Re: replacement video card

Eben King composed on 2026-06-09 15:18 (UTC-0400):

> Hi, I have Debian 12 "Bookworm" currently, and my video card is an 
> Nvidia GTX 970.  While I'm happy with its speed, I'm not happy with the 
> proprietary nature of its driver, nor its brokenness (1).  So, I seek a 
> replacement card whose driver is in the mainline kernel (2).  I've heard 
> AMD and Intel GPUs are generally not bad.  Do you have any further 
> recommendations or anti-recommendation?  Thanks.

> 1: Its fans don't work, so I wrote a script to modulate the case fans 
> and CPU throttle based on its temperature.

> 2: If you wish to recommend a particular card, keep in mind that cheap 
> is imperative (like <$150 cheap), used is OK, and I have three monitors.

I bought https://www.ebay.com/itm/198406888174 a year ago from eBay seller
semsotai2017. Sensors temp current/idling on Bookworm is 50C versus high of 95C. I
can tell PC is on, but not which fan is loudest. None are annoyingly loud, but I
definitely know when PC is turned on. When I use it, it's usually with 3 displays,
and running on pure FOSS drivers. All other PCs I use with 3 displays at once are
running on AMD or Intel iGPUs' motherboard's graphics ports.