What is a good price for a used GTX 970 now?

Akingbade

Potentially looking at picking up one of these cards. Just wondering what you think is a great price for one? Considering the RX 480 with its potential performance and price point. Any ideas on what you think the lowest point for a 970 will be ?

I'm in the UK at the moment, and the prices on second hand gpus are dropping in quick response to any new gpu news which is nice. At this stage getting a 970 around 190 euro is doable (as opposed to in Ireland).

MarkAnthony

It's early days yet - we need to see what price and performance the 480 is. Assuming it beats the 970 (I suspect it will be very similar - better in some cases about the same in others) then you'd be mad to pay more for a 970 than you would a 480. That said good luck in convincing 970 owners of that.

Eoinmc97

MarkAnthony wrote: »

It's early days yet - we need to see what price and performance the 480 is. Assuming it beats the 970 (I suspect it will be very similar - better in some cases about the same in others) then you'd be mad to pay more for a 970 than you would a 480. That said good luck in convincing 970 owners of that.

There are no benefits of a 970 over a RX 480 so far it seems. The benchmarks deployed have the RX 480 performing around R9 390-390X range so you're looking at:
-Equal to better performance
-More energy efficient
-Doesn't have 0.5GB gimped memory


So, any 970 owners are probably burned by this thing's arrival. So, I'm guessing that the 970 would want to be €30 cheaper at least for consideration.

MarkAnthony

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

There are no benefits of a 970 over a RX 480 so far it seems. The benchmarks deployed have the RX 480 performing around R9 390-390X range so you're looking at:
-Equal to better performance
-More energy efficient
-Doesn't have 0.5GB gimped memory


So, any 970 owners are probably burned by this thing's arrival. So, I'm guessing that the 970 would want to be €30 cheaper at least for consideration.

Oooh linky please not seen any benches yet.

ED E

All we've got so far is 3DM, thought to be 480, 480X and 480X x2

MarkAnthony

Thanks ED E, I'd seen that one right enough but I'm a bit dubious to put too much stock in it until we see more testing. That said the CF scores makes sense given AMD's launch slide and I suppose what would be the point in releasing a card with less performance than the ubiquitous 970.

ED E

...and according to a leaked NDA paper the date expires on June 29th at 9 AM ET. Which is actually when we will start seeing first reviews on Polaris GPU.

Long wait to until my YT feed explodes with reviews from all the prime suspects.

Maybe WCCFtech will get their grubby paws on something early

FAILSAFE 00

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

There are no benefits of a 970 over a RX 480 so far it seems. The benchmarks deployed have the RX 480 performing around R9 390-390X range so you're looking at:
-Equal to better performance
-More energy efficient
-Doesn't have 0.5GB gimped memory


So, any 970 owners are probably burned by this thing's arrival. So, I'm guessing that the 970 would want to be €30 cheaper at least for consideration.

Hmm, I don't think so. There is more to the choice than the spec sheet between both cards.

We'll have to wait and see some real in game benchmarks and the European market prices for the RX 480 first.

After market 970s have exceptional cooling and overclock like a champ. Not to mention Nvidia drivers are ready for games upon release.

To answer the OPs question I'd say between €250-€275 depending on which version of the 970 it is.

Akingbade

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Hmm, I don't think so. There is more to the choice than the spec sheet between both cards.

We'll have to wait and see some real in game benchmarks and the European market prices for the RX 480 first.

After market 970s have exceptional cooling and overclock like a champ. Not to mention Nvidia drivers are ready for games upon release.

To answer the OPs question I'd say between 250- 275 depending on which version of the 970 it is.

Are you sure about that? I wouldn't dare pay between 250-275 for a 970. From the looks of things, 250 should be enough for a RX 480 4gb model.

Akingbade

MarkAnthony wrote: »

It's early days yet - we need to see what price and performance the 480 is. Assuming it beats the 970 (I suspect it will be very similar - better in some cases about the same in others) then you'd be mad to pay more for a 970 than you would a 480. That said good luck in convincing 970 owners of that.

