My experience with a second hand mining card (So far.)

Shally · October 30, 2018

So previously I posted a topic a little over a week ago here about whether or not i should buy a second hand mining GPU:

Spoiler

Well I went through with the purchase, and I thought I'd provide some info into my experience so far.

Prior to the card arriving
Communication with the seller was perfect, and it likely will be with miners. With every question and inquiry I asked through eBay he replied within the hour and answered everything directly, and from what I can tell honestly. It's in miners best interest to be honest and transparent since you have a 30 day guarantee, so a card that's dying/dead on arrival without any confirmation for what the card was used for would result in a very negative feedback which reflects badly on the seller.

Arrival
The card arrived a day before it was due which is always pleasant. A upside to buying a mining card is it will likely come almost as new. It arrived in it's original box, with no signs or tear or damage. Inside it was in the anti-static bag, with all accessories and manuals packaged like new. The card was clean with all ports with the correct plugs to avoid dust from entering.

Once I installed the card and the correct drivers I began stress testing it. I left Unigine valley running for 24 hours and kept a close eye on it throughout. At stock settings it ran just as expected, getting a 2523 score on 1080p Extreme full screen benchmark, which was promising. The was also very little sound coming from the fans.

Overclocking
Once I was happy the card performed well at stock speeds I began overclocking. Disclaimer, I'm a novice at OC'ing, but here's my system:
i5 6400 @ 2.4GHZ (Soon to be upgraded to 2700x)
2x4GB 2400mhz
1070ti

After a few hours of tweaking the most stable OC I could get was +255mhz on core clock and 468mhz on memory. My final Unigine score was 2828 and 111fps, which is close to stock 1080. I then left the card running Unigine for another full day and I couldn't see any crashes or artefacting so I'm happy with where the OC is.

Conclusion

The card I bought came on time, clean with everything included. It ran like a normal 1070 ti would do and I have had no problems with it so far. But your luck may vary, and my card will likely have a shorter life span which i am fully aware of. If you want a cheap card and plan on upgrading shortly down the line, mining cards can be a gem. If you think you want to squeeze every day out of your card, a mining card likely isn't for you.

I hope this clears some misconceptions up for some and helps others with their purchases

Mick Naughty · October 30, 2018

Doubt you’ll have issues regardless. I had 1080fe’s there were referbished cards and then mined on for over a year. Still game on them everyday. Components rarely die from simple use.

Shally · October 30, 2018

1 minute ago, Mick Naughty said:

Doubt you’ll have issues regardless. I had 1080fe’s there were referbished cards and then mined on for over a year. Still game on them everyday. Components rarely die from simple use.

My thoughts exactly, if I haven't seen any signs so far I doubt I will anytime soon. Glad I took the risk