18 ms·

A lot of heavily used cards, which were run at 100% load 24/7 for who knows how long. What a deal.

belval 4y ago
Most "professional" miners were actually undervolting to keep the power consumption down so it's really not that bad as long as the price is right. Anecdata but, 3 years ago I got an old mining RX 580 4GB for ~120 CAD (about a $100). That card can run almost everything at 1080p and has been used a lot ever since.
- latchkey 4y ago
  I've got over 100,000 of those RX470,480,570,580 8gb cards running for 24/7 years. It is a total farce that they go bad over time. Not only were ours undervolted, but also individually tuned for best performance/watt. A very difficult thing to do at my scale since the failure mode is a full machine crash. Only thing that really degrades is the paste on the heatsink and that's fairly easy to fix.
  - causi 4y ago
    Also the fan bearings, but again an easy fix.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      We don't have fans on the cards.
      - causi 4y ago
        I would posit the operations that will be selling their used cards to consumers have fans on the cards.
  - j0hnyl 4y ago
    Sounds like you run a large operation. Would you be comfortable sharing what country you're in?
  - belval 4y ago
    I know there is a lot of negativity around mining nowadays, but I'd love to hear more about the challenges of running a large-scale operation.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      The largest challenge was tuning the cards for best efficiency. Next up is just tracking inventory, making changes to the system, etc... this is over 8k individual computers in multiple data centers. We also added a different class of hardware which was blade based... which increased the individual computers significantly. Ended up with a very cool iPXE boot solution for that. I also built some pretty cool software to manage it all. It runs on the concept that each machine is an individual worker that knows how to self-heal itself. Even just distributing the software to so many machines reliably, is a challenge. It has been a fun few years.
Workaccount2 4y ago
It's more temperature variation that kills cards. In a conventional mining setup thermals are monitored and accounted for. A card running at 70C 24/7 will last a long time. Longer than a card that is constantly bouncing around in temperature.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Also untrue. My cards have been running for years in shipping containers that are outdoors and go through full 4 seasons (winter snows to summer heats). Edit: power supplies on the other hand... are a mess. Mostly hand soldered in China... they fail randomly due to the environment they run in. Sometimes, they "die", let rest for a day or two and then fire back up and run just fine.
  - TakeBlaster16 4y ago
    Temperature changes outside don't translate to temperature changes on the die. If the cards are running 24/7 there will be no thermal shock to speak of since they are always generating heat.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      Various machines reboot randomly all the time. Given the amount of direct outdoor airflow that we push through the machines (we don't have fans on the GPUs), as soon as the GPUs stop running, they cool down very very quickly. That is the 'shock' you're looking for. Why do they reboot? We run on the edge of peak OC tuning performance by default and I've built an automated tuner which downclocks individual cards. This way, they get more stable over time, while maintaining their best possible performance. Occasionally, we would reset the tunings and then let them auto tune back... this accounted for the seasonal variances because hotter cards are more prone to crashing.
      - TakeBlaster16 4y ago
        How often does the average machine reboot? If it's less often than 24 hours you're still putting the card under less thermal stress than someone who games for a half hour every evening. I'd buy your used GPU over a gamer's used GPU
ben-schaaf 4y ago
I'd be mostly worried about the fans. IIRC the thing that really kills microchips is heat-cycles, so a continuous load seems pretty good.
- nomel 4y ago
  Is this actually a problem, besides needing to replace a cheap fan? If the fans go out, they just maintain thermal limit. These aren't like old cards, where they would melt.
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    Replacing a GPU fan is generally a lot more involved than other PC fans. Some you have to take the GPU apart (sometimes involving glue) and some fans are harder to get than others. I'd say it's harder than building the PC itself, but still fairly easy.
vorpalhex 4y ago
Don't run your hospital on them. Probably fine for gaming or a little render farm.
staringback 4y ago
Untrue, forcing more usage on a card while mining will immensely increase power usage whilst hardly improving hashrate. Mining GPUs are undervolted and arguably will be in better condition than a hardcore gamer's card.

