spaceboy_psy

Well hello, and thanks for having me and all that. I wondered if anyone might get their kicks out of GPU recommendations? Reason being I haven't looked at the discrete GPU market for donkey's years, being a pure laptop user for a long time now; and also I'm pretty sure my setup will have a severe bottleneck at the expresscard slot, so I'm curious what spec of gpu is worth getting, before I stop seeing cost-efficient gains. My plan is: Use my old Lenovo T420 with i5 2520M and HD 3000 graphics (no Optimus for me!), with EXP GDC Beast v8 (just ordered it from ebay; expected delivery Feb/Mar!? Blimey). First test will be with a REALLY old Radeon X550HM card and 250W PSU I've got laying around. Then I'll buy myself a sexy new GPU (and PSU if needed). I've found it impossible to say for sure whether my T420 supports expresscard Gen2 or not. But the evidence is slightly leaning towards only Gen1 support. If that's true (anyone know??), what's a good balance of cost and performance for a GPU for this system? What cards are good but just old enough to be getting cheap just now? That kind of thing. Suggestions to get me started much appreciated!