Purchasing a used 1080 ti

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JayJWLH

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#255570 18-Aug-2019 23:54

So I'm looking at biting the bullet and buying an expensive piece of GPU hardware - a EVGA GTX 1080Ti. It is the SC2 version based on the pictures.

https://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/components/video-cards/pciexpress/listing-2278477261.htm

I'm sure it is hard to keep up with used GPU pricing ever since the 20's came out, and then the Supers, but I'm just making sure this is a good price. Should I wait for other sellers? Should I look at other selling platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Ebay? Note that I'd have to do local in some cases, as you don't want to send a lot of money to someone without some kind of protection.

On an overclocking note, my current Asus 1070 always throttled on power (according to GPU-Z), so it would be nice to know in advance whether I can get this one to only throttle on thermals and I can work on correcting that.

toejam316

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#2301414 19-Aug-2019 05:40

For my money, I wouldn't buy a 1080 Ti for $900.

$600? Yeah, that's a bargain. $700? I'd be eyeing the 5700 XT awfully hard. We haven't got the partner cards yet, but the 5700 XT nips at the heels of the 2070 Super, which nips at the heels of the 1080 Ti, for a lot less. The AMD Reference cooler goes for as low as $670, and I suspect custom designs will only clip around $700 for the entry range. The 2070 Super, meanwhile, is trading blows with the 1080 Ti (excluding overclocking, where the 1080 Ti will pull ahead), at around $950 for a brand new Gigabyte one, or about $1033 for an EVGA model XC, similar to what you're looking at there I believe.

Once you factor in that the 1080 Ti has been in use in unknown conditions for an unknown duration, and has on warranty attached, I wouldn't touch it. If you're really keen to go used, shop around a bit harder, I wouldn't go higher than $700 personally, but I also wouldn't be caught dead buying a used GPU unless I know the entire history, including the user and use case/s...

TL;DR - Buy new, 5700 XT (NOT REFERENCE COOLER, WAIT FOR CUSTOM DESIGNS COMING SOON), 2070 Super, or a 2080, or 2080 Super if those are within you budget.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Batman

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#2301426 19-Aug-2019 07:28

i have a gigabyte g1 oc 1080 ti.

it is amazing what it can do, it does between rtx 2080 and rtx 2080 super according to the reviews but who knows. it's pretty good.

in terms of OC a GPU each specific card depending on the actual componentry AND thermal design, OC limit is very different.

my card is hopeless at OC, can't OC the clock speed much at all.

so what i did was i OC the VRAM and for 3 months it was good then it started giving me artefacts and crashing and now I cannot OC one tiny bit and it still crashes once in a blue moon.

1. research OC overhead of specific card

2. do not OC VRAM as it only gives problems a few months down the line

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#2301427 19-Aug-2019 07:30

don't knowm much about the 5700XT but it is inferior to 1080 Ti.

but performance vs $ i don't know.

JayJWLH

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#2301451 19-Aug-2019 08:29

Oh, so AMD is finally catching up? They can't keep up with Nvidia when you look at their highest end cards, but the RX 5700 XT is 51% better than my GTX 1070. Certainly more modern technology. Plus both 1070 and 5700 have the same retail price. I'd be saving $100-300 to get the 5700 versus a 1080ti, and for maybe a 5% performance loss. I am going to miss the fact that I don't get the 11GB of VRAM, and have to settle with 8GB. But if it operates faster then it may not matter.

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1080-Ti-vs-AMD-RX-5700-XT/3918vs4045

I do wish AMD had a higher performing card, but maybe they will in the future.

As for the prices:

AMD - $798
MSI Evoke OC - $815.93
Gigabyte - $678
MSI - $699
ASRock - $669
Asus - $678.50

I'd probably try to overclock myself, so I don't know if paying an extra $100 premium is worth it? Probably not. I'm also going to check through reviews of this new product.

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#2301458 19-Aug-2019 08:51

When you compare performance it is game specific and resolution specific. And to a lesser degree rig specific IF there were bottlenecks on your rig.

JayJWLH

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#2301461 19-Aug-2019 09:01

Batman: When you compare performance it is game specific and resolution specific. And to a lesser degree rig specific IF there were bottlenecks on your rig.

In this case it is just 1080p with an extra monitor, so extra VRAM is nice but not as needed. It would have just been nice to give games that extra memory while also having other things loaded up, all in the hopes that things wouldn't get full nearly as easily. Sadly, the comparison didn't compare any games.

JayJWLH

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#2301464 19-Aug-2019 09:04

When looking at the 5700 XT, I see so many other manufacturers have chosen to have a similar blower design to the reference card, while currently only one other actually bothers to have two large fans. Sadly, this results in a $100+ price hike.

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Lias

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#2301507 19-Aug-2019 09:20

I think $900 for a used 1080TI of unknown provenance is very steep when you can get a brand new 2070 Super for about $50 more.

