it is still a great price/performance ratio in my opinion.

Nah, GeForce 3060 is roughly 95% of 1080 Ti performance before any overclocking and costs just a bit more. With benefits of including RTX and DLSS support, not being a power hog and being a new card with warranty. That price for 1080 Ti is purely due to its mining potential.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-01-29, 01:08:

it is still a great price/performance ratio in my opinion.

Nah, GeForce 3060 is roughly 95% of 1080 Ti performance before any overclocking and costs just a bit more. With benefits of not being a power hog and being a new card with warranty. That price for 1080 Ti is purely due to its mining potential.

Oh interesting, you're right. I searched non-Ti versions (geforce 3060 -ti) and yeah, right around the same price point in recent sold listings on eBay. That's good to know. :)

zyzzle wrote on 2022-01-28, 02:04:

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-01-27, 14:28:

So basically in these modern times it’s like
we are back to playing Quake on 386sx25’s w/ 387 because that is what we own.

The very reasonable alternative is to *give up* modern gaming because it's no longer a "fun" hobby, but has now become too expensive, and a 'chore' to justify the outrageous expense. And just because you have a subjectively deficient video card for modern gaming doesen't mean that there aren't still thousands of older games which will work -- outstandingly fast -- on your card. I got to this point long ago, and am very happy there. It really is pretty stupid to spend crazy amounts of cash (that you probably can't afford) on mere video cards. When -- if ever -- prices drop to something more reasonable, not as egregrious, then spend your money more wisely and not enable scalpers, scammers, and artificial price inflations as are so much in vogue at the current moment.

This is essentially what I ended up doing. What also helps is to play games on large screens with low screen resolutions (Im still using 1360x768, HD ready baby! 🤣).
And everythingon low.
I still play games, but I'm way behind the AAA games curve and basically play games only if this system can run it. If I can't run it I won't play or buy it.

I also keep in mind, these days there is such a ridiculous amount of games out there, there's more games than I can ever play so I can also afford to be more picky (which makes it easier to leave out the grand AAA+ performance hoards and settle with indy games more often).

The R9 390 for $150 or less seems like a solid card. Iv got a Fury and my dad has a r9 290 I picked up when they were $80 a piece and they chew through pretty well.

ODwilly wrote on 2022-01-29, 03:47:

The R9 390 for $150 or less seems like a solid card. Iv got a Fury and my dad has a r9 290 I picked up when they were $80 a piece and they chew through pretty well.

Those cards are around $300 now days

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-01-28, 08:35:

cyclone3d wrote:

What about an HD6970.

Everything above mentioned by swaaye plus price tax for "Oh my god, it has whopping 2 Gb of VRAM!". But to be fair, Linux open source drivers are better, but not by much.

I have a HD 6870 and have had nothing but problems with it, both on Windows and Linux. Worse on Linux actually, so I wouldn't think the HD6970 will be of much use on even a Linux system. (I think I read somewhere it has actual OpenGL 4 because the silicon supports FP64 shaders, but it's still TeraScale...)

TeraScale has been the bane of my existence until I finally got my hands on a modern Intel iGPU. Most of my games ran with hilariously abysmal performance on the HD 6870 and whenever I talk about this, it all seems to come down to TeraScale being a bad GPU microarchitecture.

I also have very fond nightmares of the drivers on the thing, even on the Windows side, breaking to the point of me thinking the card itself was defective. Wish I had remembered the versions of the drivers that actually *worked*!

"pack animal behavior" is one good way to describe it. "lemmings going off a cliff" is another. By any description, consumers are every bit as much to blame. They've too much money burning holes in their pockets (much of it from the pyramid scheme of crypto itself!) and it's just a slippery slope where they've become entitled and will purchase (as just one example) video cards at vastly inflated, unfair prices because of their impatience and sense of entitlement. There's no sense of delayed gratification or sense of good judgment left. In a way, the pandemic has done it; people got tired of it and are "splurging", whatever the price, at things they normally might delay gratification a bit on...

DracoNihil wrote on 2022-01-29, 05:17:

I have a HD 6870 and have had nothing but problems with it, both on Windows and Linux. Worse on Linux actually, so I wouldn't th […]
Show full quote

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-01-28, 08:35:

cyclone3d wrote:

What about an HD6970.

