Almighty_Moe_FR
Hey ArcherV2.
 
I'm assuming you are US based?   Although it's pretty much the same around the world, do find that the US market is heavily dominated by bots, scalpers than for example for some sites in Europe.    
Your situation isn't very different from many others, unfortunately I don't think there is a silver bullet solution here that's going to make it easy at all.   Other than rolling the dice for a 1/100,000 or 1/50,000 chance with newegg shuffle, finding deals on facebook markeplace (which I hate, and would never use), ebay, craigslist (ensure your credit card has buyer protection), or asking friends and family if they have rigs they really aren't using anymore (it happens), it's going to be difficult to recommend a suitable answer. 
 
Yeah, don't bother baking.   It does sound from your diagnosis that the 970 is a goner.   Obvioulsy you tried it in your wife's rig or she use a laptop?  (Jealous you play with your wife BTW, mine has zero interest).  
 
Regarding electronics repair - do you have experience in doing such repairs?   I recall when I was fixing up my 90s Pentium tower, and joined forums how to replace a simple clock chip that died that preventing it from booting, the phrase I heard over and over again was "you can't afford to have cheap (wrong) tools" which essentially meant until I stopped playing with a cheap soldering iron, solder wick, spring loaded solder sucker and got an affordable solder sucking station, it was much more stressful and difficult to do while not damaging the board or components.    That was even with a through hole mounted IC, not a surface mount part which is pretty much everything in a GPU.   It would probably not even be worth you pulling things apart unless you have some decent equipment.   Granted if it's dead and have nothing to lose, you wouldn't increase your chances of success my friend.
 
EDIT:  Expert repairs, to your question - have not heard of anyone mentioning getting GPU board repairs done.  Again depends on your location, but unless you are near like a Louis Rossman type person, my guess is the cost to fix it would probably be beyond what it would cost to buy a used one.   Then again this is unprecedented times, so may be wrong here.
 
In any case I really feel for you.   This is not an enviable position whatsoever, and really stinks.   
Maybe someone else here will give some magical response which I would love to learn as well, but other than doing a hellva lot of searching, calling local best buys or if your in a lucky area with a microcenter - going to be hard to find new, and need to exercise caution if you buy used.
 
Good luck.

harley262
use this guy if you in amerika, he makes movies, and fixes stuff.
 

 

 
 

harley262

AndrewGSQ

harley262
memory express keeps getting gpus in stock if you have one near you, in person only, no returns.

for real? I'm trying to get a 3060 at a good price but I've checked memory express and every single thing is not in stock. I live in Canada Calgary btw

yes, all of there stores have been getting stock in. you have to check everyday.

harley262
no, i think the website is accurate for in store availability. they just sell quickly at store open, and the cheaper cards dont last.

Hoggle
If you are friendly with store staff sometimes you can find an employee that will tell you when deliveries normally happen. It's important to know sometimes a winter storm happens but as long as you are nice and friendly to staff they will normally want you to get the card over the people who come in and are jerks to staff.