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NewEgg currently has Refurbished GTX 580 3GB for $149!!!... Limited Quantity Available. Edit: SOLD OUT

I've got myself a 780 because I was worried about Fermi temperature reputation and here's a tropical country entering summer. But in the end, it proved to be a competitive value. Here are the figures considering the default benchmark pointed by Frank (alpha shadows off):
So, the 780 ended up scaling well. The best deal would still be the 590. But I got a cooler card even than the 560, under warranty, occupying only one PCIe (with the performance on par to 2 580) and the extra memory for those rare/future occasions.

But one have to watch for local prices and once-in-a-time deals (more likely to happen with the 500 series). Over here that was the scenario. I've attached an Excel spreadsheet I used to decide (it's compressed because the forum wouldn't accept the .xlsx extension). Observe that the data available is somewhat unreliable, but should bias to a general true Octane performance relationship. I did take the time to cross data between a few sources to use an average of what seemed true across generations.

Sources:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... =benchmark
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... =benchmark
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/work ... ,3309.html

ivankio, when you show up at the car dealer with spreadsheets and charts etc, do the the salesmen welcome you with open arms, or do they run at full speed in the opposite direction?

Denial, anger, bargain, depression and acceptance.

From the 5 stages of grief for profit loss, I think salespeople can only reach the third. Or often only the second when talking about computer hardware. So yeah, lots of nagging and rage in the name of inflated profits.

Heck! In face of your up to date confirmation of the performance numbers, It was hard even for me to accept that the best deal is with 2011 hardware. I had to rationalize about summer days.
At least you reduced my error. Were I to settle with the 4gb 760 (which costs 1200 here) I would've paid 164% of the fair price/OctanePerformance instead of 108% with the 780. Thank you for your input, Frank. And I've updated that spreadsheet (I have too much fun with them).

So, I think the topic can be concluded (relative position seems to stay the same briefly considering different economies), the rank for best value is:
GTX 590
GTX 570
GTX 560ti
GTX 580 1.5gb
GTX 780
GTX 580 3gb
GTX 760 2gb
(Excluded exceptional deals, of course. For them, use the spreadsheet.)

But, when you can get 580 3GB for $150, like I point out above, that does change things some... I just bought two more. I now plan to finally do a new 4-gpu workstation (when I get around to it - probably after new years some time). 4x 580 3GB will be pretty sweet. I just couldn't pass up that deal @ $150 each. You can get four 580 3GB for less than one 780 or 780Ti.

ivankio, if I were in Brazil, and air conditioning was less than perfect (or non-existent) I would absolutely, without any doubt, build a full custom loop water cooled workstation. This is not cheap or easy, but I would never, ever, need to give any thought to GPU or CPU temps, and sleep that much better... at the minimum, I would do The Mod.. but even then I would be a little worried about VRM's and VRAM... yeah, full loop with really good water blocks (EK or Koolance) on GPU's would be a must I think...

I've always agreed, Frank. I just didn't factor exceptional deals one "couldn't pass up" and I did mention it repeatedly. Such deals would make any comparison wily, like one GTX 680 deal I forgot to replace in that table with a common price. We could even find people giving away good GPUs if we wait for chance, but we can't factor that in an objective-ish analysis.
But I did miss that the 3gb or 1.5gb 580 do not reproduce exactly like here. Well, my 2cents are over. New comers have a little bit more compiled data to work with.

- Tough thing buying pc hardware in Brazil, but at least we kinda value stuff (GTX 580 vs 780) roughly leveled by it's performance more than novelty factor. So if here we still have a margin to prefer the 500 series, outside margin would be much bigger making the 500 series much more appealing.
Meanwhile we have PS4 for 1800 dolars. We sure are eccentric.

FrankPooleFloating wrote:I now plan to finally do a new 4-gpu workstation (when I get around to it - probably after new years some time). 4x 580 3GB will be pretty sweet. I just couldn't pass up that deal @ $150 each. You can get four 580 3GB for less than one 780 or 780Ti.

Frank, wich MBO are you going to use for this configuration couse Im kinnda in the same proces. Cooling would be a problem also in this situation.

Pretty sure it is going to be ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011...

ivankio wrote: GTX 590
GTX 570
GTX 560ti
GTX 580 1.5gb
GTX 780
GTX 580 3gb
GTX 760 2gb

the problem with list is that it shows only one side of the coin.. -flip it &:

1. half of these cards are unusable, if You render bigger output with decent textures & complex meshes..too less of vRam
2. pluss, they are not so future proof..read Fermi - might come a day when oldest architecture will be uncompatible..
3. lastly, some of those cards are hot and noisy & for some it's not an option.

to resume: list has logic, but it looses bigger picture (I'm not trying to fight here),
just leaving a note for those who might be intered and looking for information =)