Video card prices are plummeting (except for the 1000 series) Should I hold out?

I'm assembling a new computer.
I kinda-sorta had my mind set on buying a fancy gtx 1080 card. Unfortunately, the prices are outrageous and the availability is spotty. The worst thing is: the price will drop $200 in 2 months.


I just checked some sales, and the top-of-the-line 980 TIs are going for under $400 now. Overclocked 970s are $199. Overclocked 950s are only $99!

My question is: should I take advantage of these sale prices now and buy a lesser card? Or should I just hold out for the best?


I use 3x monitors. Right now they're 1080p, but I'm in the process of upgrading to 2560 x 1440 (just bought a 27 inch). I'd like to be able to play newer games (GTA5, Doom, Battlefront, SC2, etc) on ultra settings at 2560 x 1440 with "good" frame rates. Can lesser gfx cards achieve that?

Do you game on all 3 monitors or just one.

Lochekey said:

Do you game on all 3 monitors or just one.

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1 at a time, but I use all 3 while I game. Let me clarify: I don't use cross-monitor gaming. So my primary game will be in one monitor (usually windowed), then I'll have netflix playing on another monitor, and email open on my third monitor... or something like that

Can you temporarily use the GPU in your existing PC until the new one arrives?

So the gpu will be seeing a primary gaming load off 2560x1440. A 980ti will be able to drive that well in the current games. The gtx 1080 will obviously do better and will last a little longer.

It basically comes down to how much are you willing to spend and how soon you need the card. If you need something now and don't want to pay the price premium grab a 980ti and don't look back. If your system is not going to be ready for another month or so wait and see what prices do by the time your system is ready.

Either way you go, 980ti or 1080 your system should perform well as long as you stay at or below a 2560x1440 resolution and are happy with 60fps with high to ultra settings.

You really should have a single build thread.. lol!

Honestly, if you are ready to buy, buy.

EarthDog said:

You really should have a single build thread.. lol!

Honestly, if you are ready to buy, buy.

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alright. Sorry, I'm new here and don't really know the rules/protocol. Where should I put my single build thread?

I'm ready to buy! The thing is... I pre-ordered a case that doesn't ship until August, so I'm sniping deals and slowly accumulating parts piece by piece as I decide on components.

I dont see the prices going UP in the next month or so honestly.

As far as a single build thread... in General Hardware. But at this point, there really isn't a point, LOL as you have the others scattered around and stories in each. No worries, but a single build thread is a good way to go. It helps keep the information in one thread which is helpful for you and those volunteers helping to get you going.

Here is Benchmarks for the GTX 1080-1070 2560x1440p

Hopefully, in a month time, the 1080/1070 prices will go to decent level!

It's just a shame that prices are $150/$200 over MSRP due t low supply...

Heck, you can get 2x980ti for the price of 1 1080!!! Which is not even a top end GPU! 1080ti will be, and in 6 month time, the 1080 paid $800 will be worth peanuts, with big Pascal and Vega out!

Tír na nÓg said:

Hopefully, in a month time, the 1080/1070 prices will go to decent level!

It's just a shame that prices are $150/$200 over MSRP due t low supply...

Heck, you can get 2x980ti for the price of 1 1080!!! Which is not even a top end GPU! 1080ti will be, and in 6 month time, the 1080 paid $800 will be worth peanuts, with big Pascal and Vega out!

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yeahhhh, you're 100% right. A lot of people are crying "foul" because it seems that Nvidia stock-piled its own homegrown brand of founders edition cards, while only distributing a minuscule amount of 1080/1070 chipsets to 3rd-party manufacturers. That strategy basically forces people to buy the overpriced Nvidia brand FE cards. Well I guess that's the reward they get for controlling 80% of the entire market of graphics cards. Nvidia can do whatever the hell they want at this point. As AMD's marketshare continues to decline, I guess we'll eventually get to see $1000 founders edition cards...

