but cheap(?) graphics card

[coaster]

mine is going to shit. I am getting artifacts on the screen and its freezing the computer. Unlike everyone on the internet, I am not rich, so I'm looking for someone to recommend a good graphics card that is reasonably priced. I'm not that computer savvy, so I don't know what to look for. I do know the one I have is a  geforce 8400 se and I'm told it is a dinosaur. And I assume you get what you pay for, I'm not looking for bottom shelf but something that works resonably well so I don't have to kick my computer down the street.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

You might just have a heat problem-the fan for the graphics card may be blocked up with dust.

[coaster]

You might just have a heat problem-the fan for the graphics card may be blocked up with dust.

I took it out and it was scorching hot so I bet you're right. noory pizza roll in the mouth hot. The fan is cutting out and one site said once it starts freezing and showing artifacts on the screen its pretty much fried. I am really getting sick of all of these computer problems.

[area51drone]

I have an old 9800 GTX and a GTX 260.  Both are okay cards that are relatively cheap that will run new games probably okay - obviously not the highest settings, but probably not the absolute lowest either.   They're fairly old at this point - I probably got mine in 2009 maybe?   You can get a GTX 660 for around $100, and that's a pretty decent card.   It's a few generations old now but still 4x the power of the 260 I have.

With regards to the artifacts, it might help to put more heat transfer goop underneath the fan, but I agree with your sentiment, it's probably fucked and not worth the time, at least considering you can get the 260 or 9800 and have a better card for pretty much nothing.

To put it this way, the best 3d graphics card has a Passmark score of 9,013 (higher is better).  Your 8400 SE is a 69!  The 260 is 1,116 the 660 is 4,116.  So for about $100 you get half the power of the $500 cards.

If you don't care much about the graphics power, I highly recommend going with a fanless card - I got an Asus Radeon HD 5450 for $25 shipped from Newegg on a server I built recently.  I didn't want to have to worry about it going down.  It's a good card for just regular desktop use.   Passmark score on the 3d stuff is only 232.

[wr250]

mine is going to shit. I am getting artifacts on the screen and its freezing the computer. Unlike everyone on the internet, I am not rich, so I'm looking for someone to recommend a good graphics card that is reasonably priced. I'm not that computer savvy, so I don't know what to look for. I do know the one I have is a  geforce 8400 se and I'm told it is a dinosaur. And I assume you get what you pay for, I'm not looking for bottom shelf but something that works resonably well so I don't have to kick my computer down the street.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121422 ,if you have room for it

[cweb]

Also, don't do this...
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