There seems to be a lot of people wanting 5830s in the Marketplace. Was there some new development that I missed or something?
I noticed that people buy certain cards for different reasons. The HD6000 and HD7000 series are for higher resell value or gaming on, while HD5000 are purely for mining. And within these 5000 series cards, is can be broken down even further. There is the initial cost factor, and mining costs factor. The 5870 and 5970 are good when it comes to hash rates per kwh, but their initial investment cost is high. The 5830 has the lowest initial cost investment, but it consumes a lot of power for the hash rate output. This is favorable for someone with low cost or free electricity. It seems that the 5850 is the middle of the two 5870 and 5830 in terms of initial investment and electricity cost.
i'll have to disagree with some of these statements
hd6000 and hd7000 may have a higher resell value, but that's only because their value is higher to begin with. absolute $ is what would matter for our circumstance (maximizing profit from mining bitcoins) and the 5830's have dropped $0 in the last year. i haven't tracked 5870 values until about 3mo ago, but they've dropped about $25 (completed auctions on ebay). the 6000's and 7000's have dropped a lot more. not only in absolute value, but as a %.
expect that to continue, as more recent technology should *almost* always decline in value faster than older stuff.
someone else said they could get 5830's for $60 or something like that, but I don't find that to be the case. you can get them for around $100 shipped easily. you can get them for $80-$90 shipped if you spend a little time at it. the 5850's range from around $115 to $140. the 5870's from around $150 to $200.
i reckon 5830's are still the best buy in retaining value, but they also take up a card slot, same as a 5870 does. so, it'll cost you in terms of space, motherboards, etc. i converted my 5830's to 5870's just recently, since 5870's dropped into the $160-$170 range. in a couple months, 5970's will probably be a buy