Most "professional" miners were actually undervolting to keep the power consumption down so it's really not that bad as long as the price is right. Anecdata but, 3 years ago I got an old mining RX 580 4GB for ~120 CAD (about a $100). That card can run almost everything at 1080p and has been used a lot ever since.

latchkey 4y ago
I've got over 100,000 of those RX470,480,570,580 8gb cards running for 24/7 years. It is a total farce that they go bad over time. Not only were ours undervolted, but also individually tuned for best performance/watt. A very difficult thing to do at my scale since the failure mode is a full machine crash. Only thing that really degrades is the paste on the heatsink and that's fairly easy to fix.
- causi 4y ago
  Also the fan bearings, but again an easy fix.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    We don't have fans on the cards.
    - causi 4y ago
      I would posit the operations that will be selling their used cards to consumers have fans on the cards.
- j0hnyl 4y ago
  Sounds like you run a large operation. Would you be comfortable sharing what country you're in?
- belval 4y ago
  I know there is a lot of negativity around mining nowadays, but I'd love to hear more about the challenges of running a large-scale operation.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    The largest challenge was tuning the cards for best efficiency. Next up is just tracking inventory, making changes to the system, etc... this is over 8k individual computers in multiple data centers. We also added a different class of hardware which was blade based... which increased the individual computers significantly. Ended up with a very cool iPXE boot solution for that. I also built some pretty cool software to manage it all. It runs on the concept that each machine is an individual worker that knows how to self-heal itself. Even just distributing the software to so many machines reliably, is a challenge. It has been a fun few years.

Workaccount2 4y ago

It's more temperature variation that kills cards. In a conventional mining setup thermals are monitored and accounted for. A card running at 70C 24/7 will last a long time. Longer than a card that is constantly bouncing around in temperature.

latchkey 4y ago
Also untrue. My cards have been running for years in shipping containers that are outdoors and go through full 4 seasons (winter snows to summer heats). Edit: power supplies on the other hand... are a mess. Mostly hand soldered in China... they fail randomly due to the environment they run in. Sometimes, they "die", let rest for a day or two and then fire back up and run just fine.
- TakeBlaster16 4y ago
  Temperature changes outside don't translate to temperature changes on the die. If the cards are running 24/7 there will be no thermal shock to speak of since they are always generating heat.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Various machines reboot randomly all the time. Given the amount of direct outdoor airflow that we push through the machines (we don't have fans on the GPUs), as soon as the GPUs stop running, they cool down very very quickly. That is the 'shock' you're looking for. Why do they reboot? We run on the edge of peak OC tuning performance by default and I've built an automated tuner which downclocks individual cards. This way, they get more stable over time, while maintaining their best possible performance. Occasionally, we would reset the tunings and then let them auto tune back... this accounted for the seasonal variances because hotter cards are more prone to crashing.
    - TakeBlaster16 4y ago
      How often does the average machine reboot? If it's less often than 24 hours you're still putting the card under less thermal stress than someone who games for a half hour every evening. I'd buy your used GPU over a gamer's used GPU

ben-schaaf 4y ago

I'd be mostly worried about the fans. IIRC the thing that really kills microchips is heat-cycles, so a continuous load seems pretty good.

nomel 4y ago
Is this actually a problem, besides needing to replace a cheap fan? If the fans go out, they just maintain thermal limit. These aren't like old cards, where they would melt.
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  Replacing a GPU fan is generally a lot more involved than other PC fans. Some you have to take the GPU apart (sometimes involving glue) and some fans are harder to get than others. I'd say it's harder than building the PC itself, but still fairly easy.

vorpalhex 4y ago

Don't run your hospital on them. Probably fine for gaming or a little render farm.

staringback 4y ago

Untrue, forcing more usage on a card while mining will immensely increase power usage whilst hardly improving hashrate. Mining GPUs are undervolted and arguably will be in better condition than a hardcore gamer's card.