Haha, definitely won't be happening in Ireland.

K.O.Kiki

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

There are no benefits of a 970 over a RX 480 so far

I have 1 benefit:

• It's in my PC, right now

:pac:

TheDoc

There is what the card is worth when you bench it and performance, and then there is what the card is worth being second hand, a good few years old, and much better options on the Horizon.

I paid €200 for a second hand R9 290 last January. At the time I was under the impression the 290 was in and around the 970 performance wise. Id be hard pushed to pay more then €150 for a second hand 970, considering AMD are rolling out some cards that initial benching is showing much better performance then a 970.

I'll be selling my R9 290 when I settled on the type of 1070 I want from third parties, but will be selling it after my 1070 purchase. So no major rush in terms of having to sell it beforehand to gather cash. I'll be happy to take €150 for my 290.

As with most second hand markets, you will have people unwilling to accept something they paid money for at a point, is worth only a fraction of it now. Nevermind what the second hand market here will look, the UK ones are already FLOODED with 980's, 970's and AMD equivalants. Similar to how the iPhone clearout works, early sellers try to gouge a high price, and as supply grows sellers eager to get rid start to undercut each other. If you want a 970, bit of patience, and you will get a good price. Don't bother wasting your time trying to convince people who cant grasp the concept of their price demands, just makes offers if rejected move on. Ebay is flooded with cards at the moment, and if you wanted to buy new I'll be surprised if there isn't some clearances sales at the likes of Amazon and Overclockers.

Akingbade

TheDoc wrote: »

...

How is the performance of the 290 to the 970?

I think 150 euro for a 970 is pretty low, I don't see it reaching that number for a while. Only if the RX 480 was 200 euro, then sure. But we know that would happen, sadly. And from a quick look, you'd probably be able to get more than 150 for your card?

Yeah you're right about the second hand market. I've been watching the prices carefully for a while now.
I personally think getting a 970 for <= 180 euro would be a great price, regardless of the prices of AMD offerings.

Venom

Akingbade wrote: »

Are you sure about that? I wouldn't dare pay between 250-275 for a 970. From the looks of things, 250 should be enough for a RX 480 4gb model.

Getting the basic 480 for €250 would be best case scenario for the reference AMD version tho and the reference coolers tend to be noisy and not that great for overclocking in my experience. Personally I reckon its going to be €300-350 for a decent board partner version.

Akingbade

Venom wrote: »

Getting the basic 480 for 250 would be best case scenario for the reference AMD version tho and the reference coolers tend to be noisy and not that great for overclocking in my experience. Personally I reckon its going to be 300-350 for a decent board partner version.

Good point, I completely forgot about the different versions of the card. And the reference design will probably be out of stock for a while. Still wouldn't pay around 250 euro for one but in this case anything under 200 for a decent version of the 970 would be a great deal.

Akingbade

Just found the [font=Source Sans Pro, Arial, sans-serif]evga gtx 970 4gb superclocked edition acx 2.0 still sealed for about 195 euro! Just gonna go with that [/font]

TheDoc

Akingbade wrote: »

Just found the [font=Source Sans Pro, Arial, sans-serif]evga gtx 970 4gb superclocked edition acx 2.0 still sealed for about 195 euro! Just gonna go with that [/font]

So I wasn't far off

I'm watching the markets out of just interest. I expect 970's to flood the place in the coming weeks.

FAILSAFE 00

Akingbade wrote: »

Are you sure about that? I wouldn't dare pay between 250-275 for a 970. From the looks of things, 250 should be enough for a RX 480 4gb model.

For example a Gigabyte 970 windforce edition and G1 gaming card can clock higher than a gtx 980 card running at stock speed while overclocked and it keeps very cool.

The majority of games out there are highly optimised for NVIDIA graphics cards.

I think it would be different if there was a new NVIDIA card priced at €250.

