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Graphics card in the $300 range?

MightyUncleanMightyUnclean Member EpicPosts: 3,531
in Hardware
A friend of mine who is a moderate gamer wants to upgrade his graphics card.  He plans to spend around $300.  What do you guys recommend?

Thanks!

Comments

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    MightyUnclean said:
    A friend of mine who is a moderate gamer wants to upgrade his graphics card.  He plans to spend around $300.  What do you guys recommend?

    Thanks!
    What does he have now?

    $300 is nVidia 2060 territory.
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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,483
    If he wants a new card right now, then a Radeon RX 5600 XT is by far the best you're going to find on a strict $300 budget.  If you buy an older card used, you risk ending up with one that spent a year mining Ethereum around the clock and is on its last legs.

    Unfortunately, this isn't really the best time to look for a new video card in that price range.  AMD and Nvidia both seem to have discontinued all of the cards that you'd want, so they're disappearing.  Meanwhile, the new generation of cards hasn't yet made it down to the $300 range, and the higher end cards have had a very soft launch, so you mostly can't buy them even if you're willing to pay MSRP.

    On the Nvidia side, the GeForce RTX 3000 series cards that have launched so far all cost $500 and up.  The RTX 3070 had a soft launch, and the RTX 3080 and 3090 had a much softer launch to the extent of barely existing.  The 3080 and 3090 both rely on GDDR6X memory that still isn't in full production.

    On the AMD side, three bins of the new big Navi GPU will launch in two days, but those are all $580 and up.  And they'll probably also be a soft launch for quite some time, as they have limited 7 nm wafer capacity at TSMC, and a wafer of Zen 3 CPU chiplets will sell for several times as much as one of GPUs.

    Eventually, they'll both have new cards in the $300 range that are considerably better than the Radeon RX 5600 XT.  But the launches are probably at least weeks if not months away, and real availability may not come until well after launch.  So if he waits for that, he might well be waiting several months.  But that wait could easily net him 50% more performance on the same budget, as well as newer features.
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  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383
    edited November 2020
    I just went through the same thing a couple of weeks ago and settled on a 5600XT.

    it’s a crappy time to by buying mid range, or high range even...
    [Deleted User]
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,483
    Torval said:

    It's been a rough year
    One could argue that the rest of the sentence was superfluous.
    [Deleted User]
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,385
    Don't ever buy a used graphic card. They are almost certainly from mining operations and on their way out. It will probably die the minute you install it in your system.
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  • VrikaVrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,973
    Lonesols said:
    cheyane said:
    Don't ever buy a used graphic card. They are almost certainly from mining operations and on their way out. It will probably die the minute you install it in your system.
    They usually specify in the eBay auction if they are. You can tell if they are mining they have a bunch for sale in thier history. I've sold many cards on ebay, and they probably still use it. Graphics cards last a long time, so that just sounds like you didn't read the auction and got burned once. If what you described happened ebay would give your money back. 

    Thats like saying don't buy a use car because every used car was ran max rpm.
    Some sellers tell honestly that it's been used for mining, but the seller does not have any responsibility to tell that, and a lot of the time they won't because it would decrease the price they get.

    Imho whenever you buy used GPU you should assume that it's been used in mining and decide the price you're willing to pay accordingly. They can be good purchases, but only if you get it significantly cheaper than a new GPU would be.
     
  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383
    You are right - not every used card is a bad deal.

    But there are enough bad apples in that barrel to where most people don’t recommend it. You don’t have any recourse if you do get a bad Apple: long odds on getting the seller to accept a return and no warranty support.

    That’s all - nothing personal. YMMV, and it is a good way to save a bit of cash, it just carries a good deal of risk with it.
    [Deleted User]Quizzical
  • BloodaxesBloodaxes Member EpicPosts: 4,662
    edited November 2020
    Personally when bought my GTX 1080, I was on a budget and got a used one. I checked the guy's profile, and even contacted him before deciding. He seemed like a genuine guy (looking to upgrade and replied more than once), and so I bought it.

    Been using it for 2 years now. No issues. 
    Ridelynn[Deleted User]

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,413
    edited November 2020
    Used nVidia cards should be alright. It's the RX 470/80 and RX 570/80 that you need to look out for, especially the 8gb models.
    We are about to see another massive buy for mining cards soon given that crypto has doubled in value recently. The Rtx 3000 series cards will probably be the ones targeted. 
  • CuddleheartCuddleheart Member UncommonPosts: 391
    I really hate to hyjack this thread, but I was checking ebay prices for this thread and I noticed that while 2080ti cards have tanked in price to $600, the 2070 super is still really high.  I figured that since the 3060 would outperform it, it would have taken a bigger hit in used prices.  Anyone know why?
  • VrikaVrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,973
    Cuddleheart said:
    I really hate to hyjack this thread, but I was checking ebay prices for this thread and I noticed that while 2080ti cards have tanked in price to $600, the 2070 super is still really high.  I figured that since the 3060 would outperform it, it would have taken a bigger hit in used prices.  Anyone know why?
    Ebay prices will come down once people who have bought new generation GPUs start flooding the used card market with 20xx cards. With how limited production numbers are, you'll likely have to wait until after Christmas for that to happen.
     
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,483
    Cleffy said:
    Used nVidia cards should be alright. It's the RX 470/80 and RX 570/80 that you need to look out for, especially the 8gb models.
    We are about to see another massive buy for mining cards soon given that crypto has doubled in value recently. The Rtx 3000 series cards will probably be the ones targeted. 
    That depends enormously on which cryptocurrency they're buying parts for.  Bitmain made an ASIC for Ethereum, so I'd expect that to beat any GPUs on that particular cryptocurrency.  That's the one that drove the GPU mining craze a couple of years ago.
  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    edited November 2020
    If my memory serves me,not often lol,LTT was saying the mining cards are not the same as the regular cards and are MUCH cheaper.
    It was during an episode where he was trying to see if he can get a mining card to work as a normal card because nVidia said you can't.

    Ok didn't take me long ,found it,so the idea is that mining specific cards are just cheaper,so it wouldn't make any sense for someone to buy a card to mine and spend more to do it than needed.I don't remember the result of the test but i think they got it working but jumped through some hoops.


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