AFAIK G92 was really fixed somewhere during GTS250 production. But i may be totally wrong.

There were also multiple improvements and not just single definitive fix, so may be some of slightly earlier chips were half way there. And high target temperatures for coolers probably played a significant role too...

Anyway i've been looking into playing around with SLI around GF8-GF9 series and it feels... hopeless. Plenty of this cards available, they are cheap, even high end ones like 9800GTX+, but half of them are dead, half of what's left - "untested" and everything else... i have my doubts, given a little heat can make it work briefly. It really feels like most of them are dead and what's written in the listing depends on how honest the seller is...

Perhaps GTS250 would ultimately be a wiser decision, given it is the same GPU...

65nm G92 - depends on time of production. G92b (55nm die shrink) is fixed. So 9800GTX+ should be relatively safe.

Just buy them very cheap with warranty. If it's cheap, seller will typically not bother to scam anyone by heating them. A bigger problem is sellers do not test them properly and you may end up returning it.

For a late 2008 PC I would get a GeForce GTX 260 or 275. You will have to re-paste it and fix fan profile. Once fixed, it should not run hotter than 60-65'C while gaming.

I have found 9800 GT underpowered for some Windows Vista era games. I see it more of a socket 939 GPU for Windows XP era only.

I usually grab my GTX 580 for 2007-2008 gaming. Why deal with less 🤣. It's so quiet and it has no problems keeping everything at 60fps.

I would only get a 48x0 if you are going to play games within a year or two of its release because AMD didn't support it very well and the Nvidia drivers have much better performance in some cases. These cards are also often not quiet. Many awful coolers in this timeframe.

Of course if you just want to have a 9800 or 4870 in your hands that is totally understandable.

Lifehack for GTX 480, you can install any reference PCB coolers from GTX 570/580 to GTX 480. This includes some MSI and Gigabyte custom coolers.

I would really like a Graphics Card from 2008, specifically one that matches a C2Q Q9650. An HD 4870 would be a good pair for a Q9650 right? Or would I be better off with buying a GTX 260 or 280?
I don't want to buy a GTS 250 because it's from 2009 and it wouldn't fit with the era of PC I'm trying to make.

Also if it matters (which it probably wont), I'm using a Cooler Master Centurion 5 case. (The gen 1 version I'm pretty sure), and I'm just wondering if it could handle the heat output of a card like a 280 or 9800GTX

SapphireJet wrote on 2025-08-02, 21:45:

Also if it matters (which it probably wont), I'm using a Cooler Master Centurion 5 case. (The gen 1 version I'm pretty sure), and I'm just wondering if it could handle the heat output of a card like a 280 or 9800GTX

If you're worried about the GPU getting too hot just cable tie a 120mm fan to the HDD bays so it's forcing air over it.

SapphireJet wrote on 2025-08-02, 21:45:

I would really like a Graphics Card from 2008, specifically one that matches a C2Q Q9650. An HD 4870 would be a good pair for a Q9650 right? Or would I be better off with buying a GTX 260 or 280?
I don't want to buy a GTS 250 because it's from 2009 and it wouldn't fit with the era of PC I'm trying to make.

Also if it matters (which it probably wont), I'm using a Cooler Master Centurion 5 case. (The gen 1 version I'm pretty sure), and I'm just wondering if it could handle the heat output of a card like a 280 or 9800GTX

Just my opinion...

If you are building a working system, not a museum piece, you have to be... a little flexible. While GTS250 was indeed "released" the next year - it is just a rebadged 9800GTX(+) with a GPU which is more likely to be fixed and better coolers. Practical usability/reliability may be worth having a "wrong" card name displayed, given it is the same card after all...

That said if people are saying G92b should be fixed you can try your luck with 9800GTX+ ("+" is important here). But just looking of how many of them are sold as dead or "untested" - expect it to fail and do not pay more than you are willing to throw away for it...

Also keep in mind that this cards are not really fast enough to run period-correct stuff, not by modern standards. And Q9650 can definitely handle more. That's part of the reason i wanted to fool around with SLI - in games where it works and accepting the downsides something like 2x9800GTX+ can be actually useful...

The case... it is mesh front, 120mm fan in the back, PSU on top, right? Should be fine with one card like that but do use a good PSU - it'll be getting warm because of such placement. Since it is mesh front you could also put a 140mm fan into 5.25 drive bay, that'd help with airflow a bit...

In general I avoid cases which do not have 2 fans at the top and a fan at the bottom next to PSU to push fresh air on GPU. Cases with good airflow are from 2010-2015 era when AMD FX was released.

I agree with Archer57 you could be more flexible. C2Q Q9650 looks like an incredible CPU, that should compare well to my 3.2Ghz AM2+ build Re: Any love for AM2? . If you put in a GeForce GTX 670/770 it will be a fantastic system. It will be super cheap and last you forever.

