What do you believe is the best bang for your buck video card?

[dirtyferret]

There are three classic blunders -

The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia when playing Total War.
Slightly less well-known is in Assassin's Creed, never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
But the most infamous is to never create an NVIDIA vs AMD debate on a tech forum...and I'm not. The question is purely qualitative with no right or wrong answer, in fact you can vote for multiple cards if you like. You can fill out missing specs like CPUs, monitors, RAM, etc., to your personal taste. As they say in the South, "I'm simply curious to what y'all think.

I tried to fit as many cards as I could between $125 to $499 USA but I left out some soon to be replaced Nvidia cards for soon to be launched alternatives.

 

[dj-electric]

Red Dragon RX 580 8GB with 2 60$ games for 170$ now at Amazon as is as unbeatable in value as it gets.

 

[Batou1986]

I still use my RX480 4gb I got before the mining craze and it plays most things well with high settings at 1080p, even Star Citizen runs rather well all things considered.

 

[cucker tarlson]

my best picks: rx570/580,1660ti,2060.
my worst picks:rx560,rx590-I would advise people to get 570/580 instead.
2070 is not a terrible buy.however,I'd advise people to stay with an rtx 2060. 2070 is not good enough for rt at 1440p anyway.get a 2080/Ti or just pick a 2060.

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

Got my 8gb 570 for £150 + 2 game bundle. 1080p high settings 60fps gaming. If that not amazing value idk what is.

 

[kapone32]

The RX 570 8GB cards are a great value especially when they are $179.99 CAD on sale with 2 nice games

 

[phanbuey]

2060 OC is basically 2070 / 1080 + performance for $350.

Throw in RTX features and it's a decent deal - probably the best mid range card right now... Downside is it only has 6GB of ram.

The 1660 Ti is kind of a whatever card... i would probably just try to get a good deal on used 1070ti instead.

 

[flmatter]

i would probably just try to get a good deal on used 1070ti instead

I have found regular 1070's that are around the same price point as 1660ti's $250-300. people want way more for the 1070ti's that i have seen that make the 1660 more attractive. If raytracing takes off then I may look at gpu's with that on them but not my cup of tea atm. RX590 and 1660ti seem like the better deals atm. If you look and shop around you can find 590's same price or every close to the 580. Then again I am in Alaska and people are proud of their used stuff.

 

[cucker tarlson]

I've never been fond of performance per dollar metrics really.I've never used it as a reference for my own purchases and I rarely even looked at them.
For me the value of a card is more about quality it delivers. If I think that 1080p looks noticeably worse than 1440p and 60 fps feels sluggish while I'm much more comfortable playing at 80 fps,then I don't really care that card XYZ delivers 75% the performance of the card that would get me where I want but only costs half.I can have a card that runs what I want or a great value one that can't.

 

[AlienIsGOD]

voted 2060, RX 580 and RX 570. My 480 does pretty well with 1440P and some reduced settings , but mostly high or ultra

 

[John Naylor]

It's hard to pick a specific card as ....

1) Cost of card is less relevant a metric as cost of system. The card makes the whole system faster so why just look at cost of card ?.

2) "Some cards are selling at ..." is that a relevant metric when for example those are non A series and the more expensive 2xx cards are ? The cards are selling below the competition for a reason.

3) Are we talking "out of the box" performance or OCd ? Exampole 480 / 580 edges 1060 but once OC'd, base dupon TPU testing, 1060 has the edge.

4) "This card OC'd has performance of nest tier card ..." 100% irrelevant as that card can be OCd too.

5) Are we including associated ancilliary costs ... does it require 100 watt bigger PSU versus competition, extra fan for heat removal , cost of electricity ?

If we are considering the above, the 1060 oughta make the list ... the 1060 3GB versus 4Gb 570 is $20. And the 1060 6 GB difference is. The 1060 6GB against the 580 as well, with the above in consideration, I don't see the 580 measuring up "dollar wise".

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

It's hard to pick a specific card as ....

1) Cost of card is less relevant a metric as cost of system. The card makes the whole system faster so why just look at cost of card ?.

2) "Some cards are selling at ..." is that a relevant metric when for example those are non A series and the more expensive 2xx cards are ? The cards are selling below the competition for a reason.

3) Are we talking "out of the box" performance or OCd ? Exampole 480 / 580 edges 1060 but once OC'd, base dupon TPU testing, 1060 has the edge.

4) "This card OC'd has performance of nest tier card ..." 100% irrelevant as that card can be OCd too.

5) Are we including associated ancilliary costs ... does it require 100 watt bigger PSU versus competition, extra fan for heat removal , cost of electricity ?

If we are considering the above, the 1060 oughta make the list ... the 1060 3GB versus 4Gb 570 is $20. And the 1060 6 GB difference is. The 1060 6GB against the 580 as well, with the above in consideration, I don't see the 580 measuring up "dollar wise".

