I got the "Graphics Card Blues" Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

I am so confused about the huge number of options and considerations, that I need help from people who know.
My current Graphics Card is the ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GT610 with 2GB DDR3 memory. My original card was the GT120 with 1 GB dedicated VRAM. Although the GT610 is supposedly the better card, my windows index went from about 5.5 to about 4.5 ?? It is the Aero figure that went down, all the other numbers stayed the same ??
Also, my motherboard has a small lead on it with a 3 pin plug attached that connected to three pins on my GT120 card, these pins are marked as "SPDIF IN" on the card.
On my Gt610 card, there is nowhere to connect this little plug. However, I seem to have less trouble with some 3D things than I did with the GT120, so I have left the GT610 in place.

My Computer is a Fujitsu Amilo Pi3745
The motherboard is a MSI MS-7504
My main monitor is a Iiyama ProLite E2607WSD 26 inch widescreen. 1920 X 1200 resolution.
My secondary monitor is a Iiyama ProLite E1906S 19 inch 4.5 aspect ratio. 1280 X 1024 resolution.
I have 8GB DDR2 RAM on the motherboard, and another 2GB DDR3 on the graphics card.
The main use of my secondary monitor is to read help/tutorials, while working in the main monitor.
I intend to use my machine for as long as possible.
I have a few eSATA ports, which are plenty fast enough for my use, and as the price of Samsungs nice little 250GB SSD continues to come down, I will be looking at one of those in the future.
A single slot card is all that I have room for, but I can juggle things to allow for a higher card, and the maximum size 'Front to back' is 16.8 cm
Everything that I can think of that may be relevant has been placed in the zip file ... graphic_card_blues.zip

Could someone please advise me what my Graphic Card upgrade options are my machine ?
Many thanks !!

It really depends on your budget, there are so many choices. I just ordered this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127699

No more being vague, what's your main uses of the system, please? [nevermind, after digging deeper, it doesn't matter, but keep reading....]

You need low profile card that a listed as 365W (actual in small print) PSU will deal with?
No $ in budget for that to be upgraded..... AddRAM's suggestion is out of the question for size and power requirements, no way it would work in that scenario.

That limits you severely and trying to run 2 monitors on it, you would probably need at least a 1gig video card for those 2 resolutions.

VRAM is different than your regular ram, you are not using that 8gig as video ram, and be glad it's not shared, that would be a performance hit.

I am digging deeper, so far, looking at the motherboard manual, that PCI Express Slot is not 2.0, probably 1.1, motherboard is from 2007, manual says the PCIe slot handles up to 4.0 GB/s which is below 5.0 GB/s which is 2.0 spec. [It doesn't give the version of PCIe but I am working on my A+ and going by my info 2.5 is 1.0 and 2.0 is 5.0, and 3.0 is 8.0 GB/s. Just FYI! 8)]

SO you need a video card that is PCIe v1.1 backwards compatible, which will also limit the field, unless you have some news for me, that the motherboard is newer variant.

Here is info on that S/PDIF business, it's sound related, these low end cards are often put into media center PCs, that's why that card had it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF

Looking further, that 610 is looking like the limitation you are stuck at, you are max with that, and I would ignore Windows scoring... I couldn't find a straight up 120 vs 610 comparison, but the 610 overall should be better, and here is a chart that may give you piece of mind on the subject:
[Then, again maybe not]

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/...10&compare=gpu

You need to save for a whole new rig, which is what I suspected all along if looking for better performance, but it will be so much better than the current one, wouldn't spend a pence on current one, after my research.

You are limited by your PSU, v1.1 PCIe-16 slot AND case size.

Now for SSD, beware you are only spec v2.0 (Max 300 MB/s [SATA II]) on that motherboard.

The real question is why are you shopping for a new card ? If it was me, I would pull the trigger on that Samsung SSD even knowing that your system won't fully exploit it. Then set my sights on building up funds for a new rig based on a cpu, mobo and case that offers all the flexibility that new modern graphics card(s) require.

SSD all day and twice on Sunday ! Then wait till you can design a ground up rig in a full size case....IMHO.