Should I sell my 6990 + 6970 to buy an nVidia card, and capitalize on the coin craze?

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RileyLewis

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When I built my PC I had 3 x 1080 monitors, so it made sense to have multiple cards. I ended up deciding on 3 x 6970s, though in the end I got a 6990 + 6970 because it was a bit cheaper at the time. Now, however, I only use a single 1600p monitor (I use it for photography, and the large IPS panel is fantastic for it, and fine for gaming too). The multiple cards are fine, but sometimes crossfire is more hassle than it is worth with some games.

So with the current coin craze, I was wondering if I should sell the 6990 and 6970 to finance a single Nvidia card. Obviously the 6970s aren't selling for the same absurd amount as the 290x or 7970 cards, but they are still inflated.

So my question is, is it worth it to do right now? Or am I better off just keeping my cards for another year or two and then upgrading to an AMD card (or new Nvidia) when prices settle?
 
I guess I should first figure out how much the market price has increased over the normal value. If I'm just getting $10 per card over, then I probably won't. But $50 for each? Sure, why not!
 
If you have no intention of mining then sell them now. You could probably get enough to pay for a gtx 780. You should be able to get around $170 shipped for the 6970. The 6990 is probably double that plus add a small premium for only using a single slot. In 2-5 months asics miners will likely make these cards obsolete (if not from a pure performance standpoint at least from a power consumption standpoint) and you will probably be lucky to get $100 for the 6970.
 
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tosgamer said:
If you have no intention of mining then sell them now. You could probably get enough to pay for a gtx 780. You should be able to get around $170 shipped for the 6970. The 6990 is probably double that plus add a small premium for only using a single slot. In 2-5 months asics miners will likely make these cards obsolete (if not from a pure performance standpoint at least from a power consumption standpoint) and you will probably be lucky to get $100 for the 6970.
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Thanks for the advice. What's the best way to sell, just set up an ebay account?
 
as others said... do it.. I sold my 6970 for just over $200 on ebay (after fees I netted approx. $180) and upgraded to a 680. Not a huge increase (Im at 1080p so no real need to go higher imo) but this being my first Nvidia I was pleasantly surprised by the noticeable bump in performance and lack of weird bugs and stable drivers, everyone wasn't exaggerating like I assumed to justify the higher overall price from Nvidia. Before the craze I was considering Crossfire but was hesitant because of my experience crossfiring some 5770 a few years back.

For reference before the latest craze you couldn't get more than a $100-120ish for a reference 6970.
 
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RileyLewis said:
Thanks for the advice. What's the best way to sell, just set up an ebay account?
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ebay kind of blows because of all the fees but that is where a lot of demand is. Selling it on [H] at elevated prices is harder because not everyone on here is a miner and to non-miners a 6970 is starting to become really old tech.
 
Cayman 69xx cards? I would do it for sure. Cayman is notoriously weak with tessellation and DX11 in general, any upgrade to a current generation GPU would be a noticeable performance upgrade, regardless of which side you choose. So personally, I would do it - sell the Cayman cards and get something new. And you may just find that you end up preferring the green side, which is what happened w/ me after switching from 7970s. But no matter which side you choose - 290 or 780, they both have significantly better DX11 performance than Cayman.
 
RileyLewis said:
Thanks for the advice. What's the best way to sell, just set up an ebay account?
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You will get the best prices on ebay. But you have to factor in 10% fees and an increased risk of dealing with someone shady. You could also try selling on the F/S forum here. But expect a lot of lowball offers or they might try to get you to ship first if you don't have any heat. Just kindly say no and wait for a buyer to give you a decent price. You could also try local on craigslist.
 
tosgamer said:
You will get the best prices on ebay. But you have to factor in 10% fees and an increased risk of dealing with someone shady. You could also try selling on the F/S forum here. But expect a lot of lowball offers or they might try to get you to ship first if you don't have any heat. Just kindly say no and wait for a buyer to give you a decent price. You could also try local on craigslist.
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True, thanks.
 
I've actually already had an offer from a user here for $150 (but I would need to pay for shipping), but I think I will check locally first, as it sounds like I could get a bit more than that if I search around a bit for a buyer.
 
