Graphics Card replacement recommendations for iMac?
About a month ago my iMac started having graphical issues, the screen would distort the image and I wouldn't be able to access any of the content on my computer. I would have to force shut it down and reboot it in order to get it working again, but as I kept doing that the length of time I could use the computer before it started freezing up grew shorter. Now its at the point where when I turn it on I get the Apple logo, the loading animation, and then it restarts and gives me a message about restarting because of a problem, and it gets stuck in this rebooting cycle.
I took it to an Apple Genius bar and they weren't able to get it to boot up properly either. What the guy there told me was that my graphics card was shot and I needed to get it replaced. He said they couldn't do it for me there, that I'd have to get a different service to open up my computer and install the new card. So I called an Apple repair place nearby and they had trouble identifying what model iMac I had. I gave them my serial number but they wren't able to identify it from that for some reason. It's a 24-inch iMac that I'm relatively certain is one of the 2008 models, I'd look it up on my computer but I can't get it to boot up. I have a friend who works for Apple who looked up the Serial number and he says he thinks that my model either has an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT or 26000 Pro (I'm not really sure what that means). But my understanding from him is it is one of the models that has a replaceable graphics card that isn't soldered to the logic board.
So if that's the case, I need to figure out what graphics card to get as a replacement. But I don't know the first thing about Graphics cards, especially in relation to the computer I'm using. I use my computer primarily for making artwork with adobe illustrator and photoshop, but I do like to play games on it too, which I understand is what made my graphics card poop out. So if I were to replace the graphics card I'd like to get something with a little more oomph so that I can still play some games on it if I want to. Any advice?
