Some time ago I started a thread about my videos stuttering. The problem has gotten worse, it happens more often and sometimes affects my games now too, and unfortunately I've isolated the problem to be the graphics card itself; looks like the hardware is failing. When I use mobo's integrated graphics, the problem disappears. I tried different PCI slots, cables, cleaning... etc but nothing helped, so it looks like it's time to replace it.

It's a Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce 970 GTX that I bought when I built my PC 2 years ago.

So I thought I'll buy a Geforce 900 (maybe even 970GTX) as replacement instead of the newer generation ones because (a) I don't have that big of a budget, and by now I expected the price for GeForce 900 cards to be much lower and (b) a newer card will be a little bit of a waste on an old PC. In 3 years or so I'll be building a new PC anyway, and that's when I'll buy a new card.

Unfortunately, on Amazon, you can't buy new 970GTX, and 980GTX seems relatively expensive:
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics-GV-N980WF3-4GD/dp/B015NEB7BS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1513876100&sr=8-4

So any recommendations on what to buy, that would be suitable for a 2 year old PC, not too expensive (say about 300$, but I'd happily pay less and I'm willing to pay more if you give me a good reason), comparable to 970GTX?

Also, other than amazon, is there a good place to buy it online in the US?

https://www.gamespot.com/forums/pc-and-av-hardware-909394553/how-good-is-a-gtx-1060-compared-to-a-gtx-970-33321019/

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487284

Isn't he new nvidia range coming out next year? If so that would push down prices of he older ranges, if you can wait that long.

No; can't wait. It's already bad enough.

And there will always be a new range coming next year, pushing down the current range prices.

After a bit of reading this seems to be the best option (GTX 1060 6GB). 329$ + tax.

I just got the EVGA Superclocked 1060 with 6GB and it was $250, so be careful where you shop. If you're getting close to $400 you might as well go for the 1070.

Got Gigabyte off amazon. The 3 fan version. EVGA was about 260$ but it was the single fan. 1070 are 200$ more expensive (about 500$)

The EVGA is pretty much universally seen as the best version. More fans don't mean much when the card stays cool anyway. EVGA know what they're doing, I wouldn't pay $100 more for a couple unneeded fans.

EVGA Single fan is actually 280$ (50$ cheaper than what I bought). The dual fan is 340 (10$ more than what I bought).

I've read reviews that the single fan is more noisy and hotter at higher loads.

I guess it would depend on your particular card, but I'd rather pay the extra 50$. It's something that I'm hoping will last me for 3-4 years till I build a new PC.