Diagnosis please.

[RisingFalls]

Gentlemen (and ladies).

After several years of hard work, it seems my system has kicked the bucket and decided to stop working properly.

I had been putting a lot of pressure on both my CPU and graphics card to function to their maximum, and yes, it was my fault that whatever happened, happened.

But I need to know now which part(s) of my system is failing.

My system has stalled and crashed entirely several times with obvious graphical errors displaying on the monitor during one of these high-strain processes. Completely locked out, more than once.
And now, the problem persists all the way into the boot up screen and BIOS as well.
Examples of the errors would be letters being out of place, odd black lines being streaked here and there. Pretty easy to recognize something is wrong.

I know this is not a problem with my monitor because I have tested this several times with different monitors and had the same result.

Due to the nature of the problem, I've (obviously) concluded that my graphics card has simply chosen to die on me.
Unfortunately this is the most detailed I can get.

At this current moment my system seems to be stable and working correctly, but I'm concerned that the problem will pop up again when I'm in the middle of something important.

Now, my simple question is, will simply replacing my graphics card be the end-all solution to this problem?
As I had mentioned, I've put a lot of strain on my CPU as well, and was concerned there could be a problem with the CPU and motherboard itself as well. A combination of my motherboard and graphics card going poof, a fried circuit or something I can't see, et cetera.

If it matters, I am using an eVGA 8600 GTS and AMD X2 4200+. Purchased quite a few years ago, two or three and counting.

Thanks in advance.

Edit : As an afterthought, I am going to go ahead and start shopping for another card now. I haven't been in the market for a very long time and sort of lost touch with current prices and popular cards.
Any sound suggestions for a card that can endure video rendering and high performance gaming? I would prefer Nvidia over ATI and am on a budget of $150.

 

[oldskool]

Well the easiest thing to do is follow your suspicion and try another video card if you have one available. Just a guess at this point, but that is what it sounds like to me. It could help, it might not though. Try another one if you have one available.

 

[RisingFalls]

Well the easiest thing to do is follow your suspicion and try another video card if you have one available. Just a guess at this point, but that is what it sounds like to me. It could help, it might not though. Try another one if you have one available.

Unfortunately I do not have a secondary graphics card available to me and my motherboard did not come with integrated graphics.

Is there any other way I can confirm it?

I feel as though I'm blindly reaching out for any solution.

Meanwhile I will try to ensure that my CPU and graphics card stay as close to idle as possible.

 

[oldskool]

Can you borrow one that works from a friend or coworker ? There isn't much sense trying a bunch of other things until you remove doubt that it is or isn't the video card. By borrowing one you could save money as well if it turns out that it isn't in fact the video card.

 

[RisingFalls]

I'll see what I can do with a friend and calling in a favor.

I'll report back in a little while with an update.