Caporegime
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They're not designed to work 95c at all (They actually don't run at 95c, they throttle at 94c) a card which throttles at that temp isn't designed to run at that temp.
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Scrypt mining gold rush finally ends
- Thread starter Kaapstad
- Start date
They're not designed to work 95c at all (They actually don't run at 95c, they throttle at 94c) a card which throttles at that temp isn't designed to run at that temp.
Caporegime
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Actually they do, that is the exact definition of it. If it was designed to run at 85c, it would throttle at 85C. It throttles at 95C to prevent it going BEYOND 95C, they set the limit at 95C because they are happy for it to sit there.
A graphics card can last for over a decade, full load will take some life out of it, but with an unknown and completely unnecessary amount of life in electronic components, who cares.
If a card has a genuine fault it will likely fail relatively soon under any kind of load. If it's not faulty you'll get 5+ years out of it, if you use it heavily you'll still get 5 years out of it. Most electronics of most types fail when being turned on. Cycling of parts is where damage happens, always has been.
Two computers, one at full load every day for a year and another computer turned on and off 5 times a day, the one turned on and off is far far more likely to fail and yet not very likely at all.
The article is a joke though, a manufacturer doesn't dictate terms of "you can't use this for mining", nor that you can't use it full load. Most importantly there is exactly no way they can tell the difference between a card used at load for 3 years every second and one that failed on the first day of usage(with the dust cleaned out anyway).
Manufacturers will NOT be refusing RMA's for cards used for mining and Fud saying that is beyond a joke. Parts designed to deal with whatever temp they throttle at won't magically fail if used at that temp for a longer time.
If say the shroud was going to melt at 95C, it wouldn't matter if you gamed for 3 hours, or mined for 4 years. THe material would fail either way.
Gaming rig sitting in room you are likely gaming, 100% fan is intolerable and no one would game with a fan speed higher than required. Mining rig sitting out of range of destroying your hearing, can run as high a fan speed as you require.
My 2x290's in the room I use my computer anything over 50% was very irksome and just under gaming temps would hit 95C easily as at low fan speed and quiet. With my 2x290's in another room I turn the fans up, can't hear them where I use the computer(extension cables ftw), and now gaming or mining the cards run between 80-85C.
In reality most gamers will be running their cards at higher under load temps, and be cycling the temps much more which is where electronics degrade.
Nvidia's entire bumpgate thing, which cost them probably pushing over a billion in damages/replacements now, was down to thermal cycling. It's a HUGE issue.
It's less often the silicon itself that fails, it's the packaging, all the joins of various bits and effectively the soldering points which in general their biggest weakness is thermal cycling.
Associate
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The car analogy was actually an interesting one I thought. Is a car with 10k on the clock worth more than the same car with 50k? Yes. The 10k might have been owned by people who ragged it and it's in poor condition, but so might the 50k. On average the 10k car will be in better nick than the 50k one.
On to graphics cards.... Yes, some miners will undervolt their cards to save power, keep them well vented. Others will overclock them. Most gamers will never overclock their card, some will, some of those will overvolt. Some will undervolt. Most will be kept cool enough in their cases, some will get really hot especially multi-card setups. I have no way of telling proportions for any of these things. I can, however, work out that mining cards will have been sued far, far more and silicon chips do have a MTBF.
Which means on average the card with less use = the card with more value, cards used for mining are going to be worth less. Of course the problem is how to tell which is which.
Having said all that... unless loads of miners decide to sell up then it's not really an issue. I suspect that a new coin that the new ASIC miners don't work for shall come along anyway.
Also a sidenote on what 100% can mean in any system, mechanical or electrical. Some things are sold where 100% is the maximum sustainable, others where 100% is the maximum peak load. In cars if you sit at the rev limiter for a significant period your car is going to be in trouble. In PSUs the rated wattage varies by brand between if it can output that much power for the startup burst or can sustain that power output for continuous running. Graphics cards are designed to produce graphics for games and similar - lots of the components have different limits and there is a reason e.g. furmark is not recommended as it deliberately bypasses some restrictions to hammer some components harder. This doesn't suggest that component is flawed, but rather that someone is abusing the system. They are not designed to mine, so maxing them at 100% on mining is not really within what they are designed to do. How well they cope remains to be seen. I suspect the fans will be the first victims...
