Screen flickering and freezing

[Brids17]

So I was playing a game today and suddenly my screen started flickering and glitching out. Parts of the screen would flash multi-coloured pixels and random lines would appear. The screen would randomly turn into vertical bars that were brownish in colour then flicker back. It did this for about 30 seconds before freezing completely, requiring manual shutdown. Would this be a case of my GPU overheating? I'd only been gaming for about two hours and this has never happened to me before despite much longer gaming sessions. I've been planning on upgrading my PC sometime early next year but if this is my GPU dying maybe I need to do so now. =\

Windows 7 64bit
Intel i5 760 2.8ghz
8gb RAM
HD 7850 2gb

 

[carnageX]

Checking GPU temps would definitely be where I would start looking. Make sure you blow any dust out as well with some canned air.