WTB: Replacement for a RTX 3080

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networkn

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#324688 13-May-2026 10:09

Due to a fault with my 3080, and absolutely poor timing for budgetary reasons, I am keen to explore the second hand market for newer equilalents.

My obvious concern is around longevity and cards being used for non gaming purposes which may have lessened it's lifespan, so would exclude cards not used for non-gaming purposes.

Let me know if you have something suitable.

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#3490447 13-May-2026 11:26

We just bought ~20x 2nd hand 3090s from miners (we use for AI workloads). One of the sellers in particular completely didn't care about the cards - fans literally smoking and falling off, rust/oxidation all throughout the heatsink and bracket, few dead moths here and there. Many of the cards still ran though.

Point being they are quite resiliant.

A bunch though we can't get working so they aren't bulletproof.

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#3490450 13-May-2026 11:46

I have one of these available:

https://www.inno3d.com/product/inno3d-geforce-rtx-3080-ichill-x4

Haven't really thought about price, but let me know if you're interested and we can go from there.

Edit - just to say that it was used in a gaming PC for a few years, but not heavily.

networkn

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#3490451 13-May-2026 11:49

Thanks. I was thinking getting a newer more efficient card would make more sense.

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#3490568 13-May-2026 13:27

3000 series suffered a bit from issues, transient power spikes one of them. You can tell because 4000 series initial run was well over engineered for the gpu spec.

There is really no way to tell longevity, gaming itself is a stressful workload so not doing anything else isn’t really an indicator.

Try for 4070s or a 5060ti, otherwise you can experiment somewhat with amd/intel while next release comes around.

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#3490572 13-May-2026 13:33

networkn:

Thanks. I was thinking getting a newer more efficient card would make more sense.

That's a pretty small pool then. Newer, more efficient 3080 "equivalent" (+/- 15%) leaves only the 4070/Super/Ti and 5070 on the upside, and the 7800XT, 5060Ti and 9060XT on the downside. All those are either still selling new, or new enough that they aren't being replaced yet. Even if you find one used, I imagine anything on the "upside" will still be close to $1k, at which point a new 5070 probably makes more sense...

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#3490806 14-May-2026 10:32

tangerz:

networkn:

Thanks. I was thinking getting a newer more efficient card would make more sense.

That's a pretty small pool then. Newer, more efficient 3080 "equivalent" (+/- 15%) leaves only the 4070/Super/Ti and 5070 on the upside, and the 7800XT, 5060Ti and 9060XT on the downside. All those are either still selling new, or new enough that they aren't being replaced yet. Even if you find one used, I imagine anything on the "upside" will still be close to $1k, at which point a new 5070 probably makes more sense...

Yeah, I guess it was maybe aimed at someone looking to move from a 5070 type card into a more powerful option.

Looks like I'll just need to bite the extremely unfortunately timed bullet.

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#3490964 14-May-2026 18:08

If you were willing to go Team Red then this is a decent deal for around the same $$ as a 5070. Would be a nice performance bump from the 3080 and 16GB of VRAM too...

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#3490967 14-May-2026 18:18

Yeah. I am quite torn between the 5070 and the extra ram of the 9070xt.

I have little patience for driver issues though and it seems most new games seem to mostly be optimised for team green though perhaps my info is out of date.

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#3490987 14-May-2026 19:41

networkn:

Yeah. I am quite torn between the 5070 and the extra ram of the 9070xt.

I have little patience for driver issues though and it seems most new games seem to mostly be optimised for team green though perhaps my info is out of date.

I run a 9700 in my Bazzite machine and a 6900XT in my desktop rig. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any driver issues with either machine.

The 9700 / 9700XT are by far the best bang for your buck high end card on the market.

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#3490989 14-May-2026 19:48

Handle9:

I run a 9700 in my Bazzite machine and a 6900XT in my desktop rig. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any driver issues with either machine.
The 9700 / 9700XT are by far the best bang for your buck high end card on the market.

A workmate has the 9070XT, he isn't a frame rate chaser and says he thinks it works well.

He did say however, that right after he got it, he wanted to play a game, and the latest drivers wouldn't work and and he had to roll back and it took him a couple of hours of mucking around. He said it's been fine since. I think he's had his around 9 months.

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#3490992 14-May-2026 19:54

networkn:

Handle9:

I run a 9700 in my Bazzite machine and a 6900XT in my desktop rig. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any driver issues with either machine.
The 9700 / 9700XT are by far the best bang for your buck high end card on the market.

A workmate has the 9070XT, he isn't a frame rate chaser and says he thinks it works well.

He did say however, that right after he got it, he wanted to play a game, and the latest drivers wouldn't work and and he had to roll back and it took him a couple of hours of mucking around. He said it's been fine since. I think he's had his around 9 months.

You can find similar stories, or worse, about 40 and 50 series cards and Nvidia drivers. There will always be some edge cases for driver problems but the bad old days of garbage AMD drivers are long gone.

It's really a features vs performance decision. NVIDIA has better features, AMD has better performance with features that are now really quite good.

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#3491172 15-May-2026 10:14

Handle9:

You can find similar stories, or worse, about 40 and 50 series cards and Nvidia drivers. There will always be some edge cases for driver problems but the bad old days of garbage AMD drivers are long gone.

It's really a features vs performance decision. NVIDIA has better features, AMD has better performance with features that are now really quite good.

Having a look the 9070 seems appropriate, but there aren't any around.

For me it's basically a decision between more vram vs DLSS.

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#3491177 15-May-2026 10:26

networkn:

Having a look the 9070 seems appropriate, but there aren't any around.

For me it's basically a decision between more vram vs DLSS.

Being just a down binned version of the XT, there was never much supply of the RX 9070. Yields were probably too good!

And while DLSS is still better, don't discount AMD FSR 4.1, which is MUCH improved and sits just behind the latest DLSS in terms of image quality and performance.

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#3491178 15-May-2026 10:28

tangerz:

Being just a down binned version of the XT, there was never much supply of the RX 9070. Yields were probably too good!

And while DLSS is still better, don't discount AMD FSR 4.1, which is MUCH improved and sits just behind the latest DLSS in terms of image quality and performance.

Thanks for that. I am also NOT looking to upgrade my PSU, and a lot of those XT cards seem to want a LOT of power. I think my RM750XC Corsair will cope, but I won't be super happy I end up with a different set of issues.

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#3491179 15-May-2026 10:44

networkn:

Thanks for that. I am also NOT looking to upgrade my PSU, and a lot of those XT cards seem to want a LOT of power. I think my RM750XC Corsair will cope, but I won't be super happy I end up with a different set of issues.

Yeah the RX 9070 was actually really well reviewed on the performance/watt metric. I think the XT is just being pushed to the limit, as seems standard for all silicon these days, both GPU and CPU. No more overclock headroom!

I'd say if your PSU was handling your 3080, (30-series having it's own power issues!), then you should be fine with the XT. There's always the option to power limit it, if you're prepared to leave a little performance on the table...

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