Excellent Used Graphics Card Market Analysis

If you are doing a new build or upgrade right now, assuming you aren't going for a bleeding edge enthusiast build, I really recommend this as the way to go right now. Buy used and stay in holding pattern.

I would recommend just about any peripheral or controller in my signature over spending a lot of money on a CPU or GPU that becomes obsolete and/or cheaper in 12 months. You will get more use out of it over time and it will increase immersion more than some graphic settings. Smooth frame rate is key for immersion not any particular texture or shadow feature.

Money on a good display I would highly recommend, but go big screen. You can also use it for other games or watching movies. $1200 on a good 4K display, is a better buy than a 2080 Ti. Buying an expensive graphics card without a good display is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

I don't recommend it for DCS over a big screen but the Asus 27" 166Hz is an excellent general gaming monitor if you prefer high refresh rate over big screen. The 4K displays that go past 60Hz are very expensive right now unless you want to be an early adopter. Another 1-2 years and 4K120 will become more of a standard. GPU's will be cheaper than as well.

The most common card on Steam hardware surveys is still the 1070. So obviously bang for buck is a big concern for a lot of people. As a community we don't want to give the impression that the barrier to entry is too high in terms of cost, the more the merrier. You can build a gaming rig and set up a simpit on a reasonable budget, you just have to plan and spend wisely.