I think if you want to sell, then sell now.

Otherwise I'd hold out for the next node shrink, you have a pretty good setup there.
 
hcforde said:
Amazon currently has ASUS DC2 780 cards for $520.
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And that would be the one I would be getting!

Only issue is I am in Canada and a lot of stores on Amazon won't sell to Canadians. :(

Yakk said:
I think if you want to sell, then sell now.

Otherwise I'd hold out for the next node shrink, you have a pretty good setup there.
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Oh definitely. I have a great set up even if it's a few years old, but I am thinking that if I can basically get a better setup for effectively free (or maybe $50-$100 on top) then it's a great deal.
 
Im torn with this as well, do i want to sell the 290 and get a pair of 780's. the 290 nets around 500 bucks, and ive seen used 780's for 400. running SLI 780's would be killer. I run eyefinity though so i dont know how much worse NVsurround is @ 5760x1080. What i understand is that eyefinity is better.
 
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Yes because bitcoins... (x)coins etc are all about to collapse. I would get the money while the money can be gotten!

As far as bitcoins is concerned almost all national and international mainstream and alternative media are reporting the imminent collapse of crypto currency. It all is because it is a valueless currency backed by no one and guaranteed by nothing.

Im not giving bias or opinion only what I have read in reports.

I wish it would have been a stable long lasting and secure form of monetary wealth but alas it is not! And to think I had like 20 BTC back in the day I bought a dumb ass processor with that I could have cashed out now for over 20,000 dollars, well if there is anyone that would actually pay me 20K.
 
tangoseal said:
Yes because bitcoins... (x)coins etc are all about to collapse. I would get the money while the money can be gotten!

As far as bitcoins is concerned almost all national and international mainstream and alternative media are reporting the imminent collapse of crypto currency. It all is because it is a valueless currency backed by no one and guaranteed by nothing.

Im not giving bias or opinion only what I have read in reports.

I wish it would have been a stable long lasting and secure form of monetary wealth but alas it is not! And to think I had like 20 BTC back in the day I bought a dumb ass processor with that I could have cashed out now for over 20,000 dollars, well if there is anyone that would actually pay me 20K.
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The mainstream media claims BTC are going to crash everytime the price fluctuates. BTC are going to be fine and around for a while yet.
 
They will be around as long as money launderers need it, or as long as people in countries with currency control can use it to export assets (like China, Cuba, etc). But once they start to reach the limit of profitability to produce (since there is a hard limit on the number of coins in total), you'll see the price stop rising, or perhaps drop. Or it could crash any time like it has done in the past. If there is demand then there will be a high price, but even demand for regular currencies can go away.
 
Well if we go back in history, the thing that caused bitcoin GPU mining to become unprofitable was the fact that data centers in Iceland and China were built with literally 100,000+ mining ASICs all housed in a factory dedicated to them and did that 24/7. Once this practice proliferated in many countries with cheap energy, or even hydro and solar energy, bitcoin mining became worthless.

It is true, for individuals, mining ASICs do not make a difference. But everything changes when data centers with 100,000 of them are built. The difficulty skyrockets.

Now I understand some of these ASICs are working for scrypt mining, but they're few and far between for the time being. I think, if anything, that scrypt mining will have a similar situation as bitcoin itself did - once governments (china) and big corporations get their hand on it, profitability for GPUs will go down the drain. Again, that's exactly what happened to GPU bitcoin mining. It hasn't happened to scrypt yet, because no ASICs have been developed on a large scale yet, although some have been developed. When will this happen? Who knows.
 
I can't believe people are mining with 6000 series cards, you could barely cover electricity with those. If you can make a premium on those cards OP, jump all over it.

People have been predicting the death of btc since its inception, and I was dumb enough to listen to them and miss out on a fortune. Then came altcoins. I thought there was no way in hell that would work out, and I missed the boat once again. My cousin made $10k last month on VTC, and would have made over $100k if he hasn't sold them too early. All he had was a couple 290s and a 290x, nothing crazy by any means. I decided to say fuck it and jump in. I bought a couple 280x's and a 290, we'll see how it goes. Worst case scenario, it all comes crashing down and i sell the cards for a few hundred dollars loss. Oh well. I'm having a lot of fun doing it, and I might just make a few bucks in the process.
 
