Question GT 710 ... "Gaming Edition"? Is THAT what we've come to? (2GB GDDR5 version)

[VirtualLarry]

ASUS GeForce GT 710 2GB GDDR5 HDMI VGA DVI Graphics Card (GT710-SL-2GD5-CSM)

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

Don't get me wrong, it looks pretty slick, but why on earth would they stick 2GB of GDDR5 on this card? Except, to serve as an (EXTREMELY!) low-end gaming card?

Seems kind of crazy if true, but ... that's the most directly answer that I could come up with, when I ask myself "why?".

Seeing as how prices have risen on the GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 cards, up to $150 now, NON-scalped prices, as those have risen to the top of the pack as newly bona-fide "Gaming" cards, these GT 710 cards seem to fill up the ranks as well, at only $69.99.

Granted, that's actually not a bad price overall, for ANY 2GB GDDR5 card. The 2GB GDDR5 MSI single-slot half-height GT 730 cards from MSI that were rare but kinda awesome in their own way, were often $70-$100 on their own, even BEFORE the "Great GPU Shortage of 2020-2021".

(Just waiting for the 4GB GDDR5 "Gaming Edition" Radeon 5450 cards... LOL.)

 

[Aikouka]

I wonder if Nvidia would ever be willing to create an NVENC/NVDEC card out of some of their lower-end GPUs? For example, the 1050 Ti was favored for its low cost and ability to handle hardware decoding/encoding in media servers. The upgraded model (1650) had the same NVENC model, which meant there was no real point in upgrading. Although, all consumer models are limited to 3 streams at once. What if they made a card with a weak GPU (i.e. not good for gaming), new NVENC/NVDEC hardware, and maybe... 4GB+ of memory. (A good memory pool is needed for buffers used with NVENC/NVDEC.) Some people are already willing to pay for used Quadro cards since they're unlimited; why not take advantage of the somewhat niche yet hungry market?

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm waiting for my old Radeon HD 6870 to become valuable enough to sell on eBay. Although I could probably take the "HD" part out of the model name and sell it to some sucker for $1,000 right now.

 

[NTMBK]

Be honest Larry, how many did you buy

 

[VirtualLarry]

Be honest Larry, how many did you buy

Honestly? None... yet, anyway.

Trying to figure out if a GDDR5 GT 710 can plat Fortnite and RoBlox effectively?

 

[SPBHM]

that's a depressing card,
the GT640 back in 2012 was $100 and it was basically double the specs of this 710 on the same architecture (Kepler), I mean apart from memory bandwidth,
but I can only imagine they are getting good deals on these GDDR5 chips or something, because it's not going to make the 710 any good,

I mean, if you just need a display adapter and have no IGP, sure...

 

[aleader]

I just sold a GTX 950 2GB for $80 and GTX 1060 3GB for $200. It took a combined 45 minutes. I probably didn't ask enough...which is insane. I was thinking they would be going off for e-cycling about 6 months ago

 

[lightmanek]

I just sold a GTX 950 2GB for $80 and GTX 1060 3GB for $200. It took a combined 45 minutes. I probably didn't ask enough...which is insane. I was thinking they would be going off for e-cycling about 6 months ago

I have some Radeon's X1300 and GeForce 630, 710 and 210 cards, any takers?

 

[naukkis]

Don't get me wrong, it looks pretty slick, but why on earth would they stick 2GB of GDDR5 on this card?

As it uses only 2 memory chips it might be that 512M chips aren't available anymore, or that 1GB chips are actually cheaper. So reason to increased memory size is probably technical.

 

[moonbogg]

That thing looks weaker than my Geforce 3 Ti200. Also, why is it only $70.00? Nvidia must be run by brain dead zombies or something. You could easily get $600.00 for a card like that, no questions asked. They won't even care if the card works. If it even looks like a GPU, people will sell their children instantly to buy one. People love to buy pieces of paper with GPUs printed on them for $800.00, so I'm really struggling to wrap my head around the fact that this card is being given away from free. $70.00 is the same as no money at all. Why even bother "selling" it? They might as well just put them all in a box and leave it on the curb somewhere for someone to pick up. This is basically the same as Nvidia paying you to steal their property. I don't get it.

 

[Iron Woode]

 

[aigomorla]

Honestly? None... yet, anyway.

Trying to figure out if a GDDR5 GT 710 can plat Fortnite and RoBlox effectively?

it can play among us in 4k!

On a serious note, they need to kill the DVI port, and add another HDMI or a DP.
The last 4 monitors i recently bought did not even offer a DVI.

 

[SPBHM]

it can play among us in 4k!

On a serious note, they need to kill the DVI port, and add another HDMI or a DP.
The last 4 monitors i recently bought did not even offer a DVI.

