[Gene Eric]

I do graphics engineering as a profession, and typically get the latest workstation card under $3k. I’ll do this every 5 years.

Evaluating performance is not an easy task. Host capabilities and performance can give the best cards the worst experience. Ultimately, your apps matter most — are you gaming, are you crunching numbers, are you doing graphics...

I get the sense you’re talking about low-risk expenditures, and you’re interested in some technical guidance. While I know a lot about my profession, I can’t keep up with technical specs and capabilities of the h/w. If you’re spending less than $100, I wouldn’t worry about making a potentially bad purchase.

Good luck!

[Paul R.]

Well, for me, these days, $100 IS a high risk expenditure, at least if there's a significant chance the $100 item will cause me time and grief because I failed to research it!

From my initial foray this last month into graphics cards, you seem spot on (importance of the host, and definitely of the usage). At it's core in my case, I need ability to put up side by side windows containing clean smallish text on a 4k 43" screen. (My little Dell refurb laptop can (8th gen i7 CPU) as it can crank out 4k video resolution @ IIRC 30 Hz.) But none of my SFF desktops can [older I-series CPU's].)

[Paul R.]

Thanks. See my posts 31 and 32 for “final” results. :-)