Used GPU Help

Blxke

Honorable
Apr 20, 2013
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10,530
New gaming build in the process of making, 1080p as of now and really wanting 75 fps in the more graphic intensive games. Going for the highest possible in more competitive games like CS, fortnite, Pubg, Siege.

Trying to build a PC in the worst market possible and I fully understand that hahahaha.

I really want to keep my budget for my Gpu or Gpu's under $200 unless the deal cannot be passed on (upwards of $270).

Im in Arizona, normally the used market here is quite boring, slow and small. Found a few deals but most don't end up happening for one reason or another.

Parts I already Have:
I5 2500k
Lots of DDR3
P67 Asus Deluxe mobo
750ti
750W EVGA superNOVA
NZXT 340
1tb HDD
SSD

I found some deals for older stuff to be about the only thing available as of now.

Deals:

2 GTX 680's for $200
2 7950's for $190
R9 280x for $200
GTX 960 for $130
7870 for $65
R9 290 for $240
R9 270X Toxic for $55 (unknown if working)
7970 for $100

Help me weigh my options here, pretty tough with prices all over the board. Thanks for all your help!
 


GTX 680 SLI and 7950 in Crossfire are your best options. Also the 7870 sells for around 350 so that's an amazing deal, assuming it works i'd buy it and re sell it.
 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfSi-Z8r12M

1050ti is equal to the 7970 which can be had for me for $100, I know my stuff and I know for sure anything new right now can get murdered by something of the used market. Just the sort of situation we are in at the moment.
 


Yeah I was thinking about trying to move some of the cheaper ones. Do you think 750W is enough to do Crossfire and SLI with those beefy cards? Some say you can get away with 600W some say you need 850W, I have a 750W EVGA superNOVA bronze rated coming in the mail.
 
R9 290 for $240
2 GTX 680's for $200, R9 280x for $200, 7970 for $100
2 7950's for $190, GTX 960 for $130 (1050ti here just for comparison, it's not better)
7870 for $65
R9 270X Toxic for $55

I listed them by performance or close enough. That's per gpu not sli/cf into account. So the 290 is the best but also the most expensive. Assuming that's $200 for each 680 then the 7970 is the best deal, else the 680s would be the pick. All these prices are less than the normal. Sell them on ebay for a profit.
 
Actually your wrong there, GTX 680 SLI will spank a 1050 ti, only thing it will do better at is efficiency, 680 sli will use more power but will have better performance, now a 1060 will spank 680 SLI. Also that single 960 will almost match a 1050 ti for cheaper.
 
I have extremely similar spec'ed PC with the parts that you mentioned in this post, for exact specs can be check in my footer vvv.

The only game that I play that you mentioned is CS:GO. I have it on maxed out settings at 1080p and I get around 180-200FPS with my i5 2500 and 2 SLI GTX 670's, I have 8GB of HyperX Fury RAM but I never see CSGO use more than 5GB so I think 4GB would be good enough for it. But I do have my CPU OC'ed to 3.8Ghz, the highest clock I can get since the CPU is non K and my cards are not OC'ed.

I do play GTA V which could be a good example for you. I get around 80-100FPS with medium settings at 1080p but I personally play with vsync because I do notice FPS drops from 80 to 60 for split of a second which bothers me espically while driving.

I would personally go with either SLI GTX 680 or Crossfire 7950's. The GTX 680 SLI is almost the same performance as a single GTX 970. If you plan to play at 1080p or lower, I would go with Crossfire 7950 or SLI 680's. If you plan to play anything higher than 1080p, I would recommend a single card, espically a 4GB if possible.

 


$200 for both 680s
$190 for both 7950's

 


Thanks for your input and yeah i agree for the most part. Might try to buy some of these cheaper ones to make some money and also get some benchmarks out of them for the heck of it.
 


This is what it comes down to. AMD or NVidia? 680 SLI and 7950 crossfire are identical. I would prefer the AMD cards just because I really like the 7950, its up to you the 7950's are cheaper. I just did a comparison on GPU boss and I found that the 7950 edges out the 680 in games you play like CS Go. Also the 7950 completely obliterates the 680 in compute performance and has a higher performance per watt as well as it should be quieter than a 680. Now keep in mind that SLI and Crossfire don't scale perfectly but I would expect the 7950 Crossfire to edge out the 680's in GPU bound games, however you are running an I5 so you might see bottlenecking in CPU bound games like GTA 5. Also if you want to stream or do other GPU work this system will be great since the compute performance was amazing on the 7950.
 


http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/720203-7950-CF-vs-GTX-680-SLI-multi-screen-gaming-performance

https://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=751&page=8

Found some interesting results, take a look.

