The Ultimate Guide to Buying a Used Graphics Card

In that location are many reasons why you lot would purchase a used graphics carte du jour. Get-go and foremost, the savings, of course. With the mining madness at present over, we've been given the opportunity of buying graphics cards on the cheap due to both excess inventory and users merely getting rid of hardware that is no longer good for mining cryptocurrencies. This by generation of GPUs also received a much longer than expected life cycle, meaning you are not getting overly old GPUs, but adequately serviceable gaming hardware.

To prepare used graphics card pricing we've looked at completed eBay listings from all of December, working out the all-time graphics carte du jour buys right at present. Thousands of sales have been tallied up and that's the data we used to guess our average sale price, which will and so allow us to calculate a price per frame measure out.

For testing frame rate operation we chose games that have proven to exist adequately neutral, not favoring either GPU make. Nosotros took 1 of our big thirty+ game benchmarks and looked for titles where the GTX 1060 and RX 580, along with the GTX 1070 and Vega 56, delivered a similar level of functioning. This pb united states to choose Battleground 1, F1 2022 and Ascension of the Tomb Raider, all of which were tested using DX11 with the medium quality preset at 1080p.

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Frame rates for all graphics cards were higher in Battlefield 1 and F1 2022, while they were about 35% lower in Tomb Raider, so this caused some issues for the lower-terminate models.

Still, we feel this is a good spread of what you can expect from modern games using mild quality settings.

Looking at GeForce GPUs showtime, the GTX 560 and 560 Ti were basically unable to play these mod titles at 1080p while at the opposite end of the calibration we accept the GTX 1080 Ti miles out in front every bit it's roughly equivalent to the new RTX 2080.

Using medium quality presets in the three tested titles, we are looking for ~60 fps on average. Gamers can get away with as a piddling as a GTX 950, 760, 1050, 960, 670 or obviously anything that was faster.

For the Radeon GPUs nosotros see Vega 56 and 64 well out in front while the previous generation Fury GPUs were really only just able to edge out the RX 580. We see strong performance from the R9 290, 390 and RX 570, too every bit anything situated above them on the graph. For effectually 60 fps, the HD 7870 or the refreshed 270X will work while the Hd 7950, R9 280, 380 and faster volition be more than acceptable using mid-range quality settings.

The functioning numbers by themselves are somewhat useful equally they allow you lot to chop-chop make up one's mind what's still worth ownership. Now it'due south time to see what each model sells for on average, how many were sold at auction in December, and how they compare in terms of toll vs. performance.

The data below is arranged by the boilerplate frame rate, with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti offer the fastest operation and then it's shown at the top of the nautical chart. Next to the GPU model proper noun nosotros take the average selling price in December, in the instance of the GTX 1080 Ti that price is $618. Then in the darker gray field we have the number of successful auctions, ignoring any defective products being sold as parts. In the case of the 1080 Ti we encounter there were 715 secondhand models sold concluding month, and then your chances of snagging i for effectually the average selling price is practiced.

At $618, the GTX 1080 Ti costs $2.32 per frame (based on the information from our iii game average). That makes it one of the nigh expensive models in value terms, merely it'due south also by far the fastest, so that premium may exist justified. With the RTX 2080 currently selling for its $700 MSRP, you really want to spend well under $600 on a used 1080 Ti to brand it a good buy. We establish quite a few models for around $550, and even saw one that sold for as low as $415, so there are bargains to be had. Still, it's shocking how many sold for close to or even over $700 last month. Anyway, at $415 the GTX 1080 Ti comes out at just $1.56 per frame, and $2 at per frame at $532. So feel free to make your own calculations based on the pricing in your region.

For those after a high-end bargain the GTX 1080 is worth looking into. The 1070 Ti's are arguably better value but in December there were many more 1080s on sale. The average selling price was $372 but quite a few sold closer to $300. Fifty-fifty at the boilerplate selling price, the GTX 1080 comes out at a cost of just $1.84 per frame and that's bully relative value compared to other high-end GPUs, specially since there were and so many of them available.

Those looking for a more affordable 1440p experience, getting a secondhand GTX 1070 or Vega 56 is the style to get. That said, your chances of landing a GeForce graphics card are almost seven times better. The GTX 980 Ti also looks to be great value, though there were only almost equally many of those for sale every bit there were Vega 56s.

For over 100 fps in our three-game exam sample, the ultimate bang for your buck is the Radeon R9 290, at just $0.74 per frame and an average sale price of just $78, it's an incredible deal. Sadly virtually models did utilize the extremely loud AMD reference design, simply nonetheless for $78 you'd make do. For a very small cost increase, the RX 570 is a better buy and there were loads more than of them on offering. At $94 on average, that's a little over $50 off a make new model which isn't bad, a 37% discount. We should also jump back and mention the R9 Fury. As well excellent value at $130, but few went upwardly for sale.

For ~67 to 88 fps range, the GTX 770, R9 285 and GTX 670 are standout options. Of the three, we would get for the GTX 770 every time.

For 50 to 60 fps, nosotros would be on the lookout for the Radeon Hd 7870 or 270X equally these were better in terms of toll per frame and but a few dollars more overall than the alternatives. Beneath l fps y'all've got to exist desperate. I mean, the Hard disk drive 7870 and 270X sold on average for only $51, then in that location'south no bespeak in going with anything lower than that.

Equally a recap, below are the models nosotros would be on the lookout for...

For models that come with diverse VRAM capacities, such equally the RX 570, pay attention to that and if the 8GB models in this example are but slightly more than the 4GB cards and then consider investing a little more to go the extra memory. At this point we recommend avoiding cards with simply 2GB of VRAM.

From our observations, yous accept a good chance of getting one of these models for the average selling price, if non better. Basically we removed annihilation that typically offered a poor price per frame ratio or sold less than 20 models last month. This last selection narrows things down to a few of the best GPU options in the secondhand market also accounting for models that are more hands caused at a reasonable cost.