I got a GT 730. Really not a parade horse, but it serves my purpose. And it operates fan-less, means noise-free which I like. On the downside the heatsink occupies the width of 2 slots, so I had to remove my video capture card which I used for capturing my old VHS tapes. Well, actually I don't capture much anymore. Almost all done.
And yes, I am vaguely thinking about upgrading of my system - occasionally. But no urgency as it still serves my purpose. So no rush with initiating a collection, but principally I find your idea really brilliant and definitely worth some more thoughts
Backup strategy for my 8 years old HD: Despite no bad sectors or other alerting signs, I started to take measures about a year ago, which are:-
a. Synchronizing the current work to an external NAS with 2 HD (RAID)
b. Daily automatic backup of selected user folders to the NAS, with file versioning (3 versions)
c. About monthly manual backup of the User data to an exteran USB drive
d. Full HD image to a external HD, say every 6 ....8 months
e. Backup of pictures to a cloud, for internet access or sharing
So there is a reasonable chance that I will survive a HD crash. Risk is more that a. to d. are in my home (fire, theft ...). So I may adopt your strategy of storing d. in my car, as bank safes are just too costly (compared to the value of my data, I mean).