Linus still says those cheap graphics cards are useless.

Boomwebsearch · May 28, 2020

3 minutes ago, kenblu24 said:

Businesses think differently. The possibility of wasting time returning items or waiting for a new item to ship or even just the long shipping times that often accompany cheap ebay items is not gonna fly with a business.

This is why a business should have spare components on hand that are validated working in case of a failure to minimize downtime and get back and running ASAP.

4 minutes ago, kenblu24 said:

Unless the company has a dedicated IT guy, they're also not gonna want to waste time installing possibly dead or near death GPUs.

Graphics cards are super easy to install (especially those that don't need extra power connectors), most users could figure out how to install a GPU even if they never have before with logic and/or watching a quick video.

7 minutes ago, kenblu24 said:

Most businesses would be happy to spend the $40 per card if it means they can just chuck it in a system and go, and official system support is probably better for a 710 than for an ancient 3450, which, in my case, probably can't even run the darn management software on two screens

LOL, many have had issues with the GT 710 drivers and them causing crashes/instability with sleep mode, although it can happen to almost any GPU and compatibility depends on a ton of factors that could be varying. Also, if the business is using really old systems that don't support UEFI and/or PCIe 2.0 then that could be a compatibility problem for the GT 710, best you can get in that case is a GT 630 or GT 610. I have bought a Radeon HD 3450 and installed in the past for an older system that had Nvidia graphics built into the motherboard which went bad and had issues with flickering and lines through the screen (general instability), once I popped in the HD 3450 and installed drivers seamlessly, worked great and even with 2 Dell monitors (one of them was 17" and the other was 19").

Although it should be noted that your mileage may vary, don't be surprised if you get a bad card or one that is having compatibility issues for whatever reason, this is why I would recommend that businesses especially have extra components on hand that have been tested to work for replacing failed parts.

Curious Pineapple · May 29, 2020

You're trying to point out to a bunch of tech guys that buying a brand new low end GPU is better for business than buying a used offering, trying to find an archaic driver that still offers good support, hoping the card actually works, hoping it doesn't fail when the driver is loaded (happened to me) and most importantly, not frying your mainboard as the used card was thrown in a drawer, had a capacitor bent and provides a nice short circuit on your PCIe slot.

I had a used card blow the living arse out of my power supply when it's regulator went dead short after 30 odd mins of gaming.

Bombastinator · May 29, 2020

This thing seems to be going on the concept that they are or are not zero percent use. If they are not zero percent they are very very low percent. They’re cards with at best edge use. Very old very lightweight machines that didn’t already have a minimal graphics solution of some type. So old their CPUs don’t have iGPUs. Why would they be popular? It implies a major problem.