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I've continued operating on my old Nvidia 9800 GT since I got my current computer and it seems to have finally lost the ability to output out of one of its DVI ports, making dual monitors impossible, which I would very much like to fix. My PC specs otherwise haven't changed since I bought it, but it seems the type of card I have now and PatrThom's original recommendation are now off the shelves unless I want to risk a refurbished eBay card.

What would currently be a good choice in cards to get for a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot? Something cheap and equivalent to the specs of what I had (originally purchased something like 5 or 6 years ago) would still be great, but I wouldn't say no to improving performance, either, if better cards can now be had within the $100-200 price range. And is it worth spending more for a 2.0 card at this point, or will they likely be too obsolete by the next time I get a new mobo in a couple of years to recycle onto my next PC build?

Are you limited at all by how many slots it can take up, or how many extra power plugs you have on your power supply?

--Patrick

If nothing else, you can replace your 9800 gt for 69 bucks plus shipping. In fact, I may do that for my old PC just to get it up and going again as a file server. You never realize how dependent on one machine your network is until it is off of it.

The 9800 is just the 8800 on a smaller process (i.e., less heat) so it's pretty well supported (by operating systems, games, etc.).

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

The 9800 is just the 8800 on a smaller process (i.e., less heat) so it's pretty well supported (by operating systems, games, etc.).

--Patrick

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Yeah, I compared the two out of curiosity. The 9800 GT has 95% of the benchmark performance of my departed 8800 GTX, and at around 1/5th the cost today (and close to 1/9th what the cost was at new).

Take that, wallet! Moore says you can suck it!

PatrThom said:

Are you limited at all by how many slots it can take up, or how many extra power plugs you have on your power supply?

--Patrick

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Nope, plenty of room in the case, especially if I'm removing the old card. I think if I do get another 9800, I might even be able to SLI it with the other one. It seems to be otherwise functional aside from the burnt out port. I just really want dual monitors.

If you're looking to stay NVIDIA (which I would recommend to avoid driver hassles, but mainly because litecoin mining has absolutely decimated the good AMD cards), then I would recommend two choices:

Budget: Geforce GTX 660 (Under $200)
Upgrade: Geforce GTX 770 (Just over $300)

There are others, of course, but they're more than $300. Much more.

--Patrick

I'm probably about to upgrade to a Sapphire R290. The performance of that monstrosity (comparable to a Titan) is absurd for it's price (about 400). The new 3rd party cards have better fans on them and run MUCH cooler than the lava hot AMD spec cards.

I say probably because apparently there are none for sale anywhere.

Frank said:

I say probably because apparently there are none for sale anywhere.

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Yep. I mentioned that in my post.

It seems that Litecoin mining is eating all the GCN (Graphics Core Next) cards.

I seriously wonder if we will see a shortage of the newer 2013 Mac Pros as a result, since they are basically just two high-performance GCN-based GPUs enclosed in a quiet, power-efficient package, which is a Litecoin miner's wet dream.

--Patrick