best upgrade for $200

F

FalconSS

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2004
Messages
1,293
I'm looking for the best upgrade for $200. I currently have a 5850. I want it mostly for star citizen with the oculus rift. I had ordered a 280x but it was DOA and then the price shot up. I have about $200 worth of bitcoins I'm looking to use.
 
How is spending $115 more than what he is allocating saving money? :p Not that they are not good deals but they are out of his range.

I will agree though by going with Craigslist to see if you can find a local deal. I am currently trying to snag this myself

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/ele/4379206176.html

The best $200 part is the R9 270X. It would be the GTX 760 but I haven't seen one be anywhere near $200 for awhile now. I have seen the GTX 670 go for $200 on numerous occasions so look out for that as well.
 
DarkLegacy said:
How is spending $115 more than what he is allocating saving money? :p Not that they are not good deals but they are out of his range.

I will agree though by going with Craigslist to see if you can find a local deal. I am currently trying to snag this myself

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/ele/4379206176.html

The best $200 part is the R9 270X. It would be the GTX 760 but I haven't seen one be anywhere near $200 for awhile now. I have seen the GTX 670 go for $200 on numerous occasions so look out for that as well.
Click to expand...

It is an example of something. The particular subject is not important. OP can save $$$ by not paying the new tax.
 
schizrade said:
It is an example of something. The particular subject is not important. OP can save $$$ by not paying the new tax.
Click to expand...

OP can also have piece of mind that card he/she is buying hasn't been run 24/7 at 100% + whatever overclock for unknown number of weeks possibly overheating, and not have to pay the used tax if said card craps out prematurely.
 
sfsuphysics said:
OP can also have piece of mind that card he/she is buying hasn't been run 24/7 at 100% + whatever overclock for unknown number of weeks possibly overheating, and not have to pay the used tax if said card craps out prematurely.
Click to expand...

Example. That is all it was. My point is people make stupid impulse buys then have to hock it for way less than they paid. Take advantage of that. Mining card or not. I agree I would not buy a card used to heavily mine. It adds stresses that they would never see gaming. The point stands though, initial example aside.
 
Alag28 said:
750 ti ftw
Click to expand...

not quite powerful enough im afraid. I Think its actually quite a bit less powerful than my 5850. nice card though.

EDIT: okay, I see that the 750ti trades blows with the 260x, which trades blows with the 5850. so, they are essentially the same card. The 750 does get half the power draw though.
 
Last edited:
I just sold my two 5850s for 120 and 130 on ebay. That's about $100 a card after shipping/Ebay fees. I got an R9 290 for $414 off shopblt. So, I think you could up your budget to $300. Not sure on availability (it says it's down right now), but here's a 280x for $316. And here's a 770 for $329.

Do you not have the 5850's crossfired? I found my two were comparable (somtimes slightly better) to my friends 7970ghz edition, when VRAM wasn't an issue. So you may want to save for an 290 or 780.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
King Icewind said:
I just sold my two 5850s for 120 and 130 on ebay. That's about $100 a card after shipping/Ebay fees. I got an R9 290 for $414 off shopblt. So, I think you could up your budget to $300. Not sure on availability (it says it's down right now), but here's a 280x for $316. And here's a 770 for $329.

Do you not have the 5850's crossfired? I found my two were comparable (somtimes slightly better) to my friends 7970ghz edition, when VRAM wasn't an issue. So you may want to save for an 290 or 780.
Click to expand...

I did have them crossfired. But my XFX's fan went down. instead of paying $40-50-90 to fix it with an aftermarket cooler. I decided to invest that money into a new card. interestingly enough, my MSI one is still going strong even though its a year and a half older. The VRAM is my issue though, im wanting to play star citizens dogfight module when it comes out next month. Also, games actually felt much smoother when I disabled crossfire. My framerate was lower but the games themselves felt better at the lower framerate and didnt stutter so much.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
OP,

If you can find a new GTX 760 for $200, I think that would be best.
I upgraded to it from an HD 5870 on Black Friday 2013.

Regarding the HD 7870, I saw those as low as $125 (new) when I was looking for a GPU a couple months before BF.
 
270 for $190 or less. Prices are coming down from mining profits going to hell. Newegg has a Sapphire 270 for $190 right now. A 270 will hand a 750 Ti it's @ss.
 
670/760 is your best bet for price/performance at the $200 level. They are often at or near this price on the forums.
 
King Icewind said:
I just sold my two 5850s for 120 and 130 on ebay. That's about $100 a card after shipping/Ebay fees. I got an R9 290 for $414 off shopblt. So, I think you could up your budget to $300. Not sure on availability (it says it's down right now), but here's a 280x for $316. And here's a 770 for $329.

Do you not have the 5850's crossfired? I found my two were comparable (somtimes slightly better) to my friends 7970ghz edition, when VRAM wasn't an issue. So you may want to save for an 290 or 780.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the post, flipped my 5870 for $120 overnight. :3
No idea these cards still had value.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Yeah the 5850/5870 were selling pretty good for a while, I remember wanting to buy a 2nd 5850 last summer as I was seeing them for $50.
I got paid $140 for my 5850 in January as I found a GTX 670 locally for $100 which was such a steal putting money back in my pocket. :cool:

I got some good deals the past few months on cards, I ended up paying $100 + $180 for a MSI GTX 670 2gb SLI setup, with the sale of the 5850 I can argue that the upgrade cost me $140 for the pair of cards.

The day after I installed that 2nd 670 we found a pair of GTX 680 2gb cards at $235 a piece locally, we were on the phone and out the door 5 minutes after he listed them.
My brother made an offer and bought both of them for $400.

He then sold his 5870 for $120 after and he's been running the 670s in the meantime with his XFX Pro 650w.

After running the 680s for a few weeks thinking about trading for them I'm probably just going to go back to the pair of 670s.
My brother will then sell one 680 and use the other, he can still get enough money for that card to make the 5870 to 680 upgrade with nearly no cost.

Bit of an offtopic post, but there is a lot of value in used cards.
If you do take a look, I would recommend trying to find one locally where you can see it working at their place before you buy, and maybe find some models that will still be under warranty.
 
I say save your money up for a better upgrade when you can buy an oculus rift retail, as long as you don't already have a dev kit you're wanting to play with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top