Fobus
Posts: 127 +103
But that's the point, it's amazon or eBay seller, not official stores. You will never catch every scam, but it's not gucci, electronics are far more trackable.
Crypto miners in China are selling off their graphics cards amid crackdown
- Thread starter midian182
- Start date
But that's the point, it's amazon or eBay seller, not official stores. You will never catch every scam, but it's not gucci, electronics are far more trackable.
duckofdeath
Posts: 448 +586
Amazon is the biggest retailer in the world, by a massive margin. I've bought a lot of my tech through them the last few years. Most people have. It's not just an "unofficial store".
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Perhaps you'll take a moment to explain how people who buy video cards by the dozens, suck up most of the electricity, (in some cases actually stealing it), in an area, to ostensibly enrich themselves, aren't "greedy".
Austinturner
Posts: 351 +452
I’ve been wondering about this, the only concern I would have is if a card had been modified and just generally I would expect a very generous discount for second hand electronics. If I could get an ex.mining GPU I’d pay no more than 60% of new price to account for risk and lack of warranty.
Peter Farkas
Posts: 654 +530
I have bought an RX 580 a few years ago that was used for ETH mining for 2,5 years before that. The seller was a pro miner and kept the cards heavily undervolted and at a low temp below 60C all the time.
I had to update its firmware since a custom one was applied for mining. It was easy though, as I just downloaded and installed the latest firmware from the Gigabyte website. I have replaced the thermal paste and the thermal pads and card was as good as new. It was stable, fast and cool. Mining does not damage the chip if temps are kept at an OK level.
Fans can go very loud after 2-3 years of heavy use, so I also ordered new fans from AliExpress for about $9 each.
Buying an ex-miner card can be a very good deal if you get it from an experienced miner and know how to reinstall firmware, and reapply paste and pads and install new fans.
bexwhitt
Posts: 662 +397
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,219 +3,074
I wanted to know about longevity too.
I found most will undervolt at the least to keep unnecessary electricity costs down.
The memory bandwidth is what is king, not core clocks, which is probably why I never read about any overclocking.
godrilla
Posts: 1,365 +893
I've seen an article that miners flocked to upstate NY due to low energy prices and now the cost of electricity skyrocketed for everyone, penalties had to past for anyone using a certain threshold of electricity.
Joking aside one thing commies love is their regulations and there is a lot coming which is good for gamers/ environment short term. Unfortunately I see this as a temporary bandaid. My theory is price of cards will go up with cost of crypto currencies as well as the price of energy but not ina linear fashion.
Moochy
Posts: 36 +68
truth unfortunately...the world is full of scammers.
envirovore
Posts: 628 +1,185
Living in upstate ny, the cost of energy here is not cheap at all.
Edit: define upstate. I'm not talking Poughkeepsie area, I'm in legit upstate.
godrilla
Posts: 1,365 +893
According to CNBC website article from this week via Google search key words upstate new york crypto mining it states Platsspurgh.
envirovore
Posts: 628 +1,185
Ah.
Plattsburgh makes us look like downstate, they're waaaaaaay up state.
Probably municipal power up there.
Vanderlinde
Posts: 433 +273
There's nothing wrong with a used mining card really, if it's ran properly with decent cooling. It's more worse for a videocard to go through short on / off heat cycles which is more common in gaming. I mean how many notebooks did you saw on which the GPU died, or the soldering joints cracked because of those heat cycles?
If done properly, a card is always tuned to it's best / most efficiency rather then raw performance. If you run a 20 card rig or something, then every 50w out of one card really helps with the energy bill here. No matter if the pricing of electricity is or was cheap in china or not.
I'd be more worried for buying a card that was used in for example a gaming internet cafe. Those are just installed and run on default (usually silent) profile and bear contantly to the max limit of temps. Caps and such are the things that cant cope with long cycles of heat really. The life endurance is pretty much dictacted by the temp it's running at.
But most cards would even survive running 24/7 at 80 to 85 degrees constant. Because thats what the manufactor has designed it for.
Bp968
Posts: 277 +195
It doesnt. I ran 12 1070ti - 1080ti cards for 6 months, 24/7. They ran at 70c if I remember correctly. Anyone with half a brain downclocks the cards for mining because you can shave off 20-30% or more of the power consumption while only losing a percent or two of hashing output.
One of those cards is running in my wifes pc (4 years now) and 4 of them are running in my friends PCs. My 1080ti was flawless until I sold it and got a 3080 (which itself has been mining 90% of the time when I dont game for over 7 months now).
This same scenario has played out for everyone I know who mined in 2016-2017. Modern nvidia cards wont let you OC them to death and mining incentivises you to keep power (and thus temps) as low as possible.
Yet when I games with that same 1080ti it would spike to the 80s and consume far more power and during loading screens or menus it might fall into the 60s (so thermal cycling). Gaming is way worse on a card. Even then its not an issue. The main problem with 24/7 video card operation is the fan(s). Make sure their clean and dust free. Worse case they need replaced (but I've never had to do that so even the fans are pretty resilient).
Seriously, those of you who are in your 40s and been pc gaming since high school think about it? How many GPUs have died on you? Ive had *1* die over 25 years going back to 2d only video cards (anyone remember Matrox cards? ). I had a voodoo 1 even. I still have working nvidia cards from the vesa local bus era, and PCI era. I have a riva TNT in a box that still works lol.