On to graphics cards.... Yes, some miners will undervolt their cards to save power, keep them well vented. Others will overclock them. Most gamers will never overclock their card, some will, some of those will overvolt. Some will undervolt. Most will be kept cool enough in their cases, some will get really hot especially multi-card setups. I have no way of telling proportions for any of these things. I can, however, work out that mining cards will have been sued far, far more and silicon chips do have a MTBF.
Which means on average the card with less use = the card with more value, cards used for mining are going to be worth less. Of course the problem is how to tell which is which.
Having said all that... unless loads of miners decide to sell up then it's not really an issue. I suspect that a new coin that the new ASIC miners don't work for shall come along anyway.
Also a sidenote on what 100% can mean in any system, mechanical or electrical. Some things are sold where 100% is the maximum sustainable, others where 100% is the maximum peak load. In cars if you sit at the rev limiter for a significant period your car is going to be in trouble. In PSUs the rated wattage varies by brand between if it can output that much power for the startup burst or can sustain that power output for continuous running. Graphics cards are designed to produce graphics for games and similar - lots of the components have different limits and there is a reason e.g. furmark is not recommended as it deliberately bypasses some restrictions to hammer some components harder. This doesn't suggest that component is flawed, but rather that someone is abusing the system. They are not designed to mine, so maxing them at 100% on mining is not really within what they are designed to do. How well they cope remains to be seen. I suspect the fans will be the first victims...
I generally would never buy a second hand card either, but if it had a warranty then I might consider it if I knew the person I was buying it from.
The reasons I would never buy one is simple, I don't know what the person has done to that card, overvolting, overclocking past the limits, installing or removing it without using any antistatic precautions etc.
And yes, I think if I had to buy a graphics cards second I would trust a mining card over a gamers card. The reasons why, will, you need some technically savy to get mining working and people tend to look after things that are making them money. Yes, there are those foolish people who don't, but that applies to both sides.
There is a much better chance for mining card to be "looked after" as you quoted, then a gaming card for that reason. Mining cards make money.
Soldato
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And 56.3% of statistics are made up on the spot. How can you possibly make any kind of relevant guess on what "miners" do. We've all seen the pics of umpteen cars sandwhiched in a small room with no ventilation, who seriously wants to take the risk on buying from a "good" miner, no one is honestly going to tell you they treated their cards like crap.
Your statement is right, GPU's are designed around the knowledge that temps are going to be changing, but that still doesn't change the fact that electronics will last longer running at constant temps.
And in many cases it's not the components of a graphics card that fails, it's the solder, well defective solder, it's why baking the card sometimes can sometimes get the card back working. Solder failing is caused by changing temps.
2 sides to the coin.
Mining cards make money, which means they are ultimately more expendable than a gaming card. A gaming card makes zero money and is a 100% loss if it fails. A mining card only makes a loss of it's purchase price less mining profits.
A gamer has the prospect of a total re-investment for a failed card.
A miner only a partial re-investment.
Now who wants their cards to last longer more?
Depends entirely on your point of view. As for technical ability required to get mining working. Next to none for the low end? It's not exactly rocket science is it?
This is not the only consideration. What you are basically saying is GPUs would last indefinitely if not for temperature based issues. This is not the case, every single component has a MTBF even under ideal conditions. Components will eventually fail, irrespective of temperature conditions. A mining GPU WILL have more hours on the components. Whether you wish to provide technical evidence that shows that stable temps with more hours is a better overall package than lower hours with fluctuating temperatures is up to you
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Really umpteen pictures? And you can tell from those pictures that the room has no ventilation?
Nobody is going to tell you how they treated their card, gamer or miner. Buying a second hand card is a risk no matter who you buy it from.
Soldato
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I never bothered to hop on the mining wagon
Nevermind mining, I have even barely gamed on my 290 since gotten it. Ran some short Heaven/Valley and Metro2033 benches and marvel at how pretty things look that's about it lol. I did play try overclocking, but as mentioned short benches (which is all I've done with my 290 rofl).
