Sadly, my 980 TI just blew up. I took it apart and I think it's one of the VRAM has totally burned out, there's a big old black mark and burning smells. So unfortunately I need a new GPU.

I've always had NVIDIA in the past, but I'm willing to do AMD. I principally run Linux, but do dual boot for some Windows gaming. I do need VR support for my index. I've never done ray tracing, think it might be fun to try but not necessary.

It's been a long time since I bought a GPU, so I'm not super up to date on everything right now, so I'm hoping for some advice. I was hoping to wait another year or two before upgrading, but I guess I need something now. I have a 6700k processor on Asus Maximus hero viii.

Honestly I probably just want to replace something roughly compatible to what I had, but maybe it is time to just upgrade to something much better. Usually I try to buy a decent GPU so it can last for many years instead of frequently upgrading. So I'm torn if I should just get something old and uses that would work for a year or two, or if I should now just bite the bullet and buy a upper mid to lower top tier GPU now. If I had to I could stretch a budget into the 1500 usd range, but it really bothers me that cards have been getting getting that expensive so I would prefer to keep it down more in 200-800 range. I have 1440p monitor, but I'm also ok with 1080 gaming.

I'd appreciate any thoughts, or advice from those more up-to-date on recent GPUs. Thanks