Does a graphics card's performance degrade over time (buying second hand)

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_Oliver

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I am considering buying a used gigabyte R9 270X 4G and the seller says that it has been used for gaming for one year. Will this card be much slower/worse than a new card? if so by how much?
 
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Jak_Sparra
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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It shouldn't be. If there is a lot of dust build up on the card it might heat faster than a new one, but otherwise the performance should be the same as that model newly purchased. Newer cards might have higher clock speed than one which was produced a year ago.
 
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AdviserKulikov

AdviserKulikov

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The cooling system might have some wear on the fan bearings, you may have to clean out some dust. Other than that, the parts are all solid state, they either work or they don't. There is no slowing of the processor, at most you might see thermal throttling should it have been kept in a dusty case.
 
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Jak_Sparra

Jak_Sparra

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Should be fine, Only problem is that you have no warranty or anything. So even if it was working 100% of the time for the seller and he is 100% truthful about everything, if for some unknown reason it stops working after 3 months he wont be giving your money back. I personally only buy 2nd hand stuff from friends so if anything goes wrong within 6 months I can go talk to them. How much are you saving? Do you work or have some sort of money coming in? Is gaming a main hobby for you? If yes then consider saving up and getting something new with a 2-3 year warranty.

Also what games are you wanting to play and whats the rest of your rig including PSU?
 
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_Oliver

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here is my build http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3WmWLk
i have bought all except GPU

listed on pcpartpicker is the 2gb version and the buyer is selling the 4gb version.

the card retails for around £200 ($307.60) but the seller listed it for £115 ($176.84)
 
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Jak_Sparra

Jak_Sparra

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https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-226-MS

You can slap more VRAM on a lower end card to boost sales but in real gaming terms at 1080p the difference is not noticeable. A faster clocked 2GB will give you better performance than a lower clocked 4GB. All the VRAM does is store textures. The higher the res, the bigger the texture file. So for high (not very high or ultra) settings on most games 2GB should be enough. PLUS the card is not even that fast, so pushing a full 4GB of textures is probably not realistic. Adding more VRAM these days to an older card is a sales gimmick.

Here is a new, out of the box overclocked card http://www.ebuyer.com/579359-sapphire-r9-270x-oc-4gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-11217-04-20g for only £179.99 (can't find warranty info though).

Do you need the card ASAP? If not wait for the R9 390s to be released, it will make the old R9 280s and R9 290s drop in price as they get rid of old stock. So the you can maybe get one of them instead... or at the very least the R9 270 should have a big drop in price. Plus it will make many more people want to upgrade and sell their old cards all of a sudden. The prices on the second hand market for the card you are looking should also drop significantly.

 
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