 


I did forgot to mention, before my SLI 670's I did ran my single 670 for about 6 months before I got my second one and SLI'ed it and even on single 670 it was running games fine, CSGO at maxed settings at 1080p was giving me solid 100-120FPS and GTA V was between 60-70 FPS. I hope this extra info is any help to you.

 


I would say get the 7950's, they might be a bit slower in some games but if you ever need to do any video work or anything non gaming GPU intensive you will thank me later, the 7950 compute performance is great, it spanks 680, also there quieter and use less power although you may need a new PSU for any of the CF or SLI set ups
 


I started with AMD and had very bad experience as PC virgin, but that was 10 years ago and never used AMD again, maybe they changed. Always went with Intel and Nvidia. AMD is generally cheaper when it comes to motherboards and cards. I personally don't use GPU Boss and always tell people to stay away from them as they're knowed to just compare hardware specs without actually doing any testing or benchmarking and are always biased with AMD cards, this is propably why 7950 does better. If you Google why gpu boss is bad, you will find some intresting articles and threads where people provide proof that their information is not trustworthy. I always refer to YouTubers because they actually do benchmark, I recommend LTT or Paul's Hardware

 


How much power would I need? I just bought this and its coming in tomorrow via prime.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K85X23O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
The 680s would generally compete with a 7970 not 7950. You do run into the 2 gb vram causing the 7950s to win when going higher res as seen in the eyefinity vs surround. The 680 is more power efficient and gpuboss isn't what anyone would say as accurate if they know anything. The compute is skewed for opencl. If cuda is involved as well as opencl on the same app, 680 keeps up.

Why are these deals so good? Any of them would flip for a possible $100+ profit besides the 290, 280x and 960.
 


Been searching for two days for maybe a couple hours each and you eventually run into some decent stuff. In Arizona lots of people aren't super tech savvy compared to Seattle (where I use to live) lots of people just want quick cash here as well.
 


Ok well thx for the info on GPU Boss, still though the 7950's should still edge out CUDA or not, besides most games can't use CUDA and take better advantage of OpenCL and OpenGL performance anyways, also whats the big deal anyways? The 2 are basically equal and the 7950's are cheaper.
 


So funny how it feels like all these cards were brand new like a couple years ago but in reality it was about 6 years ago now. How time flies
 
Also you said you had bad experience with AMD? AMD is still a great company and I have had great luck with them, I have never had an AMD part fail on me yet, and I have had Intel and NVidia parts fail on me left and right. I still have AMD parts working that are almost as old as me and still work fine, from an old Athlon II x2 250 from 9 years ago which still works to an AMD A8 5500 that's 4 years old and runs like it was brand new. Also some of the AMD stuff I have worked with outlasted the whole rest of the computer, with a dead mobo PSU HDD and the CPU or GPU fine. I think you just had some bad luck with the AMD stuff. I still recommend the 7950's for there OpenCL performance.
 


Most likely going with the 7950 in CF thats if the seller gets back to me. Otherwise I see the 7970 for $100 as a great deal and it gives me room to snag one or two more cards for resale or experimental purposes.
 


Yeah the 7870 is like a $350 card for like 60 dollars xD it would be stupid to not buy it and resell it just beware that it might be hard to sell since it's kinda old but bitcoin miners might want it xD
 


Yeah im aware, probably just buy it to throw it up on ebay trying to just make like $50 or more depending on the market after running some fun tests first of all
 
Opencl has absolutely nothing to do with gaming. Either way, both are irrelevant for him. Opengl for games? What year is it? Also opengl isn't compute and amd is not better for it. They are not equal. 680 compares to 7970. $10 is not a deal maker or breaker but probably relative to performance vs price here. Opencl is still useless for him but most apps lean towards better cuda support.

I never said what I had but I've had all companies over the years. Still have a c2d and turion x2 running as htpcs, had fx and sandy, gpus of each on each era, worked on other and newer. I don't sway to either and say, pick your poison. They are both all comparable. Fanboyism has no place in tech support and has no place on tom's.

The better deals even for a 7970 is edging towards $200.
 


Only 50 dollars more? If your getting it for 65 you can easily sell it for 200 or 250 and then you'll have almost 400 dollars for a GPU or GPU's.