Everything above mentioned by swaaye plus price tax for "Oh my god, it has whopping 2 Gb of VRAM!". But to be fair, Linux open source drivers are better, but not by much.

I have a HD 6870 and have had nothing but problems with it, both on Windows and Linux. Worse on Linux actually, so I wouldn't think the HD6970 will be of much use on even a Linux system. (I think I read somewhere it has actual OpenGL 4 because the silicon supports FP64 shaders, but it's still TeraScale...)

TeraScale has been the bane of my existence until I finally got my hands on a modern Intel iGPU. Most of my games ran with hilariously abysmal performance on the HD 6870 and whenever I talk about this, it all seems to come down to TeraScale being a bad GPU microarchitecture.

I also have very fond nightmares of the drivers on the thing, even on the Windows side, breaking to the point of me thinking the card itself was defective. Wish I had remembered the versions of the drivers that actually *worked*!

I still have a pair of HD6870 that I ran in Crossfire until I went to one HD7970 and then added a second HD7970.

They didn't give me trouble when I was using them.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-01-29, 00:52:

I'm not sure what your budget is but here's an anecdote. I bought a used Zotac 1080 Ti in mid 2019 for $580.00 USD (MSRP $699). It's a little smaller than other similar cards which was ideal for me since it's living in an OEM midtower and just barely fits.

Today, almost 3 years later, the same used card is going for between $600 and $700 USD on eBay. While that's still a lot, and it should be lower considering all the newer cards that have come out since then... it is still a great price/performance ratio in my opinion. The card performs extremely well with a 3.6Ghz 4c/8t Haswell (2014) at 2K/60 and even 4K/60 depending on the title.

Just sharing an experience. Cheers. 😀

I know what you mean... In December 2016 (~5 years ago) I bought a GeForce 1050 Ti brand new for $190 Canadian Dollars... It's still in my Home Theatre PC.

I see used copies selling for more all the time. What ridiculous times we live in.

Regarding the OP's question, I do seem to find that Terascale Radeons are some of the least obsolete cards that are NOT price inflated. I also agree that they're no good for modern games. I've had good experiences with them for office productivity in Windows 10 and also for high end XP gaming. I have / had Radeons 3850, 4870, 5570, 5850, and 6850.

Terascale was fucking great.. HD4850/5850/6850 - you can't go wrong with any of these. Amazing workhorse cards for their time..

It was, unfortunately it doesn't now. Especially OpenGL part, which really sucked in Wolfenstein New Order and Doom 2016.

I bought a brand new Sapphire Dual X 2gb HD6970 for $100 on a budget build in 2016 when driver support ended. It seemed to shred through everything up until 2016, not sure how much a better a slightly more expensive 750ti would have held up. Fallout 4 was new and relevant and was solid at least on Medium settings. In 2018 he bought a used gtx 980.

Gave it to a kid with a Phenom ii x6, SSHD, and 8gb of ram for $40 that couldn't afford an Xbox One, he seemed to dig it.

ODwilly wrote on 2022-01-29, 13:32:

I bought a brand new Sapphire Dual X 2gb HD6970 for $100 on a budget build in 2016 when driver support ended. It seemed to shred through everything up until 2016, not sure how much a better a slightly more expensive 750ti would have held up. Fallout 4 was new and relevant and was solid at least on Medium settings. In 2018 he bought a used gtx 980.

Gave it to a kid with a Phenom ii x6, SSHD, and 8gb of ram for $40 that couldn't afford an Xbox One, he seemed to dig it.

750ti is Maxwell so it should have held up really well, performance should be too far off a 1050, 750ti is also still supported and still has driver updates.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-01-29, 11:31:

Terascale was fucking great.. HD4850/5850/6850 - you can't go wrong with any of these. Amazing workhorse cards for their time..

Don't say it too loud, let them continue to think they were bad so that everyone wants an Nvidia, and so they are cheaper 😉

Well because of this thread it occurred to me to try some relatively new games on the HD 6970 (6950 bios modded).
On that computer I am limited by the processor, a Phenom II X6 1100T, the lack of SSE4 above all is the problem, so I searched my collection for games that did not require SSE4.
Tales of arise 2021, it is not a very demanding game, and it works in 1080p with everything at its maximum without issues.
Resident evil 2019, in 1080p without problems.
Resident evil 3 (2020) also very playable in 1080p and DX11 of course.
It must be said that I am not a fan of antialiasing, and I deactivate it whenever I can, I do not like how it usually sharpens the image.
Not many games like I said because of the processor, and I'm not going to blindly try and waste a lot of time installing only to find that a game doesn't work.
If a game supports DX11 a 6970 should be able to run it better than a 750ti and better than a 1030 so expensive today.
However, a 750ti or a 1030 also don't have enough power to run new games at average quality, so supporting DX12 isn't the answer to everything either.