I think many people tend to keep the same monitor for a very long time,
I have old LCDs from 15 years ago that are still working quite well for example,
also I'm not sure these ports are completely gone from the market, some lower end monitors might still be using it

this card even offers a VGA port
I do think that the digital only DVI port becomes a little irrelevant when it's so easy to use a passive adapter from HDMI to DVI and it works perfectly fine (it's how I'm using a DVI monitor right now)

the dvi port with the additional pins for a passive VGA connector are more interesting to have.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

On a serious note, they need to kill the DVI port, and add another HDMI or a DP.
The last 4 monitors i recently bought did not even offer a DVI.

There is one good reason for keeping the DVI port, namely dual link DVI. While you can easily run a HDMI connection at 1440p/1600p, many older monitors in that class only feature dual link DVI input. You can't run a single link DVI/HDMI port at 1440p/1600p unfortunately, and converting from HDMI/DP to dual link DVI gets expensive fast since you need an active adaptor.

I wouldn't mind a (mini)DP port or two instead of the HDMI/VGA ports. Gives a lot more flexibility, since it's easy to convert to what's required. But it'd likely mean a much more complex card layout, hence a more expensive card.

Fun fact, there is actually provision in the HDMI spec for dual link HDMI. It's just that nobody ever used it...

That thing looks weaker than my Geforce 3 Ti200.

You have a Geforce3 TI200? I'm still kicking myself for selling mine back in the day. Who knew it'd be a collectors item?

 

[Zepp]

I think many people tend to keep the same monitor for a very long time,
I have old LCDs from 15 years ago that are still working quite well for example

yep, I have 3 monitors in use today that are from 2008-2009

 

[PingSpike]

I think many people tend to keep the same monitor for a very long time,
I have old LCDs from 15 years ago that are still working quite well for example,
also I'm not sure these ports are completely gone from the market, some lower end monitors might still be using it

this card even offers a VGA port
I do think that the digital only DVI port becomes a little irrelevant when it's so easy to use a passive adapter from HDMI to DVI and it works perfectly fine (it's how I'm using a DVI monitor right now)

the dvi port with the additional pins for a passive VGA connector are more interesting to have.

Agreed. But I will say that mid tier and above cards have dropped DVI-I already so we're already down to the somewhat less useful DVI-D. I don't even the GT1030 even has it now.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Bump, added another link to $76.99 sale prices for GT 710 2GB GDDR5 passive edition into OP.

 

[Spjut]

I wonder if Nvidia would ever be willing to create an NVENC/NVDEC card out of some of their lower-end GPUs? For example, the 1050 Ti was favored for its low cost and ability to handle hardware decoding/encoding in media servers. The upgraded model (1650) had the same NVENC model, which meant there was no real point in upgrading. Although, all consumer models are limited to 3 streams at once. What if they made a card with a weak GPU (i.e. not good for gaming), new NVENC/NVDEC hardware, and maybe... 4GB+ of memory. (A good memory pool is needed for buffers used with NVENC/NVDEC.) Some people are already willing to pay for used Quadro cards since they're unlimited; why not take advantage of the somewhat niche yet hungry market?

I fully agree, I've been frustrated that there's no longer an alternative to the former GT x10 lineup, and the GT 1030 still is the lowest model Nvidia has released, and it doesn't even have hardware acceleration for AV1.
Even a 2030 would still be in the unfavorable position that it costs too much for media playback as well as being too bad for modern games.

I also found out when I was back home three months ago that my old HD 5770 with a Q8200 feels sluggish today, with no hardware acceleration supported in browsers anymore, and sites like youtube defaulting to VP9, and I do assume that a low end but modern card with hardware acceleration (and still getting updated drivers) would improve that alot.

 

[ultimatebob]

I just sold a GTX 950 2GB for $80 and GTX 1060 3GB for $200. It took a combined 45 minutes. I probably didn't ask enough...which is insane. I was thinking they would be going off for e-cycling about 6 months ago

A 1060 is still a decent card. It can still play Fortnite at 1080p at high settings at 60 fps, so it's a great add-in card for kids who got cheap Walmart systems for Christmas with integrated graphics.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Are we scraping the bottom of the barrel? There MUST be an END to this lack of graphics cards.

I want to buy a card, but I'm not interested in something like a GTX 1660 for the amazingly low price (joke) of nearly $500.

I just logged on to Newegg to see what was available today. Oh, sure! I can actually expect shipment on a GTX 1060 Mini card for a mere $925.

I thought I spent too much for the SLI extravagance of two GTX 970 cards sometime around 2014. I felt foolish when I decided to pull one of those cards from the system I'd configured with them. I put it in my PC parts locker. I might have tried to sell it -- here on "Sale or Trade" or on Ebay. It seemed like a lot of trouble.

