Best time to buy used RTX 2000 series cards?

The panic and rejoice

Just after NVIDIA announced their RTX cards, the people who were holding off their next PC waiting for the new Ampere launch couldn't be any happier. After all NVIDIA claims that their ₹51,000($500 in US) GPU can outperform their ₹110,000($1200 in US) top of the line gaming GPU.

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So, Nvidia unveiled their new RTX lineup(only the higher tier ones for now) and if we are to believe their claims, people who recently built their gaming pc would be seriously disappointed. Because they claim that their $500 RTX 3070 beats their $1200 2080 Ti. Personally I'd be pissed if I bought a 2080 Ti recently 😂. Anyways swipe to see more details as well as Indian pricing and availability. #rtx #rtx3090 #rtx2080ti #rtx3080 #rtx3070 #nvidia #nvidiageforce #launch #announcement #pricing #reveal

A post shared by Tech and Games abcbsa (@tng_abcbsa) on Sep 2, 2020 at 12:04am PDT

 

But it also caused panic in Turing(RTX 2000 series) owners who were looking forward to sell their current GPU and upgrade to the new Ampere cards. They're afraid that once lower end of the Ampere spectrum launches, specially something like RTX 3060 or RTX 3050, which will potentially beat 2080 Super and 2070 Super respectively(considering the performance of 3070). And these could also be priced closer to GTX 1660 Ti and 2060(non super). So why would anyone buy older used cards for the price of newer better cards? So they're trying to get some profitable sale right now by selling their "almost new and under warranty cards". This in turn has created the best time to buy a used RTX 2000 series card. 

For example, take a look at these listings

You can't even get a new RTX 2060 Super but you are getting almost new 2070 Super. I've also seen even lower prices in some Facebook groups for much newer cards(like 3-4 months used) and obviously they were sold immediately. Because, they might not be so great when compared to new Ampere cards but they are still very capable cards.

Should you get rid of your recently bought RTX 2000 series cards?

Like I mentioned, they might not as good as new Ampere cards if you compare the price to performance ratio, but they're still very capable cards. You can easily get guaranteed 240Hz performance with RTX 2070 Super in competitive games at 1080p. Which is still more than enough. So don't panic, don't rush to sell your card. Yes, others may laugh at you if you bought a Turing card in last 2-3 months(and they should, because literally every YouTuber and Tech Enthusiast said wait for Ampere cards, but you went ahead and bought a Turing card), but they're still very good cards.

So unless you're aiming for 1440p ultra graphics gaming, of 4K 144Hz gaming(which is ridiculously expensive in India given the cost of a 4K 144Hz gaming monitor), you'd be fine for atleast 2-3 years.