Hmm. I don't really want a newer GPU for this build. If I did get a newer GPU I'd use it with my X58 board instead. I'm thinking about getting a HD4870. Are those more reliable? I found a decent deal for an ASUS HD4870
locally that has been tested. (It's fitting because I'm using an ASUS P5Q, 🤣)
Currently I'm using some Gigabyte 8500GT thing to test, but that obviously has terrible performance.
Should I get a HD4870?

Well, my experience with HD4870/HD4890 back then was that this are very competent cards, but they also never survived warranty. Obviously nothing more than anecdote with just a few cards though.

So you can definitely try, if they work this are good cards. Not sure if this ones are fixed already or not as ATI/AMD side of that defect is less well known.

This are also from 2008-2009, basically competitors of nvidia's 200 series. If you are fine with that might as well take a look at GTX260/280 which are 2008 too.

Almost all of the old cards have various forms of degradation issues from various reasons. From bad solder joints to capacitor or vrm issues, to internal chip failures, bios chip failures, design flaws in the pcb or in the heating itself, sometimes trace degradations. You can't just buy another type, and expect it will work, because it maybe not have a particular issue, but it will have another type of issue instead. Regardless, all of the cards with 8800 or 9800 name i have seen was already either fully dead, or gave me garbled screen. Except a 8800gt which i kept.

Geri wrote on 2025-08-07, 11:54:

Almost all of the old cards have various forms of degradation issues from various reasons. From bad solder joints to capacitor or vrm issues, to internal chip failures, bios chip failures, design flaws in the pcb or in the heating itself, sometimes trace degradations. You can't just buy another type, and expect it will work, because it maybe not have a particular issue, but it will have another type of issue instead. Regardless, all of the cards with 8800 or 9800 name i have seen was already either fully dead, or gave me garbled screen. Except a 8800gt which i kept.

Well, that's true. But also it is common for all old hardware. The stuff is not designed to last for decades, some things will die. And in many cases it is repairable - capacitors can be replaced, bios can be reflashed or replaced, VRM components can be replaced, even vram can be replaced, etc.

GPU failure is not repairable though, because this are not made anymore and the only way to get a new one is to get another card. And bumpgate leads to GPU failure, especially in certain conditions. Like if temperatures consistently stay above 70C under load and worse - regularly cross 70C threshold back and forth.

That's why bumpgate affected hardware, especially stuff with cooling systems designed for certain temperatures unacceptable for this chips, failed so much even when it was new. And will still fail nowadays, if it was not used enough back then and managed to survived.

I suspect if still completely working, not "repaired" or anything, card was to be found, like may be completely new one - it would be possible to install a more modern overkill cooler which would keep it at around 50-60C and keep it working for quite a while. I have a few bumpgate affected chips like nforce4 motherboards which had good cooling from the beginning and lasted for decades at this point...

I would say that reference 9800GTX+ is a stupidly overbuilt card, but it has only 512mb, which is somewhat limiting.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-08-07, 19:44:

I would say that reference 9800GTX+ is a stupidly overbuilt card, but it has only 512mb, which is somewhat limiting.

512mb vram was more or less usable up to 2019 (including the entire card itself, everything from 8800/9800 series). And that card was released in 2009. So these cards pretty much aged like fine wine. Previously, no graphics card was able to survive more than 4-5 years on the market before they fully turned into an obsolete trash, so pretty much giant respect for these cards. And btw 1gb versions existed from the 9800 gt, gtx+and even from the 8800 GT cards. People prefered the 512mb variants, so thats the most frequent to encounter.

Sorry for asking so many questions, but is the GTX 260 "safe"? I'm wondering if I should buy a 260 instead of a 4870.
Also, I do plan to play games from 2007 - 2009, so I don't need anything too overpowered.

GTX260 should be safe in terms of bumpgate. Obviously still old hardware though and can die for other reasons.

Also do not underestimate how much performance you need. Back then it was normal to play at 30FPS and it was period in time when games started pursuing "the best" graphics possible, often unable to run at max settings with playable FPS on hardware available at release. Even crazy hardware like multiple high end GPUs...

Depends on who you trust more. According to findings from Felix, 55nm should be fine, because Nvidia has started fixing their shit somewhere during 65nm production. So any late GTX 260 that you can identify to have a die shrink 55nm chip.
Byt according to old articles from Semiaccurate all 55nm chips are still cursed and Radeon should be safer choice.

Trouble is - some ATI chips were defective too, but given nvidia officially acknowledged the defect and ATI did not - there is very little info... IMO it is safe to assume fixes happened at roughly the same time as ultimately the chips were made by the same manufacturer...