Now, I don't feel foolish. It's better than nothing! Maybe I should post on "Sale and Trade" to offer either of two GTX 460's, and ask about $500 for each. I've saved my gold fillings replaced with ceramic crowns by my dentist, and I know I can sell them. I just never thought of graphics cards in this way . . . .

Is the world coming to an end? Is this foretold and indicated by a lack of high-end graphics cards for a normal price?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Having tested the GT 730 2GB GDDR5 that U.K. Steve mentions in the vid (what's up with so many reviewers being named Steve?) it is ill suited to modern games as well. If someone is stuck with an older or low end card, time to hit up GOG and revisit or visit old games. Especially if they missed a bunch of the classics. Or play Indy stuff known to run on a toaster. The GPU intensive stuff can wait for those folks.

My hot take: My opinions on hardware pricing are unpopular. And it is because Ferengi math does not support my position. But here is the rub: it does not tell the whole story, since value can be determined by more than bean counting. At least for me anyways. I keep iterating time is your only real currency, and you have a finite supply. If gaming makes me happy, what is that worth to me? is the only real question I need to answer. I have over 600Hrs in the Total war series. Over a 1000hrs in the fallout series. The same for the Assassin's Creed series, and 1000s more in other games. If I stop using Ferengi math and calculate hours of gaming enjoyment per dollar, even a massively overpriced $1500 RTX 3070 is suddenly a bargain. And though you can spend less for less card, if you are forced to play at low res, low settings, low fps, the enjoyment factor suffers. It is all a value judgement for me, one that exceeds the limits of Ferengi math.

Further examples: How many of you go out to eat, hit the bars, buy the expensive liquor, do it up when you go on holiday, pay for food delivery, etc.? Most I surmise. There is no difference, only the value you place on it. That is why, while it triggers some to have at me for it, I assert we have been conditioned to use Ferengi math as our only calculus for this hobby. We all want more for less, or at worst a consistent value. But resorts, amusement parks, on and on all cost more during the peak on season, and increase in price when experiencing high demand. Yet it does not keep people from ponying up. Decide what it is worth to you, instead of constantly parroting the rules of Acquisition.

To revive a dead meme- Flame suit on.

 

[CP5670]

It's funny how the cards that everyone thought were ripoffs 6 months ago now seem like great deals at their release prices, like the 3090 and 6900XT. I definitely agree with the "buy whatever makes you happy" sentiment, and it's also better to buy a card when you actually have time to enjoy it. I had a lot of gaming free time over the last 6 months that I'm unlikely to have in the future, and got a lot more use out of my card than I normally would.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I definitely agree with the "buy whatever makes you happy" sentiment, and it's also better to buy a card when you actually have time to enjoy it. I had a lot of gaming free time over the last 6 months that I'm unlikely to have in the future, and got a lot more use out of my card than I normally would.

Certainly. Compared to certain other hobbies, PC gaming is still "cheap". It's also what you make of it, all the "COVID Time" has given me time to enjoy some older games I've missed over the last 10-15 years.

But there is still a limit to how much I'm willing to be ripped off. I'm not paying what amounts to a months wages for most people here in Denmark for a graphics card. Even assuming you could actually get one.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Certainly. Compared to certain other hobbies, PC gaming is still "cheap". It's also what you make of it, all the "COVID Time" has given me time to enjoy some older games I've missed over the last 10-15 years.

But there is still a limit to how much I'm willing to be ripped off. I'm not paying what amounts to a months wages for most people here in Denmark for a graphics card. Even assuming you could actually get one.

That is definitely understandable. In the other threads where I make my case, I specify North America for that very reason. LowSpecGamer on youtube helps me keep that perspective.

 

[YBS1]

It's funny how the cards that everyone thought were ripoffs 6 months ago now seem like great deals at their release prices, like the 3090 and 6900XT. I definitely agree with the "buy whatever makes you happy" sentiment, and it's also better to buy a card when you actually have time to enjoy it. I had a lot of gaming free time over the last 6 months that I'm unlikely to have in the future, and got a lot more use out of my card than I normally would.

Yeah, this is crazy. I caught scorn from the wife for buying the two RX6900XTs for my son and myself a couple of months ago (More for the son's, "What does a 13 year old need a $1000+ computer part for?!?!?!"......Because I'm afraid it will be even more later.). Showed her today the cheapest you can pick one up for is about ~$2100. Still I'd feel better about spending $2100 on a 6900 than $600-800 on something that is going to struggle to run decent settings at high resolutions like all these other cards are going for. At current actual going rates (not if you luck up and catch MSRP) I feel as though value is actually inverted from it's traditional curve, you seem to be getting less ripped off at the high end.