what income do you need to consider buying a $600 video card?

[Insomniator]

People spend 600 a month on cars they can't afford, a video card is once a year at most (probably 2-3 years if you spend $600 on one). If you are a couple with no kids... double income... 600 might not be a lot of money to fuel a hobby for 2 years.

I'm not saying its worth it, I spend ~300 on cards because of value/perf reasons... but 600 isn't a magical amount of money like i thought it was when i was 13.

 

[HeXen]

This is a joke right? It completely depends on many factors including the economy of where you live, your expenses, choices..etc. A town with lower taxes, no kids...etc will either make or break you. My wife and I together's AGI for last year was only around $60k and I could buy a Titan right now if I wanted to on top of what I've already spent lately. I spent $900 a couple months back on personal stuff, I just now spent $280 on some stuff for my arcade that I'm building. Bought some $200 work boots last month and yet my CC is completely paid off. Only thing I owe on is my House and maybe another year or so on my car. Wife aside from house has a loan out and that's it. Utilities aren't bad, around $400 a month. Insurance is like $600 for both of our cars and my Aflec insurance is $22 a week, another $17 a week for health insurance

So like I said, it depends on a ton of various factors including daily spending choices. I don't go stop at the quick mart and spend $5+ every single morning like some guys I know do and if you smoke cigaretes, good lord. Of course all it takes to break me into bankruptcy would be a sudden and serious health issue but gonna live it up while I can.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

No matter how much money I make, I could never justify $600 for a video card that will be worth < $300 in a year. It just doesn't make financial sense.... It's a lot like buying a new car when you have a perfectly good one right now. Why blow your load everywhere over having a new car? It does the same thing, it gets you from Point A to Point B. Videocard is the same boat.

 

[HeXen]

No matter how much money I make, I could never justify $600 for a video card that will be worth < $300 in a year. It just doesn't make financial sense.... It's a lot like buying a new car when you have a perfectly good one right now. Why blow your load everywhere over having a new car? It does the same thing, it gets you from Point A to Point B. Videocard is the same boat.

Nothing has to make financial sense to anyone else. You can't take that money with you when you die and money isn't everything and a dollar doesn't hold the same personal value to everyone. A grand to me doesn't mean much of anything, I consider most any product under $200 to be chump change despite my income. Why? To me it's because if it isn't going to change my lifestyle, then it holds little value and there is nothing really to justify is there?. Maintaining a lifestyle holds it's current value and anything less is just chump change. In other words, I can easily maintain my current lifestyle and pay something off within a month or whenever, then it's value for the product as an exchange is only limited to that little time difference it takes to pay it off with no depreciation in my lifestyle.

To some others, they put a personal value or bias towards a product in exchange for asking price which sometimes doesn't make any more sense than senseless spending when that perceived personal value is way over dramatized, like being too cheap to replace a broken windshield wiper motor which to me is a depreciation of lifestyle but that same person says me buying a $60 video game for 5 hrs of play time is considered a waste...how does that make sense?
I mean I know people that think like that, I call them tightwads and they usually end up spending way more money with nothing to show for it than I ever do. At least I can show a physical product for most everything I spend.

Often I noticed with tightwads is that they buy only cheap stuff all the freaking time and never have any money and often little to show for it because all the cheap crap is toss away junk. Then they complain about how a Dollar General worker only makes minimum wage...after they just spend $20 on some China crap that they can't even use a month later...think much? No wonder why investors put money into stores that sell China crap...not that everything China makes is crap but I'm talking about cheap products vs better quality stuff from people that complain about our economy, wages..etc. They are more greedy than large corporations imo.

 

[SKORPI0]

No matter how much money I make, I could never justify $600 for a video card that will be worth < $300 in a year. It just doesn't make financial sense.... It's a lot like buying a new car when you have a perfectly good one right now. Why blow your load everywhere over having a new car? It does the same thing, it gets you from Point A to Point B. Videocard is the same boat.

So true. Bought a almost new XFX R9 290X DDE April 2015 for $185 via Craigslist. MSRP when released late Jan 2014 was $569-$579.99.
I'll wait it out for current gen. video cards to be replaced with newer ones and prices should go down.

 

[jlee]

It's not a decision that's based on income as much as it is priorities.

I'd rather have $600 than a $600 video card.

 

[Chaotic42]

If it lasts you three years, it's $16/mo. That's not all that much for a hobby. If your whole computer is $2500, which is a stretch, that's less than $70/mo.

 

[brianmanahan]

it's way cheaper than an m3

 

[Capt Caveman]

No matter how much money I make, I could never justify $600 for a video card that will be worth < $300 in a year. It just doesn't make financial sense.... It's a lot like buying a new car when you have a perfectly good one right now. Why blow your load everywhere over having a new car? It does the same thing, it gets you from Point A to Point B. Videocard is the same boat.

It's called fun and entertainment. You're looking to spend $1000s on a trip to a resort and others would call that lame and a waste of money.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I have to be honest in that my gtx 780 ti is struggling to maintain frame rates at 3440x1440 while gaming. I'd love to be able to replace it with a gtx 1080 but have other priorities. By the time that I'm able to do so there will be an even better card out there. If I could only win that Powerball lottery.

 

[HeXen]

It's not a decision that's based on income as much as it is priorities.

I'd rather have $600 than a $600 video card.

Shoving it in your sock drawer to collect mold or you mean to spend it on something else? I mean it's irrelevant what you choose to spend it on but you're not going to be able to retire on it unless you do some damn fine investing. Of course you could mount the money and hang it on your wall.

 

[jlee]

Shoving it in your sock drawer to collect mold or you mean to spend it on something else? I mean it's irrelevant what you choose to spend it on but you're not going to be able to retire on it unless you do some damn fine investing. Of course you could mount the money and hang it on your wall.

Every financial decision involving amounts that "you're not going to be able to retire on" add up to something you could retire on...most people don't realize that, though.

For $600, I'd rather have sticky tires for my cars.

 

[HeXen]

Every financial decision involving amounts that "you're not going to be able to retire on" add up to something you could retire on...most people don't realize that, though.

For $600, I'd rather have sticky tires for my cars.

Maybe if you live long enough to see retirement. I've already outlived 5 people I went to HS with, if they had any money saved up, then they earned a sucker for their efforts didn't they.

 

[zinfamous]

It's not a decision that's based on income as much as it is priorities.

I'd rather have $600 than a $600 video card.

exactly. $300 and a $300 video card sounds about right to me, too.

 

[zinfamous]

Maybe if you live long enough to see retirement. I've already outlived 5 people I went to HS with, if they had any money saved up, then they earned a sucker for their efforts didn't they.

well, if your plan is to self-select yourself out of the genepool at a defined age, then you can make a more informed decision about what to do with your money in life. Otherwise, not knowing the future goes both ways. these days, most people are living longer than they planned to, and something like 80%+ of Americans retire with $40k or less to their names. Those type of people aren't going to be surviving very long on that--probably not even more than 2 years--because those are the type of people that probably don't know how to make money work for them and live cheaply out of necessity, much less out of choice.

For my sake, I could buy a $600 video card every year or hell--every month because that is a little less than half of what I put away every month these days. It wouldn't change my debt or spending all that much, but it would be a disaster to savings. I'd rather buy a plane ticket to South America or some shit and stay in some cheap but palatial hotel room than throw away $600 on some GPU that doesn't really offer greater life value than a cheaper card + extra money to do real life stuff.

 

[Raduque]

$3500-$4000/mo.

 

[smackababy]

Didn't read the thread, but I certainly hope I qualify. I just bought a 1080 Friday. =(

 

[AdamK47]

$600 isn't enough for video cards.