GPU mined for a month. Bad purchase?

[SushiSharkie]

I recently bought an EVGA GTX 970 SSC for $70 from a friend of mine who claims it's been mining for about a month. I've tested it in Furmark at 1080p with 8x MSAA and it seems to be stable at 58-65 fps. The temps were high at about a 91°C average in all of my tests. Both fans work silently under a normal gaming load and I didn't immediately notice any discoloration on the PCB. It seems a little too good to be true at this price, given that this card has been running for 730+ hrs likely at full continuous power. Does a month of mining do all that much to a graphics card? Am I just stressing over nothing, and these cards are more durable than I'm giving them credit for?

 

Edit: Thank you to everyone who replied! The thermal paste on this card had either gone completely soupy after it's use, or it was just cheapie paste. After removing the heatsink, I saw that there was little to no paste anywhere close to the actual GPU die, which would explain the 91° temps I was seeing while running Furmark. After carefully applying some Arctic MX-4 paste to the GPU, my temps dropped SIGNIFICANTLY. Around a 30°-40° drop during synthetic benchmarks. This seriously boosted performance in synthetic benchmarks, as well as normal gaming loads. Around a 10fps difference in Furmark at 1080p to about 68-70fps, and somewhere in the same ballpark on the games I play. I've never repasted a graphics card before, so I appreciate everyone pointing me in that direction. I believe we've breathed new life into this card, and I'm excited to get into some newer titles with it!

Edited September 28, 2020 by SushiSharkie

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, SushiSharkie said:

Does a month of mining do all that much to a graphics card?

IF properly cooled and whatnot, then it should be just fine.

That's a lotta IF coming off that plan.

 

Anyway, use it until it dies.

[aisle9]

It's all about how it was cared for. If it was undervolted (or at least left stock) in a well ventilated case with proper airflow, positioned so that air intakes are at least a few inches above a hard surface, it's probably fine. If it was OC'ed/OV'ed in a case with a single 92mm exhaust fan and the whole thing was just sitting flat on dirty carpet, it's probably not fine. $70 for a 970 actually isn't a half bad price, so as long as your friend wasn't straight up abusing it, you're good.

[Mick Naughty]

Doesn’t matter if it was a year or a day. Use is use. If it’s a good deal get it. Not like anyone would use a card like that to actually mine and make a profit 

[Cyracus]

31 minutes ago, SushiSharkie said:

temps were high at about a 91°C average

you may benefit from fresh thermal paste, especially if the card hasn't been taken apart before

[Mark Kaine]

this is a old card, I doubt it was "1 month"...

 

in any case you should probably replace the thermal paste as it has to be several years old by now.

[Froody129]

Some new paste and you’re off to the races. 

[Goghor]

Mining doesn't push the card to it's limit. It is in fact downclocking the card to certain target (MH/s) to achieve lower wattage & thermal. And usually we put so many fans in front of it, and even with more fans than the ones on standard Gamer's case (1 additional fan per GPU). And we use the most High-End PSU to power the card (Corsair HX1200 most of the times), way higher than the average Gamer's PSU.

 

The thing we overclocked is the VRAM. So, make sure to test the VRAM with every GPU Memory testing tools you have to make sure it's still working properly and not giving artifacts or errors.

 

Even though we run the GPU 24x7 non stop, it's running pretty cool though, just around 60-65C max most of the times.

[aisle9]

4 hours ago, Goghor said:

Mining doesn't push the card to it's limit. It is in fact downclocking the card to certain target (MH/s) to achieve lower wattage & thermal. And usually we put so many fans in front of it, and even with more fans than the ones on standard Gamer's case (1 additional fan per GPU). And we use the most High-End PSU to power the card (Corsair HX1200 most of the times), way higher than the average Gamer's PSU.

 

The thing we overclocked is the VRAM. So, make sure to test the VRAM with every GPU Memory testing tools you have to make sure it's still working properly and not giving artifacts or errors.

 

Even though we run the GPU 24x7 non stop, it's running pretty cool though, just around 60-65C max most of the times.

You’re not the type of miner people should be worried about though.

[Mick Naughty]

Neither should anyone mining with a 970. Maybe if this was 3 years ago. 

[LOST TALE]

It's nothing. binge gamers with time on their hands would have put it to more stress

 

my gtx 670 died after 6 years. mined on it for 3 years.

 

whatever. died in sc2

[Exeon]

I think Linus did a video on it.

There is no difference in performance with a mined card vs non mined.

 

These are more intensively used, so how long they still last no one knows, but you could also buy a secondhand card that has been abbused with over the top overclocking or bad use of under or overvoltage

 

Any second hand purchase is a bit of a gamble, but in my experience it often pays for itself, 70$ for a 970 is pretty decent if it lasts

[PineyCreek]

I tried my hand at mining for like half a year on my 1080Ti...and then the past 7 months on the same card I've also been running it regularly for BOINC and F@H.  Card's 3 years old, still going strong.  Only thing I suspect may need to be replaced at some point are the fans.

 

If it doesn't have problems already, you probably don't have to worry about anything other than normal wear and age of components and TIM.  Some of that could be accelerated depending on what environment (heat, airflow) was around the card before, I suppose.

[Goghor]

3 hours ago, aisle9 said:

You’re not the type of miner people should be worried about though.

No, it's real dude. Come visit our sub at https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining

 

Most of us are very careful to set some certain Hertz onto the GPU, to get the best balance between clock & wattage. Maybe the only downside for purchasing 2nd mining GPU is the fans on the GPU, because we are all set it to run 24/7 at around 80-100%

 

And I've seen some of my friends mining Eth with 3080

[aisle9]

7 hours ago, Goghor said:

No, it's real dude. Come visit our sub at https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining

 

Most of us are very careful to set some certain Hertz onto the GPU, to get the best balance between clock & wattage. Maybe the only downside for purchasing 2nd mining GPU is the fans on the GPU, because we are all set it to run 24/7 at around 80-100%

 

And I've seen some of my friends mining Eth with 3080

Oh no, I know you’re good. I mined zcash on a 1060/1070 pair for a while there. Undervolted both with a power limit set to 70, manually set the fans to 50% on the 1060 and 60% on the 1070, and had them both firing along just fine for months straight at temperatures around 60C. I know you’re responsible about it. It’s the “miner” running 4 1080 Ti blowers with a massive OC inside of his Raidmax case with acrylic covering the entire front panel, and that’s sitting directly on the Cheeto-stained carpet with the PSU facing down. That’s who I’m worried about when buying a used GPU from anyone who says it was “only used for a month before upgrading” and “never overclocked”.