FAILSAFE 00

Akingbade wrote: »

Just found the [font=Source Sans Pro, Arial, sans-serif]evga gtx 970 4gb superclocked edition acx 2.0 still sealed for about 195 euro! Just gonna go with that [/font]

Great buy. That's well under market value. Where did you purchase that? Thats a €330 card brand new.

Might buy another 970 if people are panic selling them.

TerrorFirmer

I agree with the above, at the end of the day we don't have any solid figures for the new card - and it does still boil down to AMD v Nvidia for a lot of people. If they're on a similar performance level, many people would still prefer to pick up a 970 because being honest, AMD do need to pull their socks up in the driver department. And decent models of the 480 will probably be €300 or so.

I would expect 2nd hand prices to drop slightly but I think they will hold reasonably well. I don't think there's any need for panic selling...unless there's a GTX1060 on the horizon.

There are loads of 970's and 980ti's on adverts at the moment, few 980's as well - think the 980's suffer the worst actually, because there's not a huge amount between it and the 970 but the price margin was significant.

Lot of 290's for sale as well, split into two camps - those who recognize that it's had it's day and gratefully accept decent offers of 180-200, and those who insist on insane asking prices like 300 for a reference 290.

Noticed a Titan X yesterday got an offer of 700....which was declined. :eek:

The gold award however goes to a gentleman selling a 1st gen i7-960 for €485.

Akingbade

TheDoc wrote: »

So I wasn't far off

I'm watching the markets out of just interest. I expect 970's to flood the place in the coming weeks.

Not to far off at all, though to find this version sealed (so new basically) at 195 euro consistently isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Yeah once benchmarks drop for the 480 thats when used 970s will drop in price again.

Akingbade

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Great buy. That's well under market value. Where did you purchase that? Thats a 330 card brand new.

Might buy another 970 if people are panic selling them.

Thanks! I bought it off gumtree in the UK. The guy bought it but never opened it up! So don't mind if I do

Edit: From the same seller I bought a sealed samsung 850 500gb ssd for 77 euro.

Akingbade

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The gold award however goes to a gentleman selling a 1st gen i7-960 for 485.

Sure why not :P

And I agree with the price holding fairly well for the 970 especially if there's no 1060 in the horizon.

Dcully

Akingbade wrote: »

Just found the [font=Source Sans Pro, Arial, sans-serif]evga gtx 970 4gb superclocked edition acx 2.0 still sealed for about 195 euro! Just gonna go with that [/font]

Have that exact card, running a 144hz monitor @ 144fps 1080 max settings depending on game I might have to drop down aa or something to achieve a solid 144 fps on some games, the division and the witcher two that come to mind, or I can just let gsync do its magic but 90% of my games are running ultra or max settings.really great card and I haven't even bothered to overclock it.

Akingbade

Dcully wrote: »

Have that exact card, running a 144hz monitor @ 144fps 1080 max settings depending on game I might have to drop down aa or something to achieve a solid 144 fps on some games, the division and the witcher two that come to mind, or I can just let gsync do its magic but 90% of my games are running ultra or max settings.really great card and I haven't even bothered to overclock it.

Sounds awesome man! I'll only have a 1080p 60fps monitor, so with this overclocked card I'm expecting 60fps for most games

MarkAnthony

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

The majority of games out there are highly optimised for NVIDIA graphics cards.

Not really. Nvidia has a history of (using an analogy you'll be familiar with) doing an Oculus and locking down functions in Gameworks. Other than some nice hair in the Witcher 3 there isn't really much out there that is particularly better optimised for nVidia more that the black box is hobbling AMD to some extent. That only really goes to show that the AMD cards have better raw power given they score higher on benchmarks for a given target price, very generally of course.

Going forward it looks like AMD have managed, through market share and the use of open APIs to steer the industry towards them. Very few people make PC games anymore, they make console games and port them to PCs. Who makes console GPUs? AMD. Vulcan, DX12 etc - all techs that will no doubt be in the PS5 and Xbone Pye or whatever random number they come up with. Looking deeper AMD have promised a performance bump in DX12 on existing 2XX and 3XX silicon as well as releasing a card that - as far as we know - is going to outpace the 970. The point being even if we concede current gen games run better on green that looks about to change.

