Used Cards / What to look for

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longbowman

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Sorry to start another thread, but threads here tend to have a short shelf life at times. Slightly different topic in any case.

I'm looking for a cheapish midrange GPU to replace my integrated card for both necessity (audio plugin compatibility) and utility (video editing, some games).

Was considering a 750ti before but the good folks here recommended a 270x refurb'd or something along that line considering the jump in performance.

What I'm wondering is -- is it generally a bad idea to get something from ebay? Is it simply safer to get a card refurbished or new instead?

Currently considering used 7970, 270x, 670 or 760. Wary of 280x's due to the whole bitcoin mining thing. Would buy from ebay used, probably not anywhere else. I'm in Canada as well by the way.
 
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Grimwinder
You'd have to decide if the premium is worth it for GpuShack, but a 2 year warranty on used cards is hard to beat. As for which of those cards would be your best bet, that really depends on a number of things, the rest of your system's specs (no point in getting a "better" card, if your CPU would bottleneck on a cheaper one), what resolutions you game at and what settings and FPS you want to achieve. Between the 2 (you say 3, but I only see 2) cards you list, here's a good benchmark comparison-
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-270-vs-GeForce-GTX-960

Basically, for the extra money, with the 960 you're going to get better benchmarks, much better current driver support (and, no, I'm not an Nvidia fanboy, I've owned a lot of AMD in my...
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mudpuppet

mudpuppet

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I would take a look at open box deals if you can. Amazon has such a system under used (while browsing items) that will pull up a list of sellers selling a used card. If it says Amazon Warehouse Deals, it's an open box product that ships from Amazon. These are usually items that someone returned because it had a scratch on it or they decided they couldn't afford a 300$ GPU anymore etc. I bought my EVGA 970 FTW that way for about 300$ when a new one was running for about 370$ ish. I'm not sure how well that works in canada (looks like slim pickings at the moment) but this link should be a good example... until someone buys it in which case the link may not work. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/B00UOYQ5LA/ref=sr_1_3_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1446057190&sr=8-3&keywords=960&condition=used $290.62ca for it as an open box deal and $312.49 new. That's not a huge discount but its 20$ and amazon will back it. If it doesn't work, then you can return it and get something else.

Ebay has some protection to make sure you don't get a lemon, but people aren't always the most trust worthy on there. Hell my coworker was busted for selling old work CPUs. If work went after him AND the CPUs, the buyers would be out the CPU and getting any sort of refund could take time. I hate to say I love Amazon, but in certain instances, they have a leg up. Craigslist is another site I've seen people use but the same risks apply here (probably more so!).
 
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longbowman

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Thanks all!

Tried Amazon but for the most part, the Canadian website has worse deals used than new for some reason. Amazon Canada isn't spectacular.

And thanks, I'll keep an eye on EVGA.

Re: Gpushack -- is it worthwhile to order from them despite being in Canada?
Also, they have a GTX 760 for $139. To get it here will end up being about $212CAD total (curse the piss-poor exchange rate!).

Is such a card a step up from a 270x, or is that likely the reference card? Would a slightly more expensive one be a better option?

http://gpushack.com/
 
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longbowman

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Edit: either of these three a better option from NCIX (open box)?

ASUS Radeon R9 270 OC 975MHZ 2GB 5.6GHZ GDDR5 - $174
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SSC GAMING ACX 2.0+ Whisper Silent Cooling 1279MHZ Graphics Card - $201
 
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Grimwinder

Grimwinder

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You'd have to decide if the premium is worth it for GpuShack, but a 2 year warranty on used cards is hard to beat. As for which of those cards would be your best bet, that really depends on a number of things, the rest of your system's specs (no point in getting a "better" card, if your CPU would bottleneck on a cheaper one), what resolutions you game at and what settings and FPS you want to achieve. Between the 2 (you say 3, but I only see 2) cards you list, here's a good benchmark comparison-
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-270-vs-GeForce-GTX-960

Basically, for the extra money, with the 960 you're going to get better benchmarks, much better current driver support (and, no, I'm not an Nvidia fanboy, I've owned a lot of AMD in my time, it's just a fact at the moment that Nvidia's market share lets them put a lot more money into support and buying game developer attention for their products), and a card that will run cooler, quieter, and more power efficiently. That said, the 270 is still a solid card, not meaning to dump on it, just depends on your budget limits.

Edit: Oh, I see you meant the GTX 760 to be in there too, sorry. The 760 would be about equal to the 270 and slightly weaker than the 960, over all.
 
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woot

woot

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Were ever used cards are sold, id be weary, how do you know if your used card was not overclocked and/or overheated?.
 
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longbowman

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Thanks for the input!

Good call on that. I decided to opt for the NCIX open box. I ended up with the SC and not the SSC but the performance difference seems negligible. Hard to beat the price though - $50 off what a 960 on sale would run me. Decided it might be worthwhile for CUDA applications as well, as this is primarily an audio workstation but will use it to do a bit of everything.

 
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