250 $ for Video card a.k.a. The benchmarks that made me question my professionalism

[Artemos]

Soooo... to start off I buld computers for many different users. Long and somethimes annoying conversations but this time I made myself thinking deeply.
I have 250$ for a videocard for myself after a few years with a Zotac GT 730 with 2 gigs of GDDR 5 on board. It was hella cheap and performs quite nice if you don't want to murder some people with the sharp graphics.This time I have the money to replace 730 and give it a chance to live in a media machine under the TV.
After the little story here comes the real question. I have seen many benchmarks numbers tossed around and the GTX 1080 hit the market. I think the price of the older hardware will drop. I might be able to get a 970 or even a 980 if I wait long enough but that is not the case.
I need real opinion and experience from you guys. the 960 and the AMD cunter part the R9 380 are both great card for 1080p gaming. but I see a lot of benchmarks showing that the R9 380 is usualy behind the expected result. What I want is a stable @ least 60 FPS for most of the games and I don't wanna lower my settings too much. Leave your recommendation and por/cons what you think I hope you can help me to finally decide what to buy!

[Rodniz]

Whats about buying used? I will buy a 980 for 200 Euros 2 months later on

[CommandMan7]

I expect by the time august comes around, you should be able to find $200 970's and $300 980's so i'd definitely wait a bit longer.

[TidaLWaveZ]

If you want to get an inexpensive GTX 900 series used, right now is the time.

 

You probably won't see much of a price drop on new GTX 900's because they've already stopped production and retailers aren't going to drop the price that much.  As soon as they are out of circulation prices will go up because they will be hard to find for sale.

[GlassBomb]

You're already able to find used GTX 970's for under $250, that's honestly something to look for.

[Artemos]

3 minutes ago, Rodniz said:

Whats about buying used? I will buy a 980 for 200 Euros 2 months later on

It won't be my go to solution. I live in Hungry and the used market is worse then terrible. Most cards were eighter heavily overclocked without proper cooling or even worse stolen...

[DioOmicida]

10 minutes ago, Artemos said:

It won't be my go to solution.

The new market in the states have already seen a small drop in price.
It'll be a little while before we see a big drop in price, though.
They keep the current offerings high so you're more likely to pick up the new card.
You could wait but you're already hurting now so I'd pick up the 380. 

[ivan134]

Don't buy anything right now. I predicted the performance of the 1080, and people who have never experienced a node jump thought i was exaggerating. You will literally be able to buy a 14nm GPU with the performance of a 390/970 for $200. Don't waste your money on a 380, 960 or used 390/970.

[shibbs]

If you're really set on either a R9 280/380 or a GTX 970, I'd recommend the 970. They'll overclock better than the R9 cards. Most games end up being "biased" to NVIDIA cards anyway, so you'll get better performance, too. Also less power requirements, and therefore less heat.

 

 

[SLAYR]

You can find 970s at $250 new in some places right now microcenter (dont think that is in hungary) had one a little bit back.

6 minutes ago, shibbs said:

If you're really set on either a R9 280/380 or a GTX 970, I'd recommend the 970. They'll overclock better than the R9 cards. Most games end up being "biased" to NVIDIA cards anyway, so you'll get better performance, too. Also less power requirements, and therefore less heat.

 

 

Heat really isn't an issue on the 380s, or any non-reference hawaii card, unless you are literally suffocating the card, or lighting it on fire.

[shibbs]

14 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

You can find 970s at $250 new in some places right now microcenter (dont think that is in hungary) had one a little bit back.

Heat really isn't an issue on the 380s, or any non-reference hawaii card, unless you are literally suffocating the card, or lighting it on fire.

While I do agree with you to a point, the fact still remains that a higher TDP card has to output more heat, which can be a factor to some people--especially in a smaller form factor build.

[typographie]

2 hours ago, Artemos said:

I think the price of the older hardware will drop. I might be able to get a 970 or even a 980 if I wait long enough but that is not the case.

What has usually happened in the past is that there is a short period where the prices drop (usually in the form of sales and rebates) as retailers clear out old stock. So you've got a window of maybe a few weeks where you can get old stuff for a good price, and then they get very difficult to buy at all unless you resort to the used market.

 

The price drops I'm talking about usually aren't massive. My estimate is somewhere around $50.