GTX 660 artifacts when using high settings

[someone755]

I'm still desperately clinging to my 660. It's been fine in most games, but recently I installed Prey (2017). Initially, I played with the in-game Low preset, but with FXAA enabled, and it seemed to run very well. I noticed today that GeForce Experience had support for the game, but would refuse to retrieve the game's settings. Naturally, I set the game up manually, and despite the increased load, the game worked as well as it did before, however, at one corner, I started noticing strange artifacting, which I recorded with my smartphone, here: https://youtu.be/NemPPJadNgQ For reference, these are the settings I am using, but with a 1080p resolution: https://i.imgur.com/tk03aB0.png

This seems very worrying, as it might be indicative of a hardware fault -- The only time I've seen anything like it was when I ran my old 9500 GT on very intense overvolt settings, several years ago. This leads me to believe my 660's artifacts might show a problem with the voltage regulators. However, what's also weird is that the card's power usage never exceeds 90% of its maximum TDP, as indicated by GPU-Z, which I am using to monitor the card. Sadly, the card itself lacks VRM temperature sensors.

Could this be a simple problem of thermals, and a sign that the GPU paste and heat pads need replacing? Or is it a sign that the card is nearing the end of its life? Also, what prompts this error to occur only on higher settings, and only when looking in a specific direction in that room of the game?

 

[richiestang_78]

Usually artifacting is a sign of a dying card. It could be some driver/directx issues but I doubt it. You could try and replace the paste and thermal pads and see what that gets you but Im not hopeful. Pick up a 1050ti for relatively cheap or maybe a 1060 and youll be better off.