How often to upgrade

[Nocte]

I was wondering when do you guys think is the sweetspot to upgrade MIDRANGE cards (e.g. GTX 1060/RX 580) in order to lose the least amount of money. This means when is the time to sell your "old" GPU for a good-enough price to help in the purchase of the newer card.

 

I am asking this as I have no experience in selling used hardware. Any input is appreciated  

[bughtoo]

8 minutes ago, Eibe said:

I was wondering when do you guys think is the sweetspot to upgrade MIDRANGE cards (e.g. GTX 1060/RX 580) in order to lose the least amount of money. This means when is the time to sell your "old" GPU for a good-enough price to help in the purchase of the newer card.

 

I am asking this as I have no experience in selling used hardware. Any input is appreciated  

When you buy a midrange gpu with the newest architecture as it comes out, you will lose money because everyone is trying to sell their old cards and buy new, best way is to sell your card few months after the new architecture came out and then buying the new architecture midrange because its not the premium anymore you would pay for a newest card.
As to how often, i would say 1 year to lose the least amount of money, because after one year when the prices go up(which they usually do), you are able to sell your GPU for somewhere around 70-80% of  the original cost, maybe more. If you waited another year, chances are that there would be a newer architecture out which will make your card even more obsolete (architecture wise), even though its a perfectly good card even after 2 years. Not talking about waiting more. 

 

PLUS as i see you live in italy, after 1 year you still have 1 year of warranty, so thats extra selling point  

[Glennieboyyy007]

well, you will lose a lot oh money. a used 1 980ti wil go for around 250-300 bucks, so thats about a thirth of the original price. dont expect to not lose a lot of cash.

personally i'd only upgrade when your gpu is holding you back at medium to low settings

[You_are_a_cunt]

RX480 8 gig. Not planning to upgrade it for at least another 2-3 years. At best it still maxes out what I play. At worst, I have to turn down stuff for new AAAs. Either way, sticking with it for at least another generation or two past Vega

[Nocte]

1 hour ago, bughtoo said:

When you buy a midrange gpu with the newest architecture as it comes out, you will lose money because everyone is trying to sell their old cards and buy new, best way is to sell your card few months after the new architecture came out and then buying the new architecture midrange because its not the premium anymore you would pay for a newest card.
As to how often, i would say 1 year to lose the least amount of money, because after one year when the prices go up(which they usually do), you are able to sell your GPU for somewhere around 70-80% of  the original cost, maybe more. If you waited another year, chances are that there would be a newer architecture out which will make your card even more obsolete (architecture wise), even though its a perfectly good card even after 2 years. Not talking about waiting more. 

 

PLUS as i see you live in italy, after 1 year you still have 1 year of warranty, so thats extra selling point  

Are you saying that a few months after Navi comes out, I will be able to sell my Polaris card for 200 bucks? (Europe MSRP was 270-280). It seems quite unreal to me, but I might be wrong.

 

1 hour ago, Glennieboyyy007 said:

well, you will lose a lot oh money. a used 1 980ti wil go for around 250-300 bucks, so thats about a thirth of the original price. dont expect to not lose a lot of cash.

personally i'd only upgrade when your gpu is holding you back at medium to low settings

High-end cards lose more value than midrange cards overtime. This thread is about midrange for that reason.

[bughtoo]

2 hours ago, Eibe said:

Are you saying that a few months after Navi comes out, I will be able to sell my Polaris card for 200 bucks? (Europe MSRP was 270-280). It seems quite unreal to me, but I might be wrong.

i think it is possible. I dont know how long it was since polaris and when navi is coming but if it will  be less than 2 years then for sure

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're trying to minimize the amount of money lost, upgrade the moment a new generation comes out. But this assumes the previous generation card retained its value on the new market over time pretty well. My reasoning is because the previous generation is still fresh enough, you can get the most amount of money for it. I wouldn't wait for a competitor to come out to drop the price on a new card because that devalues the old card even further if a price drop happens.

 

When I bought my GTX 1080, I was able to sell off my 980 for about $200. However by that point, the 980 was around two years old and warranty doesn't transfer, so I pretty much considered myself lucky to get away with that much since my general rule for selling things is if it's at least a year old and has been used extensively, the price has to be no more than half of its current MSRP.

 

Also yes, MSRP. I don't care if Joe Shmoe bought his GTX 1080 from a scalper for $900 or if he got lucky on launch and got it at $650. The MSRP as of the date of this post is ~$500. If it starts any higher than $250, I won't bother looking at it.