Hoping wrote on 2022-01-29, 16:00:

Don't say it too loud, let them continue to think they were bad so that everyone wants an Nvidia, and so they are cheaper ;) […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2022-01-29, 11:31:

Terascale was fucking great.. HD4850/5850/6850 - you can't go wrong with any of these. Amazing workhorse cards for their time..

Don't say it too loud, let them continue to think they were bad so that everyone wants an Nvidia, and so they are cheaper 😉

Well because of this thread it occurred to me to try some relatively new games on the HD 6970 (6950 bios modded).
On that computer I am limited by the processor, a Phenom II X6 1100T, the lack of SSE4 above all is the problem, so I searched my collection for games that did not require SSE4.
Tales of arise 2021, it is not a very demanding game, and it works in 1080p with everything at its maximum without issues.
Resident evil 2019, in 1080p without problems.
Resident evil 3 (2020) also very playable in 1080p and DX11 of course.
It must be said that I am not a fan of antialiasing, and I deactivate it whenever I can, I do not like how it usually sharpens the image.
Not many games like I said because of the processor, and I'm not going to blindly try and waste a lot of time installing only to find that a game doesn't work.
If a game supports DX11 a 6970 should be able to run it better than a 750ti and better than a 1030 so expensive today.
However, a 750ti or a 1030 also don't have enough power to run new games at average quality, so supporting DX12 isn't the answer to everything either.

HD 4000 series was truly amazing for its generation, the HD4890 was a true powerhouse and the 4870x2 was a fire breathing monster GPU that required a PSU upgrade to run the damn thing .. running two of them was like having the gateway to hell open in your PC. A pair of 4890's in Xfire was an amazing setup, I still have a pair in my collection and went out of my way to grab a few spare Sapphire Vapour-X 4980's they were that good.

HD 5000 was simply a refinement of 4000, faster and not quite as hot but still really good, I own a 5970 which is the dual GPU card and its a grate GPU to play games with, it does run hot but nothing like the 4870x2. The best setup was a pair of HD5850s in SLI since they were cheaper than 5870s and not as power hungry so didn't require a new PSU to run two of them. Lots of people had Xfire HD5850 setups it was that popular, you could even grab a pair of 5850x2's and run quadfire on the cheap.

HD 6000 .. was garbage, more of a reactionary rebadge of HD5000 than anything new from AMD, it ran stupidly hot because it was HD5000 with a tweaked TDP and it was pushing that GPU core to its limits, it wasn't till the HD 7000 series that AMD truly had a competitor to nVidia.

The HD7000 series went on to become the early RX200 series which became the RX300 series which got a fourth rebadge as the RX400 series ...IIRC RX500 series was part rebadge part new tech with Polaris, I never got in at the start of the RX500 series so I cant remember. Just checked and yeah Rx500 series is a refresh of RX400 ..AMD just loves their refresh GPUs.

AMD strategy... 😉

Never had any heat problems with my Gigabyte HD 6970(6950), it has a Gelid icy vision rev2 and never reached 60 degrees Celsius, my Saphire HD7970 died because one fan failed and my XFX RX580 needed to be undervolted and an aggressive fan curve to stay under 65 degrees Celsius, wile I have an 5870 vapor X than only needed a lite more fan rpm to stay under 65 degrees, and it is very silent. The r7 260x I have is from ASUS and with its default cooler it overheated easily, reaching more than 70 frequently, so I recycled the cooler from a 7770, and now it never reaches more than 57 degrees even with furmark or kombustor.
Neither AMD nor Nvidia make hot GPUs, the makers of the cards are the ones that don't implement proper cooling on the cards.
An HD7970 is very expensive taking in account that they already have ten years, for me is dangerous to buy any HD7970 for the prices people ask, even an HD 7770, I've reflowed the one I had two times, you can end with a reflowed card, and we know what that means, they should be around 40€ max nowadays but the market.... and the people ........
I mean, buying a graphics old graphics card with, nobody knows how many gaming hours and in what circumstances for a lot of money is very risky from my point of view.
I think it's better to buy mining cards because a good miner tries to keep them cool and clean and power controlled so that the mining is more profitable, even knowing they may have been running 24/7 for years.

