Is a used GT 710 from eBay a bad idea? Just need a cheap GPU to perform data recovery on a system whose iGPU is not working.

Cyber Akuma

Cyber Akuma

Gawd
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Jan 3, 2009
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I have an old 3770K system that I need to boot into to pull some data off of it as well as run some tools to try to migrate the Windows install.

Issue is, I can almost never get video out of it. Out of the 15 or so times I tried to boot it, I only got video once or twice. It doesn't appear to be stuck POSTing since the post-code display on it appears to be stating it finished posting, and it responds to ctrl-alt-del as well as gives a successful post beep, but it displays no video through it's internal HDMI or DisplayPort ports. The monitor springs to life for a second detecting SOMETHING.... but then goes into standby stating no HDMI signal.

I have no idea if this happened recently or if it's video has been dead a while ago because I used to have a dedicated card in it for years, which is now in another system.

So I figured it would be best to just get some cheap GPU for now just to use it, something like that could come in handy for future system debugging anyway.

From what I understand, the GT 710 seems to be the go-to for something like this..... or at least was. According to YouTube videos from 2016 this was apparently a $35 card.... but I see it selling in the $50-70 range now.

However, I see used ones on eBay for $20-30. Is there any reason I should not get one of these cheap used ones? Is there such a thing as a bootleg or fake GT 710 market that I would need to worry about? Or something that would work better for this use case? Nvidia is not necessary.... but it would be preferred as the system ran off an Nvidia card and I don't want to install drivers for AMD cards since I want to try to migrate the install to another Nvidia system.
 
I would try my luck at the $20-30 eBay cards. You don’t have much to lose.
 
The generic drivers in windows will work with these cards, so as a utility card to just get a display to service a PC, the GT710/720/730 are fine. They also work well with real Nvidia drivers.

I have several ebay sourced $20-$30 GT720s that I use for MythTV frontends. The GT710/720 are great low cost/low power HTPC cards. Totally suck for gaming. Many are fanless and they run a desktop just fine. They are so low end, that I doubt they are being counterfeited. Look for a name brand one, i.e. EVGA, MSI, etc and compare the listed part number and picture to published specs. If the board and heatsink match, it is pretty low risk.

The only caveat is there are a lot of different ones and you don't want a Fermi GT710. The "good" GT710/720s will have a Kepler core and 192 shading units. The later GT710s don't seem to differ in spec at all from GT720s. If you don't care about fanless, a GT730 may work too if the price is right, but again, stay away from Fermi.

Decent reference: Wikipedia page on GeForce 700 series.

The ones I have are EVGA P/N 01G-P3-2722-KR. These are 1GB. There is a similar 2GB model available.

Even with the current video card pricing nuttiness you should be able to source a used one for less than $35. No way I'd pay more for it, even if new.

Good luck and happy hunting.
 
There actually are fake 710's floating around which is kind of funny. If you just need it to get display output then I wouldn't worry too much.

If you get one and are suspicious you can check the bios with GPUZ as it will flag it.
 
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BassTek said:
There actually are fake 710's floating around which is kind of funny.
Click to expand...

That is just sad. Before the recent craziness, GT710s were offered on EVGA B-stock for $15 shipped on some Wednesdays. Modern integrated graphics probably output performs the genuine cards even for HTPC. Perhaps the scammers are short on fake cards as well in this market.

One dead giveaway for a fake one is if it has composite/S-video/component output, no real 710/720/730 will have this.
 
BassTek said:
There actually are fake 710's floating around which is kind of funny. If you just need it to get display output then I wouldn't worry too much.

If you get one and are suspicious you can check the bios with GPUZ as it will flag it.
Click to expand...
Is this a fake, meaning a card that does not work as a GPU, or a counterfeit made by some no-name company of a well-known brand?
 
x509 said:
Is this a fake, meaning a card that does not work as a GPU, or a counterfeit made by some no-name company of a well-known brand?
Click to expand...
Typically they are older video cards that are using a fake BIOS to mimic a newer card. Usually they will still boot into windows and function as a basic graphics adapter but may not work with newer Nvidia drivers. I haven't had one personally but they do pop up from time to time on different sites.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...o_would_fake_a_gt710_ddr3_picked_this_one_up/

Usually it's something like the 1050ti that gets faked though.
 
x509 said:
Is this a fake, meaning a card that does not work as a GPU, or a counterfeit made by some no-name company of a well-known brand?
Click to expand...
Fake in the sense that its not really what it claims to be. You often see old low-end Fermi chips on these fake 1050's and such.
 
Cyber Akuma said:
I have an old 3770K system that I need to boot into to pull some data off of it as well as run some tools to try to migrate the Windows install.

Issue is, I can almost never get video out of it. Out of the 15 or so times I tried to boot it, I only got video once or twice. It doesn't appear to be stuck POSTing since the post-code display on it appears to be stating it finished posting, and it responds to ctrl-alt-del as well as gives a successful post beep, but it displays no video through it's internal HDMI or DisplayPort ports. The monitor springs to life for a second detecting SOMETHING.... but then goes into standby stating no HDMI signal.

I have no idea if this happened recently or if it's video has been dead a while ago because I used to have a dedicated card in it for years, which is now in another system.

So I figured it would be best to just get some cheap GPU for now just to use it, something like that could come in handy for future system debugging anyway.

From what I understand, the GT 710 seems to be the go-to for something like this..... or at least was. According to YouTube videos from 2016 this was apparently a $35 card.... but I see it selling in the $50-70 range now.

However, I see used ones on eBay for $20-30. Is there any reason I should not get one of these cheap used ones? Is there such a thing as a bootleg or fake GT 710 market that I would need to worry about? Or something that would work better for this use case? Nvidia is not necessary.... but it would be preferred as the system ran off an Nvidia card and I don't want to install drivers for AMD cards since I want to try to migrate the install to another Nvidia system.
Click to expand...
Is this an Asus board by chance?
 
If you can get a GT710 for $20, it will be great as a backup card. My backup card is a GT440 which I've bought for $15. But I do worry that newer platform requires UEFI capable graphics card.
 
Skylinestar said:
If you can get a GT710 for $20, it will be great as a backup card. My backup card is a GT440 which I've bought for $15. But I do worry that newer platform requires UEFI capable graphics card.
Click to expand...
My rig has an ASUS X570 Strix-E and 3900X CPU. UEFI of course. But my graphics card, which I kept from my last build, is an ancient GTX 660 Ti.

Right now, I would be happy to buy a GT770 or something similar, if wasn't too much money. But I can't find anything really low cost on Ebay.
 
i have a bunch of R5 340X and nvidia p600 cards i have posted in the for sale section. they make great desktop and media cards.
 
x509 said:
My rig has an ASUS X570 Strix-E and 3900X CPU. UEFI of course. But my graphics card, which I kept from my last build, is an ancient GTX 660 Ti.

Right now, I would be happy to buy a GT770 or something similar, if wasn't too much money. But I can't find anything really low cost on Ebay.
Click to expand...
I'm curious - what about that 660 Ti is actually holding you back? You've said you're mainly doing Photoshop in the past - I've never noticed the graphics card doing much when I use photoshop.

Other than playing games, I actually never really notice a difference between my GTX 690 (a single card with two GTX 680s on it) and my RTX 2080. They both do Windows things perfectly fine, and Photoshop seems to be mainly about the CPU, anyway.
 
I have an old Quadro FX-580 that I use on systems that have no onboard.
you can find these for $10-15 shipped on eBay.
they only have DP and DVI though, I use a DVI to HDMI cable since my test monitor only has HDMI inputs.
IMG_0849.JPEG
 
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