5):
You can run a 580 on a 300W Bronze power supply. I ran my 570 overclocked on a silverstone 300W Bronze SFX unit with only one 6-pin pcie which i connected into the 8 pin. OC the card uses like 170W in extreme cases. This is with my stock 2700X and full system load around ~320W at the wall in games. It's fine because the unit is 80% efficient and 300W is rated output, not input. considering 20% of the wattage is converted to heat its ok up to 360W at the wall before brown out. As long as it ventilated fine it's no big deal. Getting a 800W or higher PSU is completely pointless for 90% of rigs. I ran a Vega 56 heavily OC'd on a 480W Bronze unit for 6 months. that PSU is still going in my server today. There is no single GPU AMD card on the planet that needs a bigger PSU than the NVIDIA card is recommended.

Maybe the only exception is the 590, which i guess would be pushing it a bit if you INSISTED on using a 300W bronze. But if you got 500W+ you're laughing for any single GPU available with a mainstream CPU.

ALso unless you're paying insane amounts of money for power (some places this is true) you'd need to game on the PC 12 hours a day 6 days a week to even notice the difference. It'd maybe work out to be cost about the same as getting a 1060, but you're getting the performance now.

Edit: if people wonder why i am using 1000W psu in my system it's because my friend was gonna throw it out as out of warranty and broken fan but instead he gave it to me and i bodged a new fan into it. Waste not want not

 

[AsRock]

Would not pick any of them and pick some thing like a 1070

 

[dirtyferret]

It's hard to pick a specific card as ....

1) Cost of card is less relevant a metric as cost of system. The card makes the whole system faster so why just look at cost of card ?.

2) "Some cards are selling at ..." is that a relevant metric when for example those are non A series and the more expensive 2xx cards are ? The cards are selling below the competition for a reason.

3) Are we talking "out of the box" performance or OCd ? Exampole 480 / 580 edges 1060 but once OC'd, base dupon TPU testing, 1060 has the edge.

4) "This card OC'd has performance of nest tier card ..." 100% irrelevant as that card can be OCd too.

5) Are we including associated ancilliary costs ... does it require 100 watt bigger PSU versus competition, extra fan for heat removal , cost of electricity ?

If we are considering the above, the 1060 oughta make the list ... the 1060 3GB versus 4Gb 570 is $20. And the 1060 6 GB difference is. The 1060 6GB against the 580 as well, with the above in consideration, I don't see the 580 measuring up "dollar wise".

It's a qualitative question rather then quantitative one; so more on how you feel about the cards rather then their actual specs, performance on certain games and other statistics.

I was going to put the GTX 1060s up but I ran out of room and felt their replacements (GTX 1660 / 1650 ) offered a better option.

 

[SoNic67]

Why you add RTX cards but no GTX 1080? Those are the best option IMO for QHD and 4K gaming today, at $400 used.
I just pulled out my RX580 from PC because of this.

 

[overvolted]

Would not pick any of them and pick some thing like a 1070

Nothing wrong with being practical.
If you can get the 1070 for the right price, and it can do what you need it to, nothing wrong with that.

 

[Jetster]

A really good question. So thinking if I had little money. I don't buy used but that's an option I guess
As far as new its really close between GTX 1060 and the AMD 580. You get amazing 1080 graphics for under $200
If you can afford $375 for the 2060, then you can afford $500 2070

 

[dirtyferret]

Why you add RTX cards but no GTX 1080? Those are the best option IMO for QHD and 4K gaming today, at $400 used.
I just pulled out my RX580 from PC because of this.

I'm only allowed ten voting options plus used cards create too much of a variable. A person can say their buddy is going through a divorce and sold them his RTX 2080 for $400 or their brother in law upgraded and got a free GTX 970.

 

[MrGenius]

Radeon VII. Not gonna play the low-mid range game.

 

[Keullo-e]

Vega 56 OC'd and undervolted.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

The $130 RX570 is hands down best bang for your 1080p buck.
The $270 1660Ti is best bang for the buck 1440p
From there no one gives a fuck about bang for the buck.

 

[spectatorx]

Best bang for the buck gpu is one which costs up to 250 euros and allows me to play latest games at 1920x1080 or 2560x1440.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

Can't beat the 570 with 2 free games on bang for the buck that's for sure!

 

[Ruvik]

I heard recently that Vega 56 got really cheap. It is a pretty good card, unless the person buying wants nothing to do with minor hassle/enjoyment of tweaking it.

 

[Shambles1980]

depends what you are doing with it..
But the 1660ti (the bog standard cheapest revision "would have been founders edition if they had made one") seems like a decent value for money card.
but if you are looking at any of the higher end 1660ti's you would be better of with a 2060 IMO.