At this point it looks like my best bet will be to wait a month and hope to get a slightly better price on an overclocked 1080 card.

i gotta be honest with ya.... if you're not ready to put them into a working PC right now, then wait...

my pair of GTX 670s 4G in SLI still runs my games fine (40+ FPS) @ 2560x1600. and they're 4 years old. my personal strategy has been one of "spend more for single parts now, instead of buying the whole PC at once" so that i have a better overall build. one can easily spend a grand to 1500$ or more every year on a PC just to have the newest tech, but yet still be settling for cheaper parts overall.

a 1500$ PC is just fine to get someone started... but then the question needs to be asked... is it worth it to replace the whole thing?

considering that i personally use my PC mostly for gaming (with a little bit of audio editing now and then) and movies... my CPU doesn't need to be upgraded very often... say, maybe every 5 years. that allows me to spend that extra money on better video cards one year, better SSDs another year, etc, until i feel i needed a "core" upgrade of cpu, mobo, ram.

i happen to be nearing the stage where i feel a GPU upgrade is warranted, so i too am looking at the 1080s. sure, i could buy the discounted 980TI cards (2 of them of course, to make sure they last another 4-5 years, and allow for a possible 4k or 5k monitor upgrade in that timeframe) but considering the performance improvements with the 1080s, and that my 670s are still "enough" for now, i'm waiting for the 1080TIs, since their performance improvements over the base 1080s will actually scream "improvement" instead of "barely improvement". not to mention that the intro prices for the new cards are always high due to supply issues (i speculate that they may be intentionally not launch with enough supply to meet the demand just so they can charge more, so i refuse to be an early adopter anymore)

basically, one 980TI = my 2 670s in SLI (performance wise). so a single 980TI is not worth the upgrade. a single 1080 is not worth the upgrade either, since that's barely +25%. a single 1080TI on the other hand, should be a 50% improvement over my dual 670s. so then i'll feel like it's worth it to buy 2 of them, to make sure they last long enough for me to not have to upgrade my GPUs for another 4 years.

PS: i'm still playing GW2, SC2, metro 2033 and last light, the crysis trilogy, wolfenstein new order, and the witcher games (all 3) at max settings, except for tesselation, i think i have tesselation set to low or medium or such because the 670s can't handle that over 40 fps.

if it was me i would get a nice 1070 with aftermarket cooling for about $450. 8gb might come in handy in the next couple years. speed difference is negligible from a 980ti if i'm not mistaken. for the same price may as well get more vram and new tech/better power consumption. don't pay more than $550 for a gtx 1080.

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where are people getting top of the line 980tis for $400?

Brando said:

where are people getting top of the line 980tis for $400?

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I saw one at Newegg! There's a Zotac there for $399.99!

RJARRRPCGP said:

I saw one at Newegg! There's a Zotac there for $399.99!

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ok there is that one but 980ti and 1070 are pretty much the same price. between $400 and $470 for the most part.

ya, 980tis are below $400 these days and the 1070's are almost all $449. Interestingly, Nvidia announced the 1070's price would be $370.
That means there's a whole lot of price gauging occurring right now.

Generally, MSRP is 40% over the retailer's actual item cost. If MSRP is $370, then low-end mom and pop vendors are probably only paying $222 for these things (megavendors probably much less). Newegg is probably over a 100% profit margin at the moment. Meaning for every $1 they spend on inventory, they're bringing in $2.

The funny thing is: AMD's Radeon RX 480 is only $199, and nobody seems to be discussing it. That price point means it's possible to buy 2x AMD Radeon RX 480s for the price of 1x GTX 1070 - and two crossfired AMDs will definitely out-perform the 1070. In fact you can nearly buy 4x AMDs for the same price as 1x 1080. I haven't seen any quad RX 480 benchmarks, but I imagine they would be comparable to a 1080... if not better.

I can't find a RX 480, and can't find one listed for sub $200. I can find $300 980s and the $399 980 Ti. I'm seriously considering the 980 Ti.

Oh, hey... for anyone else in the gtx 1080 market, I found this nice comparison of several different brand's OC cards: http://www.overclock.net/t/1604713/cb-gtx-1080-which-partner-card-is-the-best


interestingly, after 30 minutes of heavy load they all settle to..
-within 5db of each other.
-within 70 Mhz
-within 10 degrees C
-within 18% overall performance of the reference card (founders edition)

Alaric said:

I can't find a RX 480, and can't find one listed for sub $200. I can find $300 980s and the $399 980 Ti. I'm seriously considering the 980 Ti.

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I'm also considering a 980ti. I might get one from a company with a loose return policy and just send it back in 29 days and pick up a 1080 (unless I love the 980).

BTW, here's an RX 480 for $199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150771
Like almost all of the others, it's out of stock though, so that price is basically just a reference point.

If you're price-hunting or looking to find something that's mostly out-of-stock, this is an ultra-useful website. It lists inventory availability and current price for dozens of different websites. http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/gtx1080/

Nice! I'll check it out. I just found out Dell has VisionTek RX 480s in stock for $249. The more I think about it the more I'm leaning that way. I can pick up another when the dust settles and the prices (I hope) come down a little.