I ran 1500 tests to prove The Media wrong - Testing 19 Used Mining GPUs

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

Cycling vs. continuous use is a difficult reliability case to compare from an electronics assembly point of view. It's true that cycling will kill something quite quickly - in fact sometimes the PCB itself fails before solder joints. On the other hand prolonged heating without returning to the base state might cause some other issues to pop-up and cause an earlier death. Too many factors to give a definitive answer there, and they all depend on how the design was done, was the die flip-chipped directly onto a PCB or did they use an interposer for fanout, what is said interposer made from, etc. These big dies are an absolute nightmare from an electronics assembly and integration point of view.

 

That being said, heavy continuous use (especially at high temperature) will cause the chips to fail quicker due to effects like electromigration, charge trapping and lattice defects I won't bore you with. I haven't really looked into GDDR6X, but I wouldn't be surprised if it are stacked dies with TSVs, in which case they are more prone to failure from that perspective. So if you're planning to run that card that mined for 2 years straight as desktop card for the next 5-6 years you might run into issues near the end of its life. If you're planning to swap it out in a couple of years, should be fine to go. I'd honestly be more worried about corrosion given that some folks were running these mining setups at home in rather humid  garages, etc.

 

Edit: If you want to read more on this one, try checking "Printed Circuits Handbook" by Clyde Coombs. The later chapters give a basic overview of what to expect.

Edited February 6, 2023 by ImorallySourcedElectrons

[Ertman]

On topic - where can one find values to compare the VRAM numbers from AiDA GPGPU testing?

[Ertman]

On 2/5/2023 at 5:33 PM, OhioYJ said:

Even in the video I think his argument fell apart when it boils down to you can save 19% buying used. Maybe just me, but for only a ~20% savings, I'd rather not gamble, I'll pay extra to have something that is new, has a warranty, is coming from a definitely reputable source and that I know it will be good. It's worth the peace of mind.  Used / Refurbished etc, it needs to be considerably cheaper, 10-20% savings, isn't worth it.

If you watched the video then you’d know those were the savings he got without trying to get the best deal, he was just trying to get a product for video, so haggling wasn’t needed.

 

Some of these cards can be had for ~50% of retail or even less, does that change your perspective?

 

Still a gamble either way.

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, Ertman said:

Some of these cards can be had for ~50% of retail or even less, does that change your perspective?

~50% is roughly the point where I start to consider this type of stuff.  However anymore I think it's rare to find stuff at this price point in this category these days. 

[Ertman]

4 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

~50% is roughly the point where I start to consider this type of stuff.  However anymore I think it's rare to find stuff at this price point in this category these days. 

It is possible

[Chiyawa]

Huh, I thought we agree to teach those b**tard miners a lesson, why do we need to buy from them? Let them stuck with a GPU that brings them no fortune and let them pay for the chaos they made. In fact, we should murder them for making our lives miserable, the economy topple, and energy hogging.