what's the current sweet spot for graphics cards?

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BLinux

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I'm shopping for a graphics card for my 8 yr kid. He's been using my old Gigabyte 8600GT for some time now and has come close to overheating it several times with some of the games he plays. That old card also doesn't handle PCSX2 very well and he enjoys playing old PS2 classics. I'm not going to spend top dollar on the latest and greatest, and I'm definitely trying to stay away from the cryptomining inflation. So, outside of that, what's the best bang for the buck graphics card right now?

I see used GTX980 for $250-ish. Is there something faster for less? Or something that provides better bang for the dollar?

I'm considering having him "pass down" his old desktop (E5450 xeon w/ 8GB, 8600GT) to his little sister. I'm going to get him a used HP Z800 for a couple hundred, and that's where this video card will go.
 

pyro_

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Take a look at the 1050TI if it is older games and not above 1080P at should work well and has not been hit by the cryptomining pricing. The GTX980 is prob about the equivalent to a 1060/1070
 

BLinux

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Take a look at the 1050TI if it is older games and not above 1080P at should work well and has not been hit by the cryptomining pricing. The GTX980 is prob about the equivalent to a 1060/1070
ok.. i see i can find 1050TI for around $150-170-ish. It's a little slower than the 980, but cost less?
 

pyro_

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That is correct, It would be about the same as the GTX 960 it is also nice in that it does not require an extra PCIE power from the power supply for most models, just uses the power from teh PCIE slot
 

epicurean

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I find that the Nvidia GT 710, 720 or 730 are rather cost effective graphics cards. If your son's 8600GT can somewhat handle the current games he is playing, I don't think you need overly powerful and expensive cards
 

cactus

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what makes you think crypto-miners will liquidate in the next month or two?
As @Marsh said, ROI was calculated for bubble price, pre-bubble dificulty, and two months of actually having to pay power with decreasing daily income. Time to just buy/sell coins vs mine.
 

cactus

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I find that the Nvidia GT 710, 720 or 730 are rather cost effective graphics cards. If your son's 8600GT can somewhat handle the current games he is playing, I don't think you need overly powerful and expensive cards
1030 is a better buy than the 730 new. Just bought one for the HTPC. Has the x265 hardware decoders and hdmi 2.0b.
 
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cheezehead

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Given we are talking about a 10yr box that that is limited to PCIe 2.0, I'd check around and see if you can pickup something like a GTX660 or better....should be under $40ish these days and a sizable upgrade.
 

Tom5051

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GTX 10 series are the way to go if you can find stock at the moment. The 1060 or better is my recommendation.
They run much cooler than the 9 series due to the smaller die size.
 

BLinux

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at this point i'm either leaning towards a EVGA 1050 TI SC, which I saw was about $120 a few months ago or maybe passing my current EVGA 980 SC to my boy and getting myself a 1080/1080TI if the prices come down.

actually, are there any good options in the ATI/AMD product line that are good bang for the buck equivalent to 1050 TI?
 

cactus

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at this point i'm either leaning towards a EVGA 1050 TI SC, which I saw was about $120 a few months ago or maybe passing my current EVGA 980 SC to my boy and getting myself a 1080/1080TI if the prices come down.

actually, are there any good options in the ATI/AMD product line that are good bang for the buck equivalent to 1050 TI?
RX 560 is comparable to the 1050 (non-Ti). RX580/RX570 to the 1060 which is a step down from the 980.
 

BLinux

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so... been shopping for 1050 TI or 1080. If I find a good deal on a 1080/1080TI, I figure I'll give my son the 980 I have. looking at prices via camelcamelcamel.com, it looks like the 1050 TI have been inflated a bit from the cryptocurrency trend lately... gone from $114 up to $160-ish by Amazon, and up to $240 by 3rd party sellers!

i wish i had gotten the deal at $114 as I recall getting an alert on that via slickdeals a couple of months ago and thought to myself that would be nice to have.
 

BLinux

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so, while I've been looking for a graphics card, I came across another option that I wasn't considering initially. There's a local person selling a GTX 980 Reference card for $150. Considering that's the current price of the 1050TI, and the 980 > 1050 TI performance wise...

what do you think? go for the 980? or keep waiting for 1050 TI to come back down or ?
 
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