The chief engineer at my former employer built my computer for me about five, maybe six years ago. It has a PCI bus (not the newer PCIe bus) for video. Currently I am running an nVidia GeForce 8600GTS video card with 256 MB RAM. By the standards of 2006 or '07 when we built the computer, this was a pretty hot video card. I don't know how it stacks up today.

Last month I treated myself to a new 27" HD flat-screen monitor, that finally arrived today. (I haven't taken it out of the box yet.) Its native resolution is 1920 x 1080 and the highest resolution my current video card software shows is 1680 x 1050. Does this mean I need a new video card? Does my nVidia software not show resolutions higher than the currently connected monitor? What happens if I run the new monitor at 1680 x 1050? Maybe the new monitor comes with drivers that magically make my current video card rn at 1920 x 1080?

If I need a new video card, what are the recommendations? Remember that it is PCI, not PCIe. Maybe there aren't any new PCI cards out there anymore, I could only find PCIe cards on Amazon and NewEgg, plenty of used PCI cards on eBay.

So, what do I do? ATI or nVidia? Is 256MB enough, or do I want to look for a gigabyte card?

Advice? Maybe someone here has a suitable PCI card for sale?

??

tanstaafl.