Recommendation for graphics card for vintage hardware?

[John-M]

Hi, I recently completed my first Hackintosh build using mostly parts I had available: a previously unused H61 motherboard and a Sandy Bridge i7 bought on ebay. I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.6 with no immediate urge to move to High Sierra. The most expensive part was the 16 GB of DDR3 RAM.

I'm pretty impressed with it, considering it's not exactly a modern build, but I'm still looking to improve it. As it has only USB 2 on board, I searched the site for PCIe USB 3.0 recommendations and ordered an Inateck KT4006, which I'm hopeful will just work OOB.

My next thought was to improve the graphics. I'm currently using the HD 3000 integrated into the i7 2600K via the motherboard DVI port and, to be honest, it drives a 1920x1080 BenQ monitor better than I expected. So if I do add a discrete graphics card it needs to meet these specific requirements:

1. It needs to offer easy compatibility with Sierra, preferably working OOB but I can learn how to load a driver if necessary.
2. It needs to give a worthwhile improvement over the HD 3000 graphics I have already, such as support for OpenCL.
3. The cost needs to be proportionate to the rest of the system.
4. The card would preferably occupy only a single PCIe slot. My mATX motherboard has only two PCIe x1 sockets in addition to the x16 but one of them would be inaccessible if a double width graphics card was installed. I need one for my USB 3 card and I'd like to keep the other for future expansion possibilities

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks.

 

[trs96]

MSI GT 1030 fanless would work well and only costs a little over 70 USD.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137139&cm_re=gt_1030-_-14-137-139-_-Product

 

[John-M]

That's brilliant! Thank you so much. It seems to be exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[John-M]

Well, I bought one and fitted it, downloaded and installed the nVidia web driver and updated Clover's plist. It works fine and has none of the little glitches that the Intel integrated graphics sometimes showed. My next project is to investigate HDMI audio.