Hoping wrote on 2022-01-29, 17:29:

Never had any heat problems with my Gigabyte HD 6970(6950), it has a Gelid icy vision rev2 and never reached 60 degrees Celsius, […]
Show full quote

Never had any heat problems with my Gigabyte HD 6970(6950), it has a Gelid icy vision rev2 and never reached 60 degrees Celsius, my Saphire HD7970 died because one fan failed and my XFX RX580 needed to be undervolted and an aggressive fan curve to stay under 65 degrees Celsius, wile I have an 5870 vapor X than only needed a lite more fan rpm to stay under 65 degrees, and it is very silent. The r7 260x I have is from ASUS and with its default cooler it overheated easily, reaching more than 70 frequently, so I recycled the cooler from a 7770, and now it never reaches more than 57 degrees even with furmark or kombustor.
Neither AMD nor Nvidia make hot GPUs, the makers of the cards are the ones that don't implement proper cooling on the cards.
An HD7970 is very expensive taking in account that they already have ten years, for me is dangerous to buy any HD7970 for the prices people ask, even an HD 7770, I've reflowed the one I had two times, you can end with a reflowed card, and we know what that means, they should be around 40€ max nowadays but the market.... and the people ........
I mean, buying a graphics old graphics card with, nobody knows how many gaming hours and in what circumstances for a lot of money is very risky from my point of view.
I think it's better to buy mining cards because a good miner tries to keep them cool and clean and power controlled so that the mining is more profitable, even knowing they may have been running 24/7 for years.

AMD and nVidia do make hot GPUs, 3090 is one recent example the 3870x2, 4870x2, 5790, 6990, 7990, GTX480, GTX580, GTX285, GTX 295, 8800 Ultra being others ..or the entire Fermi series if you want an entire generation of space heaters, the reference models from nVidia were particularly bad. Most of the examples listed are reference models using nVidia/AMD designed cooling, AMD has a lot more in their HD2000/HD3000 cards which used a terrible blower design.

AIBs can only do so much to dump heat and I have seen some really ridiculous examples of AIBs having to go the extra mile with their cooling, really the core issue lies directly with the Fabs and how they design their GPUs. In the case of Fermi nVidia never solved it even with two generations of GPUs based on it (GTX400 and GTX500), with the 3090 its simply down to the GDDR6x ICs being utter power hogs and running crazy hot for Vram.

So yes the Fabs do indeed design and build hot GPUs, its not 100% on the AIBs.

As for buying mining GPUs . .sure so long as you can trust the seller and they are transparent with how they handled their GPUs.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-29, 17:37:

AMD and nVidia do make hot GPUs, 3090 is one recent example the 3870x2, 4870x2, 5790, 6990, 7990 being others ..or the entire Fermi series if you want an entire generation of space heaters, the reference models from nVidia were particularly bad.

Starting from G80 Nvidia GPUs are hot. The Fermi was especially bad, but I'd guess only because crap stock cooler. My Gainward 8800GT also needs agressive fan control to stay below 80C°. Once you get past a certain TDP there is nothing to be done other than adding beefier coolers. That ~300W heat has to go somewhere whether it's a GTX480 or a GTX3080.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-01-29, 17:53:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-29, 17:37:

AMD and nVidia do make hot GPUs, 3090 is one recent example the 3870x2, 4870x2, 5790, 6990, 7990 being others ..or the entire Fermi series if you want an entire generation of space heaters, the reference models from nVidia were particularly bad.

Starting from G80 Nvidia GPUs are hot. The Fermi was especially bad, but I'd guess only because crap stock cooler. My Gainward 8800GT also needs agressive fan control to stay below 80C°. Once you get past a certain TDP there is nothing to be done other than adding beefier coolers. That ~300W heat has to go somewhere whether it's a GTX480 or a GTX3080.

Exactly and nVidia wants to push TDP even further for Hopper ..they are likely to push stock power draw well past 600 watts per GPU since they are using MCM, we might have to start using AIO cooled GPUs, I know an AIB is making a 1kw 3090ti for overclocking.