Q: I have a Shuttle small form factor PC and I have melted two graphics cards, a Nvidia 6700 GS and a 7800 GS. Each time the failure point has been the thermal paste that bonds the fans to the card. Since then I have been monitoring the temperatures on my current card, a Nvidia 7300 SE. It idles at 88 degrees Celsius and at speed it has gone up to 128 degrees Celsius. I just need it to handle DVD play back and light gaming. I have a Shuttle FB81V14 motherboard, a Pentium 4 3.60 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and Windows XP MCE 2005 with SP3. Thank you for your advice.
A: I agree, higher-performance cards usually benefit from larger cases with good airflow. Small slimline & shuttle cases aren't a good choice for gaming rigs. At a minimum, consider one of those PCI slot coolers that vent hot air outside the case. Of course, SE/LE models are the most cheaply made of any GeForce model... That might have something to do with your current card running so hot. I'd recomend going with GT cards (non-overclocked) in the future. High enough on the food chain for quality construction, but without the problems os GTS and higher cards which often sacrifice cooling for performance. The progression is LE, GS, GT, GTS, GTX and dual-gpu GX2. My guess is something in the Geforce 8600GT/Radeon 2600 range might last longer. Also consider 256mb rather than 512mb cards, those seem to run considerably cooler. Is it particularly humid where you live? Maybe this fits your case... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127372 And this is an absolute steal, XFX is a good brand. Maybe it's cheap just because it's a 256mb GDDR2 card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102755