sliderider wrote:

So, I recently got my quad core gaming rig together and I got a really good deal on the video card so I wondered if anyone else has gotten a really good deal on one. It doesn't have to be a recent really good deal, just a steal of a price taking the times into consideration.

The best deal I just recently got was my Radeon HD4850 1gb for $70. It's a factory recertified piece, but is running Far Cry 2 at maximum settings just fine. I don't need DX 11 just yet so I figured not to spend too much video card until DX 11 starts to become more widely adopted, maybe in about a year to 18 months and then I'll be trying to find a deal on a 1gb GTX460. I don't expect to stumble on a deal like this one, though, at least not until the GTX460 becomes obsolete and everyone is talking about DX 12.

Are we talking about buying brand new stuff or used items?

I've only bought 3 gfx cards new in my years as a PC user
If we're talking about used gfx cards the Voodoo 5500 AGP I have is the best deal I've ever made...was 50sek (circa 5 euro)
Bought it on www.tradera.com about 2 years ago

Regarding DX11 games I can talk from my own experience with them....you'll need to beef up your rig if you want to play them at high detail settings.
I recently got a GFX 480 GTX for my Phenom II X4 955 rig
Use to have a GF 280 GTX in it...playing games at DX11 gfx just gives me a minor speed boost compared to running them at DX10 with my old gfx card

Amigaz wrote:

Are we talking about buying brand new stuff or used items? […]
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sliderider wrote:

So, I recently got my quad core gaming rig together and I got a really good deal on the video card so I wondered if anyone else has gotten a really good deal on one. It doesn't have to be a recent really good deal, just a steal of a price taking the times into consideration.

The best deal I just recently got was my Radeon HD4850 1gb for $70. It's a factory recertified piece, but is running Far Cry 2 at maximum settings just fine. I don't need DX 11 just yet so I figured not to spend too much video card until DX 11 starts to become more widely adopted, maybe in about a year to 18 months and then I'll be trying to find a deal on a 1gb GTX460. I don't expect to stumble on a deal like this one, though, at least not until the GTX460 becomes obsolete and everyone is talking about DX 12.

Are we talking about buying brand new stuff or used items?

I've only bought 3 gfx cards new in my years as a PC user
If we're talking about used gfx cards the Voodoo 5500 AGP I have is the best deal I've ever made...was 50sek (circa 5 euro)
Bought it on www.tradera.com about 2 years ago

Regarding DX11 games I can talk from my own experience with them....you'll need to beef up your rig if you want to play them at high detail settings.
I recently got a GFX 480 GTX for my Phenom II X4 955 rig
Use to have a GF 280 GTX in it...playing games at DX11 gfx just gives me a minor speed boost compared to running them at DX10 with my old gfx card

I'm also limited by my monitor at the moment. I only have a 1680x1050 LCD, so I won't be playing at maximum resolution until I get a new one. The 4850 does well at that resolution and I think anything more will be overkill.

There's a company in the Netherlands that will supposedly be selling the fastest GTX 460 ever with 850mhz core. That's going to be something to see.

A good recent steal was at Queensday, bought a GF6800 AGP for just €4 😀
Same seller same day, told me he had a broken Voodoo 3 3000 AGP and asked me if I wanted it for free. Sure, I can always break the heatsink off, right?
So at home first thing I did was clean the contacts with rubbing alcohol and plugged it in...we got a visual!
Not bad for €0 😀

Years ago I was at a large commercial computer garage sale (dunno what else to call it) and it was back in the days when P2's were sold for lots of money second hand and even 16MB and 32MB EDO was way overpriced!
It was also the time when good PCI graphics cards were a hot item.
Dual head display cards weren't affordable for the masses in those days so lots of people wanted a second card for a second display.
I remember the cheapest PCI one selling for €35 second hand! And I'm talking about like 8MB matrox PCI cards!
So I was walking around, checking for some neat stuff when I saw someone with PCI graphics cards in a box, all the same ones (so they were system pulls and not defective rejects they were trying to fetch some money for...yup some sellers were really that bad!)
I asked them "How much are those?" and he replied "€3 each". I tried to haggle and said "How bout 4 for €10?". Him:"Deal".
Later at home I looked them up on the net: Nvidia 16MB TNT2 M64! 😀
All were tested good. Good deal getting cards for less then 10% of the usual going rate. The seller had no idea those cards were that good.
I took a gamble and it paid off 😁

....AND I once bought the game Unreal 1 for just €1. 3 weeks of pure cinematic fun, best €1 I ever spend 😁. But alright, that's not a graphics card anyway.

$130 for Radeon X800XT PE. Used it for a bit. Sold it for $200. 😁

Newegg had them on clearance and then some ebay dude wanted it bad.

I also did that with a Quantum 3D Obsidian (voodoo1 edition) once. Ebay seller didn't know what he had and sold it for like $30. I bought it and played with it for a bit Then I put together a fancy auction with lots of info and it went for about $80, I believe. That was many years ago.

I got a pretty sweet deal on my V5 AGP about a year or so ago... I think I ended up paying about $20 shipped, which would've been quite a good price for the card by itself, but it was actually part of a lot with the rest of a parted out Super7 system, including an Asus P5A board and some random other expansion cards.

Also, just tonight I picked up an MSI GTS250 1GB refurb for $63 shipped... not too shabby. The 1GB models have been hovering around $120 new, which was a bit more than I was willing to budget.

I also have quite a few older cards I've picked up for free here and there, but none of 'em are really rare or valuable to begin with, so I don't really consider 'em to be that great of a score.

About 2 months ago one of my co-workers brought in his old Athlon box with a Voodoo 5, 5500 AGP.

It was all free.

I cleaned it up and tested, since I already had a PCI model I had no use for it and gave it to a nice new home 😉

Somebody on this forum knows who that is too....

I picked up a 512mb 8800GT when they first came out for $220 and then sold my old 320mb 8800GTS for $215 a few days later. I was very happy with the $5 graphics upgrade. 😁