Dannan Tavona
2/2/2023, 12:00:00 AM
I don't play a lot of video intensive games with this card; I purchased it because I needed a decent card to replace my old graphics card that died. When I installed it, Windows installed its own set of generic drivers, but those were only passably accurate (typical for Windows). I went to the website for the manufacturer and downloaded the drivers for the card. My only complaint is that on its own, the card changed to 32Bpp display, and picked a weird format that reset all the files I have on my desktop. Not cool. Worse, when I told it to go back to 16Bpp to restore the display I was used to, it resumed the 32Bpp format without my intervention. Fortunately, the display reset kept, but I'm not sure I care for device drivers that pick what some engineer who doesn't know my rig should be using. At the moment, it's working and I can use my gPU to surf the web and for my writing. My next task with my odd jobs is to increase storage (of my 3 1Gig drives, 2 are over the Microsoft limit of 90 percent full) so that's next on the upgrade, then I will finally have to leave behind Windows 7 64bit Professional, which has let me customize my desktop to what I want, not what Windows thinks I should have, and hate having to link Windows to some nonexistent gaming account. I also really hate that solitaire requires a *()*))* subscription to be advert free, games that have been free since the days of Windows 3.1. When I first upgraded to Windows 10, it was brand new and part of the process, Windows started moving my data files to a nonexistent cloud account (i.e., yes, it was deleting my data files, some of which are new gone forever). But I have to migrate because my Kindle for PC quit synchronizing with my working Windows 7 Pro, so I can't read on my PC. At least I still have my tablet. Anyway, it seems to be a decent card (hard to tell after 30 days how it will perform in the long haul, but I opened up my machine, popped out the old card and put in the new on in 15 minutes. This has a passive heat sink like the old one, but instead of 256Meg of RAM on the old one, there's a full 1Gig of DDR3 onbaord. I have extra fans to keep everything inside cool, so that's a consideration with passive heat sinks -- making sure there's good air flow to keep the inside temps at a reasonable level (card CPU keeps steady around 35-37C; low temps are important for long-term card endurance). If you are unfamiliar, Piriform software has a free version called SPECCY, a PC program which will analyze your system and tell you what your hardware is, what OS, and it includes dynamic temperature reading of any CPUs and graphic cores. I rated tech support and gaming at 4* as I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. I don't play video intensive games and I did the install myself without issues, and then found the website, downloaded and then installed the drivers on my own -- so take those two scores with a serious grain of salt.