4 ms·

That is not quite true. Miners that know what they're doing will undervolt their cards in order to improve power efficiency, which makes cards run cooler and at

• Retric 6y ago
  You can’t tell from an eBay listing that a given card was undervolt or overclocked. On average it’s far more risky than buying a gamers card which, so their best avoided. Also, undervolting isn’t always the correct choice it depends on how valuable the coin being minded is relative to energy costs. Someone mining in their dorm room for example may not be paying based on electricity useage.
  • Sholmesy 6y ago
    Citation needed? My understanding was that gaming cards are pushed far harder, at higher temps, with fluctuating power and thermals, which causes more issues than a single stable power limit and temperature
    • cmeacham98 6y ago
      Mining cards are run near always, while gaming cards are usually pushed only a small number of hours per day. I have no data to back this up but anecdotally this makes a huge difference in wear.
      • pantalaimon 6y ago
        GPUs are not mechanical parts (well save for the fans but those can be replaced). I would imagine thermal stress from heating and cooling would be the biggest issue - you don't get that under constant load.
        • iforgotpassword 6y ago
          Heat = bad for silicon. Also electromigration. And probably a couple other effects I don't know about.
          • R0b0t1 6y ago
            Heat is bad, but MTTF at usually achievable temperatures is hundreds or thousands of years. Electromigration matters on the order of 100 years.
            • namibj 6y ago
              Well, tell that to my chipset's SATA controllers (Sandbridge generation). Intel messed up their life expectancy calculations, and thus they died after 2~3 years. I think 2 are still alive.
              • o-__-o 6y ago
                Looks like you should have put a fan on that chipset. Like your GPU, which runs at extreme temperatures for extended periods of time!
                • namibj 6y ago
                  It was cooled by the OEM config. And the chipset did get nice airflow.
              • pantalaimon 6y ago
                The Sandy Bridge SATA issue did make big waves back then and Intel did a recall IIRC. Only the B2 stepping of chipsets should be affected by this tough. https://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall https://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6... https://techreport.com/news/20326/intel-finds-flaw-in-sandy-bridge-chipsets-halts-shipments/ https://techreport.com/news/20326/intel-finds-flaw-in-sandy-...
                • 6y ago
      • locuscoeruleus 6y ago
        Huge difference in wear, yes. But not in the direction you think, I think. Warming up an cooling down is more damaging for a card than running constant temperature. It 'jiggles' parts more.
        • AnHonestComment 6y ago
          That seems true of structural components but untrue of silicon, where the heat output difference is literally the GPU being jiggled more aggressively inside by the miner. Heat dissipation is due to jiggling the tiny gates a little every time you fire one: which cycle much more often in the mining case — at a higher temperature, where there’s more likely to be damage.
    • dahart 6y ago
      Where is your understanding coming from? There is no such thing as pushing cards “far harder, at higher temps” than when mining or doing other compute tasks that run the GPU at 100%. Failure rates land squarely on the side of higher temps, and the reasons are well understood https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/444474/can-it-be-proven-that-running-a-gpu-at-high-temps-is-bad-for-the-card https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/444474/can-i... You might be thinking of spinning disk drives rather than GPUs. A lot of people suggest that leaving an HDD powered up and spinning is better than spinning up and down frequently, due to the temperature going up and down a lot and the added wear on this mechanical device. This is completely different from a GPU though.
      • mlyle 6y ago
        Higher temps are bad, but thermal cycles are equally bad or worse. Different things on the card have different thermal coefficients of expansion. Getting warm and cooling makes everything flex and stresses solder joints, wire bonds, and thermal interfaces. Miner cards have longer, sustained high temps. This is bad for life. Gamer cards have lots of thermal cycles. This is very bad for life. Miner cards are more likely to be undervolted to improve power efficiency and thermals. This is good for life. (Lower peak temperature, less electromigration). Gamer cards are more likely to be overvolted and overclocked to improve peak performance. This is very bad for life. (higher peak temperatures, more electromigration). https://www.dfrsolutions.com/hubfs/Resources/services/Temperature-Cycling-and-Fatigue-in-Electronics-White-Paper.pdf https://www.dfrsolutions.com/hubfs/Resources/services/Temper...
        • Retric 6y ago
          That’s testing for thermal cycling over wide temperature ranges or longer lifespans. GPU’s are used indoors and don’t have a very long lifespan. The major risk factor for GPU’s is electromigration which is a major factor in GPU lifespan and directly relates to usage. A 40 hour a week gamer is extremely rare, but a mining GPU is pulling 168 hours a week.
          • mlyle 6y ago
  • gsich 6y ago
    With ETH you underclock core and overclock memory. Core will lead to vastly lower power consumption, while still maintaining hashrate.
• spyder 6y ago
  Also, machines used for mining can be put in cooler places and with better cooling than an average home with a gamer PC.