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Help finding any decent/affordable graphics card!

Buggerlugz

ULTIMATE Member
Having recently built a new PC I'm becoming really frustrated with the pitiful Nvidia GT640 in it and am in dire need of replacing the damn thing. Unfortunately graphics cards of any variety from the past 4 years now appear to be ludicrously overpriced on the second hand market, or impossible to buy new anywhere at all.

This is down to the daft price of "pretend currencies" as I call them (bitcoin and etherium) causing the entire stock of most graphics card of 4gb or more being hoovered up by miner farms, and the rest going to those keen on "retail arbitrage" (mostly on ebay and amazon as they're keen to promote this practice.) scalping cards and selling them at up to 3 times their RRP.

I'm not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but I am after something which will last me the next 5 years, so if anyone has any suggestions as to what I should be looking for/at please let me know!

Probably was the wrong time to build a new PC eh!
 
It's difficult at the moment.

You say you're not a gamer, what do you a dedicated GPU for in that case? Hardware-accelerated applications and/or encoding or literally web browsing and home office use?

The last line of your post suggests this is a new PC you've just built. Can you get away with the integrated graphics (assuming of course your CPU supports that)
 
I'll mess with games occasionally, mostly free to play, COD etc, but I do want something decent enough for a bit of photo and video editing production too.

My Ryzen didn't come with integrated graphics, if it had, it'd probably be better than the GT640 i guess.
 
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I'll mess with games occasionally, mostly free to play, COD etc, but I do want something decent enough for a bit of photo and video editing production too.

My Ryzen didn't come with integrated graphics, if it had, it'd probably be better than the GT640 i guess.

I'm with you now. Unfortunately, as you've suggested, you're building a PC during the perfect storm.

Had this been a year ago we could have discussed the merits of this GPU or that GPU to complement the rest of the setup but that conversation has been rendered largely superfluous now.

I did look at some of the places I get my gear from and they're not even showing prices against the GPUs anymore which speaks volumes.

Sorry mate.
 
I recently paid about £150 for a 1650 GPU, I thought it was overpriced but the resale value has actually gone up since then.

Im genuinely considering breaking down the PC I just built because I’ve come to realise I don’t need a desktop, what I really needed was a new laptop and a dock.
 
I know what you mean TTJJ I'd say that was way overpriced for a 1650, but its getting worse week on week still. If it carries on this way my GT640 might be worth a few hundred quid by 2030.

I was looking at the RX580 (which is on-par with the 1650), but that's really a RX470 in disguise and AMD just getting the most out of its pascal chipset, but its a 2016-17 card, fetching up to £200 for the 4gb and £300 for an 8gb model, its just bonkers.

As for anything verging on a budget solution that's newer, its impossible to find anything out there currently.
 
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I did look at some of the places I get my gear from and they're not even showing prices against the GPUs anymore which speaks volumes.

Sorry mate.

I know, if ever you've needed a "show only whats in stock" filter, its now. Came across a GeForce 710 yesterday, but mehhh!
 
It just so happens that Scan (albeit not placed obviously) have a "Show in-stock only" filter.

However, it then confirms they have no AMD cards in stock, zilch, nada, nothing - just a lot of accessories like mounting brackets, water cooling blocks etc.

On the Nvidia side, they have a refurbished 2080Ti, some GT710s and some GT210s. That's it!
 
Hehehe, nuts init! I've actually got a GT210 in my loft, behemoth of a card considering how outdated and pants it is, even has an extra power connector required! (saying that its on par with my GT640 so.... :/)
 
Instead of solving Bitcoin equations someone needs to set some of these PC's on to solving Time Travel and then either going back in time to buy the Graphics cards or forward to catch the price drop when all the bitcoin is solved.
 
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Absolutely, I was reading the other day that the worlds bitcoin mining cards are using more electricity than 159 countries! (and that includes Ireland!)

120 TWh (Terawatt hours per year) currently apparently!
 

NVidia "Accidentally" Unlocks FULL RTX 3060 Crypto Mining...​


Yeah, sure it was a total accident too.... (worth watching it for his intro)
 
Recently built a new PC I'm frustrated with the pitiful Nvidia GT640 in it Unfortunately graphics cards of any variety from the past 4 years now appear overpriced on the second hand market

Probably was the wrong time to build a new PC eh!
I have no idea about hardware but I do know that if you shop around for a top of the range card from 6 months or so, you will get it a lot cheaper and it will still be more than good enough to reach your criterion.

There is never a wrong time, you just set the price limit and look around to the end of your time limit. You should mange to find a suitable one where they meet.
Sounds like you have 5 years.
 
I've found the complete opposite to be true. There is no graphics card in the last 4 years that can be found cheaper second hand than it was when it released now.
 
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I've been spending too much time on eBay and sites like Scan etc. the last couple of weeks, know exactly where you're coming from.

I found that Aria would sometimes have some 1050ti or 1650 cards on for not too ridiculous prices, I would check it every now and then during the day:

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/NVIDIA+GeForce

In the end though I would check the product pages for 16xx, 2xxx and 3xxx series Nvidia cards on Scan regularly (just hit refresh now and then) and I managed to get an RTX 2060 the other day when some appeared (very briefly). Pure luck TBH - although have to say they were priced above RRP (£347 for Palit RTX 2060 StormX). Sort of panicked a bit seeing that 15 other people were buying at the same time and went for it anyway! Little bit of buyer's remorse but it will soon fade.

That does mean that my Palit 1050ti StormX 4GB is now surplus, it is crazy to see that they are going on eBay now second hand for more than I paid for it in 2018 :oops:

Somehow I'd feel guilty doing that though, feels like people are desperate. But if I put it on at a reasonable price (i.e. what it would be worth if things hadn't gone bananas), there's no guarantee a scalper won't buy it and re-sell it for twice the amount.
 
i have a GTX1650 which i am selling if this is of any use to you

Probably would be, but the problem is, you get to £150+ and it begs the question if I'd be better off putting that towards a newer card when they become available. Currently they're selling them second hand for £145 on CEX.
 
The graphics card marketers assume that we are all gamers rather than designers :-(
I think that both ATI and Nvidia are enjoying the situation a little too much currently. The new RX6700XT for example, is a terrible reference (team rocket) design, the cooler is put together in a very shoddy manner without even any heat-pads on the backplate. With the RX6700XT you've got a mid to low range card, pretending to be a top-tier mid-high end card at £100 more than it should be, but ATI know they can save money by throwing any old tat out there in the current climate, and it'll sell anyway.

Then we're now seeing reference designs appearing at RRP (for short periods) but other brands of the same cards costing three times that because they have a decent cooler design and nothing else!

Entire market stinks currently.
 
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