Hardware or software issue causing purple lines & no boot...

I was watching a movie on my Mac Pro (2006) and suddenly the video stopped and purple lines went all over parts of the screen. I couldn't do anything, not even a force quit, I was forced to turn off the power.
Upon restart, the Apple logo is showing the same purple lines, though the grey background was unaffected. After the loading, the logo disappears and then I get a cursor and a beachball and nothing else. Mouse input works, but otherwise the computer does nothing.
I was able to do a safe boot and it works, but the purple lines still remain.
Anyone else have this issue? Does it sound like hardware or software?
I'm probably gonna transfer files and just reinstall snow leopard. I'm hoping it's not a dead video card or something. If that's the case, then it's just become a craigslist special... maybe $250?lol
Any input/help is much appreciated.
WHat

Actually, I have a Late 2011 Macbook Pro Quad Core Sandy Bridge that's mostly been sitting in my safe since I bought it in 2011 (insurance replacement form a Core 2 Duo era Macbook Pro that was stolen).
That thing has always run circles around the Mac Pro. It may run at a slower clock speed, but everything about the Sandy Bridge Core i7 is superior to the now severely obsolete Woodcrest Xeons
It's definitely served me well, it was my first Intel Mac, I moved from a Powerbook G4 1.5ghz to this, and it was amazingly fast, even running Adobe CS2 in Rosetta. But lately, for me it's been getting slower and slower. Any websites with flash are slow as molasses. I can't even make it through an episode of a show on the History or A&E websites without the last segment being a slideshow.
I've recently switched to the Chrome browser, it's helped in usability, but it's still not ideal.
I'll wait for a good deal on a 7300GT on eBay to get it back up and running. Still, I really like iCloud and all the integration that comes with the latest Mac OS releases, so it really is time for me to start using my modern Macs more. I was already heading in this direction. It's been a good system, but it's time has passed. I'm already moving my iTunes HD to my Macbook Pro, next I gotta get the files off of the Mac Pro onto an external.
Maybe I'll just keep it around as a Rosetta system since that's the one area where my Macbook Pro falls short. I still use PPC apps once in awhile.lol

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Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue.
Click the “Kudos Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
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Is this hardware or software issue

Hello
i bought my macbook pro 2 months ago, it was all okay and i was more than satisfied with its performance. 3 days ago, i was working on my macbook and i was using alot of applications, suddenly, mac freezes, i thought that was just 1 time thing, after that it started to freeze a lot, the screen either go to blue color, freeze, or some pixels shows and some n't. i re-installed mac os x snow leopard, while installing i got the same problem many times, finally i made it and re-installed lion again. but the same problem is still there, i have windows installed using bootcamp, and the problem is there also. sometimes everything freeze, but sometimes music still playing.
this is very depressing for me, im like 90% sure that this is a hardware problem, it's still new to send it to support. im still hoping that this is a software issue
anyone had this issue before? those are some links to the problem
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2128201/mbp1.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2128201/mbp2.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2128201/mbp3.jpg
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