RileyLewis said:
And that would be the one I would be getting!

Only issue is I am in Canada and a lot of stores on Amazon won't sell to Canadians. :(




Oh definitely. I have a great set up even if it's a few years old, but I am thinking that if I can basically get a better setup for effectively free (or maybe $50-$100 on top) then it's a great deal.
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B2BigAl said:
I can't believe people are mining with 6000 series cards, you could barely cover electricity with those. If you can make a premium on those cards OP, jump all over it.

People have been predicting the death of btc since its inception, and I was dumb enough to listen to them and miss out on a fortune. Then came altcoins. I thought there was no way in hell that would work out, and I missed the boat once again. My cousin made $10k last month on VTC, and would have made over $100k if he hasn't sold them too early. All he had was a couple 290s and a 290x, nothing crazy by any means. I decided to say fuck it and jump in. I bought a couple 280x's and a 290, we'll see how it goes. Worst case scenario, it all comes crashing down and i sell the cards for a few hundred dollars loss. Oh well. I'm having a lot of fun doing it, and I might just make a few bucks in the process.
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As skeptical as I am about the whole mining craze thats quite a reasonable attitude to be going in with. Here's hoping it works out for you.
 
claytonbixsby said:
I also have a 6970. Did you sell yours?
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I just put this up today, so no, not yet. Unfortunately there appears to be no demand locally (I live in Regina, population 220,000). I will have to sell nationally or to the US, it looks like, which means shipping costs or ebay fees, etc. :(

I might post something on the forums here, I suppose, but as people have said I haven't sold anything here before so there might not be takers, and also there aren't going to be as many folks here willing to be a 6970 for mining.
 
B2BigAl said:
I can't believe people are mining with 6000 series cards, you could barely cover electricity with those. If you can make a premium on those cards OP, jump all over it.
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Some people hardly pay anything for electricity. And a 6970 or unlocked 6950 are hardly slouches. They can pull close to 500k/hash with a mild overclock.
 
I've found an MSI 780ti on sale for $699 in Canada (normally $749-$799), is that a pretty good deal to swoop on? Otherwise the regular 780 is $599.

Specifically, it's a MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti 928MHZ Boost 3GB.
 
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100$ more? I would say yes, but I have no idea how CDN currency compares to the USD. Anyway, regardless - if the GTX 780 vanilla is 200$ less, then you could get a custom 780 that will generally easily OC and scale 12-20% beyond stock - which would put it squarely in 780ti territory or beyond. But here you have a 100$ difference. Hmm.

Merely looking at a 100$ price differential between the 780 and 780ti would make a strong argument in favor of the latter, despite the OC'ability of the vanilla 780. Then again, the 780ti overclocks that much better than the 780 as well. So....I'd say go for it, but again - I don't have any perspective on how CDN $ compares to USD.
 
xoleras said:
100$ more? I would say yes, but I have no idea how CDN currency compares to the USD. Anyway, regardless - if the GTX 780 vanilla is 200$ less, then you could get a custom 780 that will generally easily OC and scale 12-20% beyond stock - which would put it squarely in 780ti territory or beyond. But here you have a 100$ difference. Hmm.

Merely looking at a 100$ price differential between the 780 and 780ti would make a strong argument in favor of the latter, despite the OC'ability of the vanilla 780. Then again, the 780ti overclocks that much better than the 780 as well. So....I'd say go for it, but again - I don't have any perspective on how CDN $ compares to USD.
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$700 CAD is 638.52 USD as of today. Unfortunately prices are generally higher here anyway (except for Dell monitors for some reason).
 
Amazing. This is the first time prices here in India are almost on par with you guys - there's a Tri-X R9-290 4GB available here for 36k, which is ~570-580USD. Not bad for a custom card.
 
Sell it while the demand for those cards are high. You will more than likely get about 40-50 more than you paid for it.
 
I'm in the same boat. I have a Gigabyte 290x with hynix memory. Barely got it and I verified that it mines 1000k/h+. How much you guys think I could get for it and where would be the best place to sell that won't rape me on fees.
 
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