My advice would be don't pay much more than $650-700 for a used 1080TI.

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toejam316

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#2301508 19-Aug-2019 09:22

As I mentioned, most of those are the reference design. Give it a little more time and you'll see third party designs appearing on the market. Xfx, Sapphire and powercolor are confirmed with some quite nice card designs, and the usual suspects like msi, gigabyte and Asus will all be dropping cards.
I'd suggest researching the games or workloads you'll be using the card for and the performance you'll receive at your resolution, just for posterity, but a 5700 XT should deal with 1080p easily.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

JayJWLH

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#2302066 20-Aug-2019 02:38

Lias:

I think $900 for a used 1080TI of unknown provenance is very steep when you can get a brand new 2070 Super for about $50 more.

My advice would be don't pay much more than $650-700 for a used 1080TI.

The 1080 ti is still better than the 2070 super by a small margin, and has more VRAM (11GB vs 8GB). But yes, I can see the $50-200 difference when compared to new. Funny thing is that I can see it was sold the moment someone asked for a credit card option to be made available. I guess there isn't enough supply on TradeMe for the price to be taken down to something more reasonable. It is a good thing I took this time to think about it and discuss it on here.

JayJWLH

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#2302067 20-Aug-2019 02:50

toejam316: As I mentioned, most of those are the reference design. Give it a little more time and you'll see third party designs appearing on the market. Xfx, Sapphire and powercolor are confirmed with some quite nice card designs, and the usual suspects like msi, gigabyte and Asus will all be dropping cards.
I'd suggest researching the games or workloads you'll be using the card for and the performance you'll receive at your resolution, just for posterity, but a 5700 XT should deal with 1080p easily.

That is certainly what I'm looking at. Basically I'm keeping an eye on 5700 XT's that have proper coolers on them. I saw one review (and get the same idea from YouTube videos) that say the card isn't being properly cooled. Either the fan will go loud, or you'll deal with bigger temperatures that will throttle things. Blower coolers are a starting point, but I'd go with 2-3x fans if possible to combat this. And about 10 power phases if possible. Newegg have plenty of those other sub-manufacturer cards out already, including both blowers and 2-3x fans on them.

Side question though: Does AMD do what NVIDIA do, and take the best GPU's for themselves in their reference cards? Maybe I can just go for a reference card and consider water-cooling.

JayJWLH

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#2302068 20-Aug-2019 03:54

Frustrating enough, I can't seem to find anything that helps me compare the features that each GPU has for the 5700 XT. So I will place that information on a Google Spreadsheets and maybe the internet may find it useful as well as myself. I wasn't able to find much about memory clocks, but reviews suggest you won't be able to get much further than 14 Gbps overclocking it anyway at 14.3 Gbps. I can't always find what product has what amount of power phases (usually 6+1 phases, for GPU then memory), or what the biggest boost the card may be able to accomplish. But it is all a start.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19sYx7gXXI3cP8Z9aZrgDnJIP4AHRuOv1kmd0HVdyow8/edit?usp=sharing

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#2302084 20-Aug-2019 07:40

Just me, but I wouldnt touch a used card at that price. I know its a decent model card, but you don't know the history/life of it. Could've been used for mining 24/7, have overheating issues etc.

Try to get some sort of guarantee out of the seller.

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toejam316

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#2305122 24-Aug-2019 10:49

Just in case you're still looking for info, the 5700 XTs from board partners seem to be making their way out, and so far the PowerColor Red Devil and the Sapphire Pulse seem to be the ones to go with, and of the two I'd recommend Sapphire every day, they're a better known brand and do pretty well in general.

The XFX 5700 XT THICC is also worth a look, though no reviews have come out yet so I'd be cautious, and avoid the MSI card as the seemed to use less than adequate thermal pads on the memory chips, which leaves it performing worse than the Sapphire while being louder for it.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

JayJWLH

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#2305255 24-Aug-2019 14:32

toejam316:

Just in case you're still looking for info, the 5700 XTs from board partners seem to be making their way out, and so far the PowerColor Red Devil and the Sapphire Pulse seem to be the ones to go with, and of the two I'd recommend Sapphire every day, they're a better known brand and do pretty well in general.

The XFX 5700 XT THICC is also worth a look, though no reviews have come out yet so I'd be cautious, and avoid the MSI card as the seemed to use less than adequate thermal pads on the memory chips, which leaves it performing worse than the Sapphire while being louder for it.

I've already went ahead and got a ASRock 5700 XT. I figured that I should have waited for a triple fan / more power phases. But the silver lining is that I'm hoping to just put an EK waterblock on it and give custom water cooling a try. May require some maintenance in the long term, and my screen blocks the side of my case so I can't enjoy looking at it, but I look forward to overclocking it.

I see you've noticed news about the thermal pads. Someone screwed up. Should have paid attention. But not like you can't purchase your own replacement pads and a really good thermal paste of your choosing for the GPU.