Video card prices
After my Geforce 256 started playing up, I decided to have a look at possible replacement cards. I would normally only ever buy new electronics gear, but cards that work in my ancient (circa 2000) motherboard seem not to be sold any more. So, off to eBay I went. Hmm, so many cards, how do I know what they're worth?
This whopping great list of card benchmarks certainly helped. For cards that looked interesting, I took the Unreal II at 1024x768 benchmarks, and combined them with the prices of completed auctions on eBay, and the prices at various computer shops for new items. I hereby state the rules that I have found:
Results are given in Australian dollars per frame per second, where lower is better value.
New cards
best: ATI Radeon 9600XT (4.3 $/FPS)
worst: ATI Radeon 9600SE (8.3 $/FPS)
Second-hand cards
best: ATI Radeon 8500 (2.6 $/FPS)
worst: ATI Radeon 9600 (5.2 $/FPS)
I looked at 30 or so Radeons and Geforce cards, right back to the original Geforce 256. I'm not sure why Radeons occupied all the extremes. Anyway, it's a useful guide to expected prices on eBay: check the benchmark list for the FPS rating of the card of interest, then work out the $/FPS rating for your bids, and keep an eye on the extremes I mentioned.