Getting a bit too lazy to game on PC thesedays for some reason...just playing on my mobile and PS Vita.
2 sides to the coin.
Mining cards make money, which means they are ultimately more expendable than a gaming card. A gaming card makes zero money and is a 100% loss if it fails. A mining card only makes a loss of it's purchase price less mining profits.
A gamer has the prospect of a total re-investment for a failed card.
A miner only a partial re-investment.
Now who wants their cards to last longer more?
Depends entirely on your point of view. As for technical ability required to get mining working. Next to none for the low end? It's not exactly rocket science is it?
Cards fail all the time. Some from new, some from misuse. Gamers are much more likely to overvolt their cards than miners.
Both gamer and miner want their card to last, but, for one it costs money in downtime for the other it just means they can't game for a while.
You still need to do some research to get it up and running. It's not rocket science, but, it's not simple either.
Well, my point of view is pretty simple, I find it silly that the people think that they would get a card that would work better buying from a gamer than a miner. It's the same risk. The card could fail for reasons outside of gaming or mining, or it might never fail.
This is not the only consideration. What you are basically saying is GPUs would last indefinitely if not for temperature based issues. This is not the case, every single component has a MTBF even under ideal conditions. Components will eventually fail, irrespective of temperature conditions. A mining GPU WILL have more hours on the components. Whether you wish to provide technical evidence that shows that stable temps with more hours is a better overall package than lower hours with fluctuating temperatures is up to you
Just wow, what a way to twist things. Go back and read my post again. I did NOT say that GPU's would last indefinitely. How the hell did you infer that from my post? If I said a car would run for longer if it was serviced regularly would you take from that I said the car would run for ever?
Yes, cards have an MTBF, the last I bothered to check this GPU's were 100K hours plus. Even if they came nowhere near that most cards will last longer than most of us would ever keep them even ones used in mining.
Are you really arguing that fluctuating temps causes less problems than constant temps? Really?
I have a Vanta LT that's been running in a server 24/7 for 14 years, obviously not under full load but those old cards didn't have the ability to clock down.
Pcbs with quality components can last over 5 years with constant load and fixed temps. Constant load affects the card ofc but also the hot/cold and the power off do the same. The article is stupid gaming,mining,gpgpu,benchmarking will gonna affect the card. If the card is faulty or they have low quality components will gonna fail no matter what.
Before i sold my mining gear i had 10 7970s. Mining didint affect any card
Before i sold my mining gear i had 10 7970s. Mining didint affect any card
The biggest issue I see with this is "who done what with the card in question" For example:
Man 'A' gets his card and starts mining. He carefully sets volts and always keeps an eye on the temps. The cards run 24/7 for 3 months but temps have been good and under volted. The bubble bursts and he decides he wants to recoup some money, so sells his card.
Man 'B' gets his card and starts mining. He raises volts and sets the fan to 100% (or allowed max). Temps are constantly over 95c and time and again, the card is crashing. He gives the card a damned good beasting. the bubble bursts and he decides he wants to recoup some money, so sells his card.
Both sell the card and the unsuspecting buyer see's 290 for sale. Did a little mining but well looked after.
That is the biggest problem for me.
Check the MM (for those that can), tons of AMD GPUs for sale and the same with ebay.
Man 'A' gets his card and starts mining. He carefully sets volts and always keeps an eye on the temps. The cards run 24/7 for 3 months but temps have been good and under volted. The bubble bursts and he decides he wants to recoup some money, so sells his card.
Man 'B' gets his card and starts mining. He raises volts and sets the fan to 100% (or allowed max). Temps are constantly over 95c and time and again, the card is crashing. He gives the card a damned good beasting. the bubble bursts and he decides he wants to recoup some money, so sells his card.
Both sell the card and the unsuspecting buyer see's 290 for sale. Did a little mining but well looked after.
That is the biggest problem for me.
Check the MM (for those that can), tons of AMD GPUs for sale and the same with ebay.
only on some cards at a guess
my card gets hotter in Furmark than any benchmark - I also get the highest power draw from the wall - electricity wise in Furmark than any other tool
my card is a 570 but a custom one - I think the reference ones throttled down
