Miners are buying up all the Graphics cards and Gamers are bitching about the prices... but there just may be another option for gamers.
Graphics cards are at an all time high in cost and an all time low on supply, this is mainly due to the mining community sucking up every mid to high end card they can get there hands on, killing the supply and driving up costs. Even myself, I have only just started mining and finding another GPU is near impossible unless they are pre ordered.
So last night I was doing some thinking and there just may be a solution for those who want to either upgrade from an older generation card or are new to PC gaming and want to build there own system.
Yes you could buy prebuilt, but what if you already have all the parts you want and only need a Graphics Card?..
Lets say you had a PC that was as old as @deeviras's one that I replaced for her that had an Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2Gb in there. Originally the idea I had to improve her gaming experience was to simply upgrade to a better used card like a GTX 780 or 960.
Lets look at it from a different angle...
A GTX 1080 Ti will set you back a minimum of $1'000 on the used market and about $1'500 new, if you can find one in stock. The prices are out of control. And gamers usually will not pay so much for a GPU. But what about lesser cards like the 1060 or 1070? the prices are still equally 3-4 times the usual retail value and again, that's if you can find them in stock.
But what about the last generation of graphics cards, well Nvidia ones anyway. On the used market, a GTX 980 Ti 6Gb will cost anywhere from $200 - $300, and the 980 Ti has similar performance to that of the GTX 1070, so it is no slouch when it comes to gaming.
If you looked at the Steam Hardware Survey last summer, you would have seen that the GTX 750 Ti was used buy a good portion of Steam gamers at over 16%, and was at the top of the list.
If you take another look today at the Steam Hardware Survey you will see that the 750 Ti is still in the top 3 of most used GPU's by Steam Gamers.
Basically what I am trying to say is, Apart from Nvidia's Pascal based GPU's, (there 1000 series cards), all previous generations from Nvidia suck at mining with ridiculously low hash rates when compared to there modern day counterparts. This means miners in general will ignore them as they offer no real performance in the mining world.
So if you really want to upgrade or buy a new GPU but don't want to pay the high prices, as a stop gap measure, you could invest in a slightly older card for a lot less money but can still perform in any modern triple A title you can throw at it.
A short while ago, I compared 3 older graphics cards with each other and benchmarked them in a few games and synthetic bench's. (You can read that post HERE) I did get some surprising results from them all, and they were all capable of playing games with reasonably good graphical detail at 1080p with some very good frame rates. And each of them cards would cost less that $100.
So unless you are a Frame rate and Ultra Graphical settings whore who wants to spend way over the odds for a new GPU, choosing an older card that can play the games you want, at half the cost, until the market settles down, is probably the better alternative as older Nvidia Cards are pretty much Miner proof.
Thanks for reading.
Don't Forget to Upvote, ReSteem and Follow for more content like this!
Stu @TechMojo
Join the chat TechMojo Discord Channel Follow us TechMojo OnG Social Page Like us TechMojo Facebook Page Follow us TechMojo Twitter
@TechMojo Recommended Blogs you should follow.
Like this Content? Why Not Donate Then.
Bitcoin Wallet Address. 1L8TZDQasoBU2RNcjkSeZX3iUsSaHT37aj Ethereum Wallet Address. 0xe3c6372121554f73c38acae3312fc7b1ddaf670f
Only 2 out of 20 locals stores stocked GTX 1050 Ti (Non OC!) cost me 200 usd. Bought it for my new desktop....sorta feeling like a douche though. Oh when will the prices go down...
yeah. for similar money you could of had a gtx 970 which would of given you much more gaming performance. as for prices. well that is dependent on the bitcoin and alt-coin market and how much supply comes out of the amd and nvidia factories.
Prices are definitely way more expensive than they should be, but if you dedicate a day trying to snag one online its not too difficult, they are restocking all of the time. You just have to be quick in the cart.
sure, you can also pre order, but you will still be paying a premium for a card that should cost up to 200% less.
You did a great job. Keep it up.
this board is god.I like this