With the huge surge of cryptocurrency mining, the prices for graphics cards has increased massively. Trying to get your hands on a graphics card capable of playing all of the latest games in 2018 is very difficult.
Not only have all pre-owned and new prices been inflated, but the availability of graphics cards is also very limited. Unfortunately, this trend doesn’t seem to be dying anytime soon.
If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, why not take a look at the tips we have listed in this article?
Look For Less Popular Cards On Ebay
If you go for the biggest new releases such as the GTX 1080 or the RX 580, you’ll find it hard to get a good price, even if you buy second hand.
An alternative route would be to look for graphics cards that are still fairly decent but aren’t very good for cryptocurrency mining. These less popular cards won’t give you as good performance as the latest cards, but they’ll still get you 30 to 60 frames in most modern titles and they will be available on Ebay for a very good price.
As an example, the GTX 780 is a great alternative to the RX 480. Whilst a used RX 480 will go for $400-$450 on Ebay, the GTX 780 goes for just $200-$250.
What’s crazy is that the GTX 780 is very similar to the RX 480 in terms of performance.
The GTX 970 is another card that’s at a similar price range to the GTX 780. The 970 performs slightly better than the cards mentioned above.
Buy A Gaming Laptop
It seems ridiculous to consider buying a gaming laptop over a standard gaming PC, but in some cases, a gaming laptop will cost you less money these days, especially if you plan to get a very high end machine.
This is because gaming laptops use different graphics cards than desktop PCs. Before the 1080, all laptops were given slightly less powerful mobile versions of the graphics card. The demand for these laptops is no way near as high as the demand for full size PC graphics cards because laptops aren’t being used to mine cryptocurrency.
If you can find a laptop with a GTX 970 or GTX 980 in it, chances are, the cost of the laptop will be far cheaper than buying a PC with that same graphics card in.
Pair Older Cards In SLI
If you’re really low on money, you could always consider picking up a number of very cheap cards and using them in SLI. By using SLI, you can use multiple graphics cards at once to combine their power.
Not all games support SLI, so you’ll be a bit stuck for when you find an incompatible game, but it can be a cheap way to get a better level of performance in most games.
As an example, you could pick up 2-4 GTX 760 graphics cards for under $100 each on Ebay. With enough of them, your performance could quite easily match that of a newer card.
Keep an eye on Ebay for great deals – you may be able to find cards for under $50 each that when combined in SLI can produce the kind of hardware power a newer card would be capable of.
You will need to do a bit of research on the cards you find on Ebay before you buy. You’ll need to find the answer to the following things:
- Can the card you’re looking at be used in SLI mode?
- Can the card perform well enough to play modern games with SLI enabled?
- Would it be cheaper to buy multiple cards or just buy a single modern card?
Summary
That wraps up our look into how you can save money and find a cheap graphics card in 2018. We hope this guide has helped.
