while I don’t hate the 970 (Maxwell was good for a reason), if you want that level of performance, there are still new 570s on the market for hilariously cheap prices that are new and thus come with actual warranties
even though I will admit that the last two GPUs I bought were used, I would err on the side of caution and go for something that can be sourced new/retail, explaining my hesitation towards the 970 and, to an extent, the 1070
also, the 1660/1660ti
ALL THAT SAID, if you want a cheap Nvidia card, EVGA puts up B-stock every Wednesday morning and there’s always, always one ridiculous deal (I think the last one was 980tis for 100 bucks)
VRAM is going to be a limiter here soon, and Nvidia are fuckers about making their midrange cards have less than their AMD comparator.
This anandtech tool is a good way to just play around with different models for a general idea of what to expect.
I think @felix has said this before somewhere but I can’t find the quote to pull: it’s usually better to get the higher-end similar-performing older part than the new part, e.g. you’re better off with a 980 than a 1050 Ti, better off with a 1080 Ti than a 2070, etc.
Oh, and I would actually encourage you to consider cards that are advertised as used for mining. Mining means they have lots of uptime, but the user had every incentive to run them at their most power efficient, so to the extent that GPUs show wear they may even be in better shape than the same card running 4k skyrim with clean faces and swinging dong mods.
I think a 980 is probably good for just about anything 1080p now but the 8GB of VRAM on a 1070 will help you ride out the consoles coming out with Zen 2 and Navi (new AMD parts). I got a 1070 off of OfferUp for $200 recently and that’s a much better deal than either AMD or Nvidia’s current new cards at that price. (The 1660/1660 Ti are a big fuck you.)
I have no mouth and must tell everyone about the folly of comparing theoretical throughput between AMD and Nvidia cards
unless you’re doing something involving not-game (in which case you should probably check the software for CUDA support and buy an Nvidia card and not think about it), scour benchmarks and buy the best deal
but you’ll never experience having that fuzzy warm feeling of owning an AMD card, right before getting rid of your sweater because you realize it’s getting warm in general, not just around your heart.
I should probably take temperature into account since my case is already packed pretty tight.
Doing this build really makes me yearn for a larger/easier to get into case. I like mine a lot aesthetically but putting it together is an enormous not fun puzzle
Yeah I went with just plain ol’ ATX for my most recent computer after uncovering an old evaluation that said I’m dyspraxic as fuck. You can definitely get an mATX case that’s roomy and kind to your hands.
ITX is like a rotary engine, cool but in part because it’s intense.