All this adds up to current AMD users hanging on, loads of nVidia users buying 1070's or potentially moving to the RX480 which will put downward pressure on of older nVidia cards. The only saving grace could be an implementation of certain functions of the new nVidia cards on the 970 and upwards. I don't see them doing that, for all their day one drivers they're not really interested in customers on older silicon evidenced by demoting the 7XX series to legacy.

FAILSAFE 00

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Not really. Nvidia has a history of (using an analogy you'll be familiar with) doing an Oculus and locking down functions in Gameworks. Other than some nice hair in the Witcher 3 there isn't really much out there that is particularly better optimised for nVidia more that the black box is hobbling AMD to some extent. That only really goes to show that the AMD cards have better raw power given they score higher on benchmarks for a given target price, very generally of course.

It is unfortunately a big advantage when it comes to Nvidia cards. Not hairworks and all that BS but that the fact that Nvidia and the developers work closely to get game ready drivers out for launch day of most new games. AMD is always playing catch up with their drivers.

I don't personally like Nvidia's business practices but they clearly have the advantage. The cards don't even come into it. Nvidia strikes up the deals with the devs/publishers and thats what gives Nvidia cards an advantage on day 1.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Going forward it looks like AMD have managed, through market share and the use of open APIs to steer the industry towards them. Very few people make PC games anymore, they make console games and port them to PCs. Who makes console GPUs? AMD. Vulcan, DX12 etc - all techs that will no doubt be in the PS5 and Xbone Pye or whatever random number they come up with. Looking deeper AMD have promised a performance bump in DX12 on existing 2XX and 3XX silicon as well as releasing a card that - as far as we know - is going to outpace the 970. The point being even if we concede current gen games run better on green that looks about to change.

Unfortunately it comes down to the business deals with the right people to secure a competitive edge. AMD cards can be as powerful as they like but if they don't offer a really big advantage over Nvidia cards I don't see the market going team red. I really hope though that AMD will work out some way of releasing great drivers on day 1.

DX12 is great but if the vast majority of developers are still using DX11 its still in the bag for Nvidia.

I am impressed with AMD's strategy and price point. Hopefully they can get more of the market. They are doing great on consoles but this is PC gaming we are talking about.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

All this adds up to current AMD users hanging on, loads of nVidia users buying 1070's or potentially moving to the RX480 which will put downward pressure on of older nVidia cards. The only saving grace could be an implementation of certain functions of the new nVidia cards on the 970 and upwards. I don't see them doing that, for all their day one drivers they're not really interested in customers on older silicon evidenced by demoting the 7XX series to legacy.

I still think it will be a difficult task to covert Nvidia users to AMD. I have a 1440p G-sync IPS monitor so I am stuck with Nvidia for the moment. Happily stuck though

MarkAnthony

Again I'm not really sure nVidia do the right business deals if I'm honest. Yes it's nice to have optimised drivers on day one - not that I've really ever had an issue myself but I'm not overly frame rate sensitive. nVidia have a few AAA releases whereas AMD have cornered the entire mainstream, consoles and PCs.

I'm also not sure there is any issue 'converting' the majority of users. Most people will pick whatever gives the best performance at their chosen price point. I'm open to correction there, maybe there is something keeping people 'brand loyal'* I dunno, apart from the S3 Virge and Matrox cards I've had I've probably had an equal split between AMD and nVidia cards in my time.

All this said we're reading a lot into it. I imagine it'll come down purely to the price of the RX480 and the relative performance for the majority of people. If we see a €220 (even at the bottom end) RX480 with similar or better performance than a 970 the prices will simply have to go sub 200.

*Granted g-sync/Freesync but that's another example of nVidia doing things in a proprietary fashion when there was no need.