Well, there isn't any evidence, if people only believe what they want to believe. It's not me saying it either, if you don't believe what's been said that's entirely your choice. There's degrees of degradation, the changes will be slow and gradual under the conditions mentioned, and no one can say they will definitely occur.
There's no onus on me, because it has nothing to do with me.
You forget they all have a vested interest in protecting their investments.OFC,they will say mining causes zero effect on their GPUs,because they want to sell them on at the lowest possible loss,when more profitable GPUs are released. What did you expect,miners to ever say anything negative about mining? OFC,not they are making money from it!! I am not saying they are lying but then they will have a natural bias towards defending it!!
In the last 20 years,almost all of the GPU failures I have seen in the realworld have tended to be VRAM related. Even the one GPU I had to return in the last 10 years,literally had its VRAM go south within a week of me owning it(and running it at stock).
This is why I have avoided secondhand GPUs in more recent years - whether its a miner,or some kid overclocking the VRAM to get moar gaming performance,its not worth piddling away £100s unless there is a warranty on top. Unless you can quantify how someone has used it,you simply have no clue whether they have pampered the GPU or pushed a lot of voltage through it.
Hardware enthusiasts on tech forums also seem to not understand most normal gamers are not having their GPUs on that much under load,as most are not dorks who game 24/7.
Literally every PC gamer I know plays a few hours a week at most,and during summertime hardly games because there are things to do outside,and there are other hobbies people do.
Compare that to a miner who will be having their GPU under load 24/7 for much longer periods,its definitely getting far more use,than most PC gamers outside the hardcore types who just play games all the time. Maybe,a hardcore PC gamer is worse on their GPUs,but most people simply don't have the time anyway IMHO. The GPUs will be running at idle for most of their lifespan.