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How 'bad' is a 2nd hand used mining card
- Thread starter Efour
- Start date
there's a guy right now selling 7 of them for only 290 quid each, all still with a guarantee from S***..
it's tempting, but it would be a bit stupid to have crossfire 7990 for only 1080p
but now is the time to get a real bargain, because crossfire could last me the next 4 years !
it's tempting, but it would be a bit stupid to have crossfire 7990 for only 1080p
but now is the time to get a real bargain, because crossfire could last me the next 4 years !
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Nothing wrong with mining cards, especially if they were bought Jan-Feb time. That's when everyone moved onto the X11 algorithm which ran a LOT cooler. I wouldn't buy a card that had been mining scrypt for a full year or anything as the fan bearings might be knackered from going 70% 24/7.
Technically, having a constant temperature instead of heating and cooling is better. Most miners undervolt and underclock their cards for efficiency anyway, so better than crazy volts going through an overclocked gamer's card.
I say buy them and enjoy the cheap cards.
Technically, having a constant temperature instead of heating and cooling is better. Most miners undervolt and underclock their cards for efficiency anyway, so better than crazy volts going through an overclocked gamer's card.
I say buy them and enjoy the cheap cards.
yea, the fans definitely feel worn out but the card doesn't look as if it's been handled much.... no scratches on it, i cant wait to fit a new fan shroud.
aliexpress.com(china) has loads of spare parts for the 7990
yea, the fans definitely feel worn out but the card doesn't look as if it's been handled much.... no scratches on it, i cant wait to fit a new fan shroud.
aliexpress.com(china) has loads of spare parts for the 7990
A mining card second hand is the luck of the draw I guess. I got my 2nd hard 7950 for 100 pound 8 month ago off the bay (something I said I'd never do), it I suspect probibly had been used for mining because it was so cheap but I wanted a second card for crossfire, it was so cheap I had to have it.
The card turned up, and honest to god it was so clean it put my card to shame mine looked ancient lol, I didn't realise how dusty the top of my pcb was etc lol. Anyway I get it in my system up and running then ltmatt looked at the bios of my second card the one I just got, it had actually been underclocked the voltages and default speeds, not sure why? Maybe this guy wanted the card to last a long time or something, so basically ltmatt made a bios identical to my first gpu. And iv never had a problem. Both overclock exactly the same. Fans noise are exactly the same nothing seems worn or anything, it just straight up doubled my performance I couldn't of been happier with it. Was my first time going crossfire and it's great. Got no throttling or anything. Couldn't recommend it more to be honest
The card turned up, and honest to god it was so clean it put my card to shame mine looked ancient lol, I didn't realise how dusty the top of my pcb was etc lol. Anyway I get it in my system up and running then ltmatt looked at the bios of my second card the one I just got, it had actually been underclocked the voltages and default speeds, not sure why? Maybe this guy wanted the card to last a long time or something, so basically ltmatt made a bios identical to my first gpu. And iv never had a problem. Both overclock exactly the same. Fans noise are exactly the same nothing seems worn or anything, it just straight up doubled my performance I couldn't of been happier with it. Was my first time going crossfire and it's great. Got no throttling or anything. Couldn't recommend it more to be honest
A mining card second hand is the luck of the draw I guess. I got my 2nd hard 7950 for 100 pound 8 month ago off the bay (something I said I'd never do), it I suspect probibly had been used for mining because it was so cheap but I wanted a second card for crossfire, it was so cheap I had to have it.
The card turned up, and honest to god it was so clean it put my card to shame mine looked ancient lol, I didn't realise how dusty the top of my pcb was etc lol. Anyway I get it in my system up and running then ltmatt looked at the bios of my second card the one I just got, it had actually been underclocked the voltages and default speeds, not sure why? Maybe this guy wanted the card to last a long time or something, so basically ltmatt made a bios identical to my first gpu. And iv never had a problem. Both overclock exactly the same. Fans noise are exactly the same nothing seems worn or anything, it just straight up doubled my performance I couldn't of been happier with it. Was my first time going crossfire and it's great. Got no throttling or anything. Couldn't recommend it more to be honest
With mining you want to keep your electricity costs down to maximise profit, and you want to keep heat output down to keep the fans quieter and stop your house turning into a sauna. Also, you don't get the best hashrates with max overclocks due to how the memory and core work together, so undervolting and underclocking are pretty much par for the course. No miner runs windows on a dedicated rig (extra HDD cost), so this is usually just done in the BIOS and left to it .
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,562
as mentioned above:
- most serious miners will want to minimise power consumption, and you don't get the best #rate at the highest clocks (my 2 mining cards wanted a 50MHz underclock for best rate, and sat at 64 degrees all through summer)
- stability is king: if your miner crashed while you were out/asleeep, you're losing money! (so always more worth going safe than highest performance)
- the thing that causes (most) damage to electrical devices is the changes from cool to hot and back again, as the materials warm up/cool, same as glass/metal. a card that has been ran at a constant (not too high!) temp for several months will have had less of a subjectively 'hard' life than a gaming card
- most serious miners will want to minimise power consumption, and you don't get the best #rate at the highest clocks (my 2 mining cards wanted a 50MHz underclock for best rate, and sat at 64 degrees all through summer)
- stability is king: if your miner crashed while you were out/asleeep, you're losing money! (so always more worth going safe than highest performance)
- the thing that causes (most) damage to electrical devices is the changes from cool to hot and back again, as the materials warm up/cool, same as glass/metal. a card that has been ran at a constant (not too high!) temp for several months will have had less of a subjectively 'hard' life than a gaming card
^^ A card that has been running constant load for say 2000 hours and a card that has been used for say 500-600 hours over the same period (bursts of say ~6 hours of gaming) will usually have very similar wear levels. Though more frequent temperature cycling can exploit weaknesses that constant temperature might not.
Well in theory yes but its a hassle because you technically dont have a contract with the business that sold the graphics card to the seller on the MM (so the business isn't required to speak to you at all). You need to go through whoever bought the graphics card and then sold it on MM.
Also a question i'm surprised no-one has mentioned.
Technically is there actually a way to determine the difference between a graphics card which is a) used b) been used for mining c) new
As far as i'm aware there isn't a way to tell.... between a, b, or c (apart from obvious cases e.g. mountain of dust on the fans)
a mining rig.......... 6 cards at once
is usually out in the open on a scaffolding type frame, you see them for sale on Ebay.... so the card doesn't get hot like ours do...i might buy another one, but i'm trying hard to fight it, but the card is so cheap that it's hard to resist.
it's deffo worth replacing the fan housing though, but that only costs 20 quid from China, if it arrives and is ok
but why would you send it back to the retailer if you've bought it second hand. just rma it to the manufacturer with the receipt/invoice and tell them you've moved address.
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95c is well within spec so the card won't have any issues. issues/degrading will happen when u run them out of spec 24/7
I have always been told that powering on electronics is what causes the most wear - I have had a mining rig for a while and am running another server 24/7 and have had no wear and tear issues on any of the components so far.
Mining rigs are usually running 24/7 so I would not have any objections to buying a card that has been used for mining.
Mining rigs are usually running 24/7 so I would not have any objections to buying a card that has been used for mining.
a mining rig.......... 6 cards at once
i might buy another one, but i'm trying hard to fight it, but the card is so cheap that it's hard to resist.
it's deffo worth replacing the fan housing though, but that only costs 20 quid from China, if it arrives and is ok
honestly I wouldn't bother with 7990 crossfire (quadfire)
I ran that setup and my 4770k couldn't cope.
I now run 2x290p and the performance is much better.