Recent GPU shortage. I'm upgrading late - 1050 ti now or 1060 in 3+ months?

Noahs_SpaceArk

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Nov 5, 2015
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I had been looking to upgrade my 1GB Radeon GPU since about January (final upgrade on my build), but life kept that dream away. Prices were reasonable and I was going to buy the 1060 6GB when I was able to at around $250 or so.

Unfortunately when I was able to this month, it was also when all the crypto-miners got in the game and trashed the mid-market GPUs market... as you probably know the same card is like $400 and practically unavailable.

My question is this: Should I still upgrade to the 1050ti now or wait until the 1060 comes down in price?

My Specs:
i5-4690k - 3.5GHz
ASRock H97M Pro4
8 GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengence Pro DDR3-1600
Raidmax - 530W semi-mod ATX PSU
(Current GPU: MSI - Radeon HD 6570 1GB)

Thanks!
 
Solution
I'm afraid cryptomining is here to stay and will only grow in popularity. The last GPU rush peaked in 2013. But miners started realizing they could build or buy less expensive and more power efficient small ASIC boxes than running a full scale PC with a dedicated GPU.

I don't see this going away either as builders have realized that the new GPU generation of both AMD and Nvidia are worth the power consumption again in a dedicated PC running 7x24 (AMD specifically which is why they sold out first). It looks like cryptomining is here to stay and will only be growing in popularity. For every cryptocurrency crash, another will be taking its place.

Even the used 470s and 480s are selling on eBay for insane prices ($300+ !!!!).
I'm afraid cryptomining is here to stay and will only grow in popularity. The last GPU rush peaked in 2013. But miners started realizing they could build or buy less expensive and more power efficient small ASIC boxes than running a full scale PC with a dedicated GPU.

I don't see this going away either as builders have realized that the new GPU generation of both AMD and Nvidia are worth the power consumption again in a dedicated PC running 7x24 (AMD specifically which is why they sold out first). It looks like cryptomining is here to stay and will only be growing in popularity. For every cryptocurrency crash, another will be taking its place.

Even the used 470s and 480s are selling on eBay for insane prices ($300+ !!!!).
 
Solution


Don't bet on it with the cryptocurrency boom. Likely the Etailers will keep their prices high until their stock of the older GPUs is depleted. At best it will be a minimum price drop. This has almost always been the case anyway. I never saw GTX 970s on NewEgg drop below $290[US] or so after Pascal was released. And those were the $330 GPUs.

And when Vega (6xx?) are out, there will be a rush on those too as on paper they are expected be nearly twice as powerful as the current 5xx AMDs and 10xx Nvidias. Of course the real world performance will dictate if miners find the cost/performance worth the additional money over their current GPU.

One thing that I've heard is that Nvidia will be doing a refresh of Pascal at the end of the summer and re-label it as the 20xx series. Similar to what they did with Maxwell from the 6xx to 7xx series for a minimal 10% gain in performance. This would cover the gap until next year when the consumer Voltas are released.

^^That's why I was disappointed that Nvidia didn't reveal more details at E3 on their roadmap.