NOT USED IN MINING

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Or is there some big problem with cards that have been used in mining?
 
MixManSC said:
Or is there some big problem with cards that have been used in mining?
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Yes, cards are not designed to be run at 100% 24/7 and mining cards usually die very early in life or start having issues such as artifacting
 
LOL $35 shipping from Russia.

If you want a $500 1080ti you need look no further than FS/FT but be warned... OMG... some of them might have been used for nefarious currency purposes! :)
 
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elite.mafia said:
Yes, cards are not designed to be run at 100% 24/7 and mining cards usually die very early in life or start having issues such as artifacting
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Spoken like someone that knows everything :)
Meanwhile, I'm still using 7950 (2), 380 (2) in different family members or friend PC and they do wonders.

It can damage the card if not properly ran but I would argue that Johnny whoknowswhat that built his first PC on carpet without observing any ESD precaution or cleaning the heatsink, etc may also be a high risk buy even if he never mined. +2 points if he ships it wrapped in towels or newspaper.

EDIT: I did need to replace 3 fans on those though. Fans are not meant to be run that much.
 
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MMitch said:
Spoken like someone that knows everything :)
Meanwhile, I'm still using 7950 (2), 380 (2) in different family members or friend PC and they do wonders.

It can damage the card if not properly ran but I would argue that Johnny whoknowswhat that built his first PC on carpet without observing any ESD precaution or cleaning the heatsink, etc may also be a high risk buy even if he never mined. +2 points if he ships it wrapped in towels or newspaper.

EDIT: I did need to replace 3 fans on those though. Fans are not meant to be run that much.
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the cheap fans they use on GPUs have been a plague. Just recently I've had the fan(s) on an Asus 280X DCII, Sapphire 290 Tri-x, and XFX 7950 black lock up... cards still work perfectly fine. Rather than paying insane ebay prices for replacements I just bolt on 80mm fans and they work just as well. All of these cards have been used for folding and have at least been powered on for 5ish years straight.

I would argue that they ARE designed to run 24/7, but naturally there is a useful life.. We can calculate the life expectancy of a capacitor based on its operating temperature and voltage/current. I'm not sure of any existing formulae for electromigration but as far as I know it does happen, so a mining card *should have a shorter life than a gaming card. That said, I have cards like the 9800GTX+ that I ran like hell for years and now occasionally use for fun, and they still work fine at the stock voltage. I'd bet the vast majority of users on this forum upgrade long, long before the GPU would die. Also I'd bet it's VRM failure that hits long before the GPU itself dies out, keeping those suckers cool probably adds many years to the card even under load...

Still, I'd take a card that wasn't used for mining over a mining card unless the price difference was notable.. I don't know how many bitcoin miners even bother setting fan profiles, those cards probably ran at 90+C for 2 years.
 
MixManSC said:
Or is there some big problem with cards that have been used in mining?
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Not inherently. There is a risk that cards have been mistreated. It would be worthwhile to know who you are buying from if you go that route. Something like 10 of my cards have been purchased by forum members here - not a single problem.
 
erek said:
really? :(
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MMitch said:
Spoken like someone that knows everything :)
Meanwhile, I'm still using 7950 (2), 380 (2) in different family members or friend PC and they do wonders.

It can damage the card if not properly ran but I would argue that Johnny whoknowswhat that built his first PC on carpet without observing any ESD precaution or cleaning the heatsink, etc may also be a high risk buy even if he never mined. +2 points if he ships it wrapped in towels or newspaper.

EDIT: I did need to replace 3 fans on those though. Fans are not meant to be run that much.
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Joust said:
Not inherently. There is a risk that cards have been mistreated. It would be worthwhile to know who you are buying from if you go that route. Something like 10 of my cards have been purchased by forum members here - not a single problem.
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The only problems that occur with mining cards are dead fans and bad/stupid setup on the part of whoever configured the mining rig. Assume you had a rack of undervolted GPUs going 24/7 in a room with reasonable temperature control. Using a mix of miners setup to failover from one pool to another to avoid downtime / lag when switching algos and in the event of a connection failure. Also have a beefy UPS setup to protect against brief power failures.

In that scenario, the mining cards are rarely ever going to have the opportunity to cycle between mining and idle (hot and cold). If the cards always stay hot and don’t constantly cycle temps they tend to last for a very very long time. It’s the repeated cycles of heating and cooling that kill the badly configured mining cards.
 
Nauseous said:
as long as mining cards are properly cooled they should have the same amount of life as any other card.
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Yes, they have the exact same life as other cards. Only other cards get full load maybe 2 hours a day on average instead of 24 hours. Meaning one year as a mining card ages the components the same as 10 years of regular usage.

Of course this doesn't mean all mining cards will be bad, some hardware lasts much longer than 10 years, it all comes down to do you feel lucky, punk, do you?

Besides I would not entertain miners on principle alone.
 
Nauseous said:
as long as mining cards are properly cooled they should have the same amount of life as any other card.
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Yes no one ever overclock memory and it never causes the degradation which has been demonstrated in many vega gpus..
Cooling isn't everything.
 
M76 said:
Yes, they have the exact same life as other cards. Only other cards get full load maybe 2 hours a day on average instead of 24 hours. Meaning one year as a mining card ages the components the same as 10 years of regular usage.
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That’s not how any of this works
 
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