No real data, but in my decades of gaming I didn't really hear of people buying the top card in hopes to resell it later and make it affordable.

In my experience people buy what they can afford. So mostly *60/*70 (Ti) Nvidia cards. Few people who I know bought the 1080 are still using it. The second life for gaming GPUs mostly is to serve friends/relatives who ask to help building a PC for them.

Some anecdata, I buy midrange cards and never try to sell them. They usually end up in the machines of friends or family.

The purchase price is what I am willing to spend on the device and it's usage, and a healthy dose of pragmatism about what is actually necessary.

I also overclock to stretch their usefulness out but I must admit the leaps in each generation recently, as well as some fundamentally new technology capabilities mean I am not keeping up as well.

I don't have data, but I do participate in an enthusiasts forum. It's a huge thing for a lot of them, because a top card costs quite a chunk of cash (even before the current shortage), maintaining resale value allows them to stay at the top for a relatively modest outlay every card generation.

Of course right now you can sell 4 year old cards for a profit, the market is crazy.

On average, I imagine it's low. However, anecdotally the gamers I know who are buying $1000+ cards, generally do so every 2 years with the intent to flip them and buy the newest hottest card.

In a similar train of thought - there might be better data on this question if one was to look at the photography equipment market. Or other used consumer markets with high re-sale value.