I wouldn't pay MSRP for a used gpu, but I wouldn't feel nervous buying a ex-mining GPU. Its a business, and the primary asset. Abusing your primary income source is just bad business practice.
arrowflash
Posts: 583 +696
You can bet that during the last few months the longevity of our graphics cards is something that has concerned me and many others, a lot. Things seem to be slowly going back to normal now, but during some time losing a graphics card has been nearly as bad as losing an uninsured car.
My first 3D accelerated video card was a Matrox Mystique 220. It was one of the best cards of its time for 2D, but the 3D "acceleration" barely did anything. Nvidia Riva 128 was much better, but it was too late once I realized that. Couple years later I upgraded to a Riva TNT2 and since today never had anything but Nvidia for discrete graphics cards (all my laptops with discrete GPUs have been ATI/AMD though).
My MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G was the first graphics card that died on me, exactly 36 months and 1 week after purchase. So, 1 week after manufacturer's warranty expired. Never mined, never overclocked, not heavily used (didn't play games every day, often only at weekends). It was my first MSI branded graphics card, and definitely my last. If only the precision and competence of their planned obsolence engineering was applied in making a durable product instead, that card would probably have lasted over 10 years.
MaxSmarties
Posts: 559 +326
I wouldn't buy a video card used for mining 24/7 for months... not even for $400 for a RTX 3070. GPU are usually preserved (but still used a lot) but VRAM are very stressed by mining.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Well first, let's address crypto. This is the California Gold Rush: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush (Key concepts here are, hard manual labor, price gouging, inflation, failures...).
The irony here is, there was actually something real and of tangible value, not strings of numbers on a computer mixed up in "cloud soup".
Next, TSMC bit off more than they could chew in 7 nm promises.
As for the prices, both TSMC and Nvidia have pledged to raise prices. IMHO, scalpers are largely responsible for this as well. Manufacturers set, and expect to receive, a reasonable profit for their investments.
So when scalpers are able to double their money by simply owning an auto dialer and a credit card, the CEOs running huge fabs have to be feeling like used fools, and want a piece of the action. And I believe rightfully so.
There are laws in place to prevent scalping of event tickets. (I'm not sure of their efficacy), and I believe there should be strong laws in place to prevent scalping of popular electronic devices as well.
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Rdmetz
Posts: 425 +211
Good thing all 16 30 series I've acquired since launch all came before this.
My 3rd 3080ti was delivered from evga yesterday and went to my buddy and he gave his girlfriend the 3080 I got him back last September (he wanted to sell it but saw prices dropping and decided to keep it.
His dad got a 3070ti from me a week ago and I've had 3 3080s (upgrades from base tuf to ftw3 ultra) a 3090 TUF in my HTPC and now have a 3080 ti replacing my 3080 which mine is going to a police officer friend whose wanted a 3070 but jumped on getting my used 3080 for under a grand.
Plenty of brand new cards have made their way to plenty of people thanks to me.
No bots no scalping just dedication to helping my friends and family.
Really unfortunate one of my buds who was hoping to get one next passed away 2 days ago at 35... Just fell down dead of a heart attack or stroke won't know his wife and mom just had him cremated and moved on.
We hold his funeral tomorrow.
I'm planning to get his card when I can and give it to his son... It's not much but hopefully it helps him find something to enjoy that him and his dad loved to do together.
Rdmetz
Posts: 425 +211
Yet people want open markets and government to stay out of their business?
Seen this same take from so many who want their cake and eat it too.
Rdmetz
Posts: 425 +211
My upgrade schedule doesn't have me using a card beyond warranty... I'm almost alway getting the next 80 or 80ti as they release but I have has several of my cards come with issues from the start or that showed up with a few weeks. I've also sold my used cards on to friends and have unfortunately seen them die on several of them over the years.
Most of them have still had warranty so we got it fixed or replaced but the few guys who kept the cards beyond 3 years saw almost all of them die eventually.
I personally hate seeing my stuff lose all its value to the point its thrown in the trash so I buy early (day 1 usually) and only use the card til something better comes along...
Ill usually sell the old card a few weeks to a month BEFORE the new card releases and I have gap fill mid tier cards (rx580 most recently) to get me buy.
I've seen 80-95% return in my costs each time and kept my system too tier for a decade without spending more than a couple hundred every year or 2.
Last 3 years have been even better with my upgrades coming with money BACK in my pocket along with a new card that's even better than my last.
I don't have too much faith in any gpu beyond its warranty period but I don't even worry about it by never coming close to that point.
Rdmetz
Posts: 425 +211
I only buy evga cards (mostly) and their systems pretty much make it impossible to get a card that's not what is promised.. I mean they could sell you something that isn't what it's supposed to be but easy to find out with evga and file a dispute for item not described.
I get most of my cards from evga themselves or only authorized sellers of evga so never had to worry about it.
P
punctualturn
Great...just when I got a 6900xt at msrp....
Rdmetz
Posts: 425 +211
Sorry but ebay and Amazon buyer protection is more than well equipped to handle something like this and in fact they almost always side with the buyer and make the seller take a return or just lose the money all together.
As someone who has sold on both stores for years I'm fully aware of how easy it is for a buyer to get what they want.
Takes 30 seconds to register a card and with companies like evga you MUST do so to be eligible for things like advance rma or step up so anyone whose buying them is very easily able to validate their purchase.
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