To buy 👍 or not to buy 👎 (used GPU), that is the question (GA inside)

RTX 4080 and 4090 are supposedly launching in October. If you're not in a hurry you could wait for the new gen to come up since the old gen's prices will most likely go down and see what deals you can get then. Also beware 2nd hand GPUs as they could have been used to mine crypto, thus possibly having their lifespan considerably lowered.

Also: Horizon Zero Dawn on GTX 950

You can buy a new AMD Radeon RX 6600 8GB for USD 260 so there's really no reason buying a used card at USD 215 which is two generations older unless you're a die-hard fan of team green. As mentioned above you'll also have the risk of getting a mining card which wasn't handled properly e.g. wasn't undervolted.

GPU prices have fallen dramatically in recent months. $215 for a 1070 wouldn't be bad if it was like new/barely used, but if you're willing to spend a couple hundred bucks might as well toss an extra $100-200 and get something new and more recent.

You can get 3060s for around $400 now. Or if you go a little higher, around $550-600, you should be able to find 3070s in that range.

Where are you from? GPU prices have gone down considerably since the last few months and the downward trend seems to be continuing. I wouldn't buy a used GPU at this moment. But a new one, yeah, it's a decent moment to do so.

I personally would not spend that much for a 1070. Looking back through the recently sold listings on Ebay, there are countless 1070s being sold for $150-175 shipped. There's actually a decent number of them being sold for less than $150.

These cards can be 6 years old and that is getting risky. I remember when I was looking for a used GTX 970 when they were 4 years old and it wasn't uncommon for them to sell for $70 shipped (probably closer to $100 on average). I would not want to risk spending $150 on a possibly 6 year old GPU.

Edit: I am in the US. Where you live and what is available in your area is going to drastically change what you should pay. No matter what you are willing to pay, you need to factor in how old the GPU could be and how much risk you are willing to take.

Rumor is by end of this August Nvidia will further help retailers sell off the excess RTX 3000 GPUs to make room for the upcoming RTX 4000 GPUs in Q4 2022 - Q1 2023. I am not sure what are the prices like for your area, but you should see a difference in prices if the rumor is true. If the rumor is false, you should still see prices go down but not as much.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/87875/nvidia-helps-aibs-purge-old-gpus-compromise-of-aib-revolt/index.html

Yeah Yeah, I know, chip shortage causes prices to be crazy high - but I can't see an end to this situation in the near 1-2 years.
Still not sure if I'll grab the thing. I can sure survive living off my backlog of not-so-much-demanding games in the near future.

Chip shortage had an affect on GPU availability, but the larger influence was cryptocurrency losing its value dramatically beginning of May 2022 with notable examples of Terra Luna coin losing 99% of its value and Celsius Network preventing its users from withdrawing their invested coins.

Wait for a few more weeks. . Prices of new GPUs are falling, so you may get a better-used GPU for that price.

Many years ago when I built my own PC for gaming, the GPU I bought had a "double life-time warranty."

They called it "double" because they were promising to honor the warranty even for the 2nd owner.

Bump :)

I would say no. Seems like Nvidia keeps lowering the time for driver support and games keep getting more demanding of new hardware/features.
Wait for the latest tech like many have told you already and pick one of previous for the best bang for your buck.

Less than 12 hours remaining for the GA, enter while you can!
I listened to everybody's advice and I've decided I'll be waiting for the next GPU release to get something cheap from the last release.
Also, Horizon Zero Dawn plays quite well so far with my current GPU, so...

Even tho you listen to all the good advice and made your decision, I wanted to add something, because I saw some comments about "maybe you get a mining card".
The performance loss on used cards is actually just a rumor, seeded by a grafic card company ("you could lose up to 10% for each year a card was used for mining").
But after some research and a test video from linus tech, that tested multiple cards, they couldn't find ANY loss what so ever. So if you find a cheap old card, just go for it. As long as its not broken you should get almost the same performance for it as from a new one, but for a fraction of the original price ;)