Is now the best time to sell your GPU?

[lovelyhead]

I was lucky enough to buy an RX 6800 at launch from OCUK. I paid £599 for it. It has made about £200 mining in about 5 months. I bought it to game with no idea mining was profitable at the time but it has spent 95% of the time I have owned it mining and not gaming.

I have been reading that etherium is not going to be profitable by the end of the year so I have the potential to make another £300 in the time before then. I have discovered that I could take my 6800 down to CEX and get £920 cash for it which would be an instant £320 profit. This feels like too good an opportunity to pass up as I can't see prices rising much higher than that. Or could they?

So it seems that my options are keep the GPU and continue mining which will at best net me £300 before etherium isn't mineable anymore and I still have a GPU which will no longer be worth as much or wait until I can get an Xbox Series X and sell the GPU for £320 profit.

What would you do?

 

[lovelyhead]

you gonna get plenty of hate for this post.

This is why I would only sell it to CEX at this price. I would feel no guilt scalping them.

 

[lovelyhead]

I just sold my 3080FE to CEX for £1445

Jeez! Did they have the cash on hand to give you? How did the process of selling to them go?

 

[lovelyhead]

Well, potential Members market buyers can now see that you've publicly admitted to mining £200 (so far) on your RX6800 - that will deter many gamers for wanting to buy such a card, though obviously miners will probably still jump at it.

Personally, I'd not sell what I use. If I wasn't using my 3080, I'd sell it. I am, so I'll continue to own it (until I upgrade to a 3080ti)

Every single 30 series / 6000 series card in existence will have been used for mining!

 

[lovelyhead]

Well managed to get myself an Xbox Series X so the RX 6800 is going to CEX today. Doing the maths I would only make £150 more mining until December and then selling than CEX are offering me right now. I would then have to compete with a glut of cards entering the used market when etherium is no longer mineable. Plus I wouldn't be gaming until December as I would have to be mining.

Adding all that up it just makes sense to sell now (assuming a new cryptocoin doesn't replace eth after December).

 

[lovelyhead]

Wrong!!!
I have'nt mined anything with my cards!

OK I maybe exaggerated by saying every card but considering it is free money, the vast majority will have mined.

 

[lovelyhead]

I'd rather mine than sell them on. Between my 3080, 3090 and 2070 Laptop, mine are bringing in around £500/m.

It'll only take 3-4 months to offset what I'd make in profit by flipping them and I end up with graphics cards at the end of it!

Yes in your case it makes sense to keep mining. For me I only mine during the day as I don't like running the computer 24/7 so that would bring in £250 between now and December assuming people continue to buy nicehash mining power at the same rate as now. So I paid £599 for the card and have already mined £235 reducing the cost of the card to £400 after paying for electricity. Say I can sell the card for £500 in December after mining another £250 I would be up £350. If I sell right now to CEX I will be up £520 plus I can get back to gaming rather than mining.

 

[lovelyhead]

Why would you sell in December?

Surely being able to game between now and whenever you get a new card is worth £200?

Etherium will probably not be mineable come December so there will be a glut of cards being dumped on the market then. I managed to get a Series X so will have that to game on. I am not even gaming on the 6800 as it is constantly mining and would need to continue to do so if I wanted to make that money. If I sell now the RX 6800 will pay for itself and also pay for the Series X. I will wait for sanity to return to the GPU market then jump back in.

 

[lovelyhead]

One thing on my mind is with Nvidia changing the silicon in newer cards to stop mining we could see the current 3080s that are good for mining spike to 2-2.5k?!

I doubt it as you would never earn it all back mining before Etherium is no longer able to be mined. Could be wrong if something else pops up though.

 

[lovelyhead]

Well that is the 6800 now sold for £920. The process was pretty painless.

 

[lovelyhead]

Watch you don't get scammed.

With Cex take it to thier shop and they will knock the price down

I reckon some mad people are paying £1000 to £1500 brand new.

I arranged to sell my 6800 on CEX's website for £920. I took it into the shop, they booked it in with no attempt at trying to knock the price down and got the full £920 into my account today. Zero hassle.

 

[lovelyhead]

If you sell now thinking you can wait it out to some point in the future you will get frustrated and buy back in and probably giving all that money back unless you go lower down the performance levels or may be new cards will just become more expensive and it ends up costing you more than what you can get selling now. just something to consider before rushing down to the high street shops or auction sites.

Nah. I sold my 6800 and bought a Series X instead and to be honest I am enjoying the experience more with the Xbox than I was with the 6800.

 

[lovelyhead]

Good way to go really Pc gaming is out of wack now.

If you don't care about modding, or games that can't really be played anywhere other than PC, then I would say the Xbox Series X actually offers a superior experience over a PC for gaming. Better selection of Gamepass games, the ability to buy disc based games and sell them on, cheap way to play at 4K 60FPS, Quick Resume is amazing, and no doubt many more advantages I haven't discovered yet. I just stuck an old Quadro card in my PC which cost me about £10 and I can use my PC for everything the Xbox can't do.

I honestly can't see myself getting back into PC gaming now for perhaps years. There is no way I am paying over the odds for another GPU that is for sure.

 

[lovelyhead]

The Series X is a great piece of kit but lack of widespread KB/Mouse support stops it being a replacement for a gaming PC, unless you're entirely happy to use a controller for everything.

I hate using a Keyboard and mouse for games on the PC and always used an Xbox 360 controller anyway. I think though for many people it isn't even a factor going forward. It is a choice between paying 2x - 3x more than MSRP for a GPU or just getting a £450 Xbox that can play games extremely well. For £450 you are lucky to get a second hand GTX 1070 with no warranty never mind a brand new console with SSD, 8 core CPU, cool form factor, great usability features, wireless controller and a warranty.

 

[lovelyhead]

Understand the sentiments - but whilst the GPU AAAAND the console scalping goes on - lets not forget that the consoles themselves have always been sold at a loss - they make their money from expensive physical game media and subscription gaming.

Consoles gaming is just as cheap as pc gaming now. I just signed up for two years of gamepass on xbox using microsoft reward points. I used the reward points to buy two years of xbox live gold and then converted that to gamepass ultimate for £1.

 

[lovelyhead]

I am glad I started this thread. Seems I called it close to the peak. I got £920 cash for my 6800 and now CEX are only offering £833.

Edit: it is £833 if you are happy to accept a voucher and only £587 if you want cash!

 

[lovelyhead]

RX 6800 at CEX they are now paying £681

Only £587 if you want cash! I think anyone who hasn't sold already has missed the boat.

 

[lovelyhead]

Great reasoning, but my concern is that this doesn't happen and I have to spend £1k to replace card when I could have kept mine and made back some of the ££ mining :/

If you want to play games then the sensible thing is to just cash in and get an Xbox or PS5. GPU prices are in a bubble and I think it may have just popped.

 

[lovelyhead]

Hah, I'm not that desperate! I do have a laptop I could use instead though

I honestly think my Xbox Series X is a superior experience to my previous Ryzen 3600 / RX6800 computer.

 

[lovelyhead]

So we have a thread now on when to sell your GPUs and this forum was grade A for pointing the finger at the miners for soaking up all the cards (meant for gamers). Are people just selfishly cashing in on the status quo, or is this a sign that people aren't really gamers when there's money at stake?

I like money.

Honestly this whole "you are not a true gamer if you sell your card to make a profit" thing is a load of nonsense. What even is a gamer anyway?