4 ms·

> competing with the flood of miner cards entering the market. Remember: don't buy miner cards and let them rot. They artificially generated scarcity thus rais

by thefz 4y ago

> competing with the flood of miner cards entering the market. Remember: don't buy miner cards and let them rot. They artificially generated scarcity thus raising the prices for everybody during the pandemic. And don't believe that a card that has been on 24/7 is safe to use. "but it was undervolted!" means nothing.

zokier 4y ago
> They artificially generated scarcity I don't think there was anything artificial about the scarcity generated by miners; the demand was genuine. Scalpers are a different matter.... > And don't believe that a card that has been on 24/7 is safe to use Are you claiming that it is somehow unsafe to use?
- thefz 4y ago
  > Are you claiming that it is somehow unsafe to use? For your wallet, yes. Do you have any information about the environment in which a card was used? Temperature, dust, air moisture were like in a home or there operated in an industrial warehouse? Fan bearing status after all these hours? Voltage applied? Stock BIOS? were they in an enclosure or in a sort of a case? Thermal paste has been changed? Ever been disassembled? I would not trust a miner's card even if it was a gift. Miners screwed the market over and now they want you to think that their used crap is such a bargain. Let them deal with their waste, don't help them.
  - TomVDB 4y ago
    I'd be more than happy to by a 3080 (or similar) for a bargain price, knowing that it has been run at lower voltages and power levels. As for waste: I very much hope it will not become waste. Why would you be advocating for that?
  - drunkendog 4y ago
    > Do you have any information about the environment in which a card was used? That would be even more true for cards owned by non-miners; most miners will operate at a large enough scale to use some best practices, which definitely isn't true about most people who buy GPUs for personal use.
iforgotpassword 4y ago
Just let them become e-waste and buy something new. Turn on the stove and open all Windows when not at home while you're at it. SMH. And that "not safe to use"? You think it's gonna explode? Worst case it doesn't work, but even that's probably pretty low risk. Hardware doesn't "wear" that way that quickly.
- super256 4y ago
  Exactly. The thing that stresses silicon the most is extreme change of temperature. Guess what doesn't change during mining: Temperature. When mining, you want a steady rate and will most likely downclock and undervolt it in order to get maximum efficiency out of your card. The only thing I could imagine to break are capacitors, but I still have to run into anyone who has issues like that.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Fans, soldering, thermal pads
- thefz 4y ago
  The environmental argument crumbles a bit when defending miners, don't you think?
  - TomVDB 4y ago
    They're defending taking advantage of a miner's forced fire sale. Less waste, lower price for a good GPU. What's not to like?
    - thefz 4y ago
      Why don't you go to a beach and scoop up some oil from the BP spill? It's good oil after all. Let them clean up their environmental disaster.
      - TomVDB 4y ago
mckirk 4y ago
I would actually be quite interested in seeing some numbers to back that up, but I'm not sure if there have been studies on the damage of mining yet. In some ways, letting a GPU run at a constant load (and thus constant temperature) is less damaging than a typical gaming workload I imagine, where the temperature fluctuates often. In other ways it probably isn't (e.g. atoms of the chip 'migrating' over time with the constant electron flow, though I have no idea how much of an issue that is with modern chips).
- thefz 4y ago
  Do you have any idea about where these were kept? Not all mining operations are commercial-like white rooms with people going around in sealed suits. Maybe someone had half a dozen cards in his chicken coop, exposed to dust and moisture and energy fluctuations. You will never know. Would you happily buy that at say, 50% MSRP?
  - sanguy 4y ago
    Yes.
    - 0x0f_4 4y ago
      same
  - seanp2k2 4y ago
    As long as there isn't any corrosion that will lead to premature failure, I don't care. Dust is easy to clean off and I would expect anyone trying to sell a $500+ GPU to at least try to clean it up a bit. Even if not, I have an air compressor and a blow gun. "Energy fluctuations"...what? Power supplies and VRMs are built to deal with this. Check your home with a power analyzer with a high sampling rate and see what happens when your AC kicks on. At the same time, measure the 12v rail going into your GPU when that's happening.
    - genocidicbunny 4y ago
      How do you tell there's no corrosion though? You need to at the very least take off any coolers on the card and look at the PCB itself to have some level of confidence that there's no damage, and even then I've seen corrosion sneak under components where you need to pay really close attention to notice it. If I can inspect a card in person, I would be plenty happy to buy an ex-mining card, but most of these are going to be sold online sight-unseen. This isn't a problem exclusive to mining cards though; people have been selling damaged GPUs as 'working' for years.
saati 4y ago
So, generate artificial scarcity?
Ekaros 4y ago
I don't think there was anything artificial with demand... Just somewhat combining demand from limited other spending and mining. For Nvidia it made no sense not to produce as many ships as they could.
Melatonic 4y ago
This is a horrible take and I will definitely be buying a card at rock bottom prices once miners start dumping them big time.
belthesar 4y ago
This is but one test, but Linus Media Group did some testing and found that mining GPUs worked just fine. Fan time and thermal pad degradation are about the only real detractors from buying a used GPU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKqVvXTanzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKqVvXTanzI Of course, if a card's running at thermal throttle for long periods of time, that has a chance to damage the card, but given that most cards are running underclocked, the likelihood that you'll run into that problem is low.

by thefz 4y ago

zokier 4y ago

> They artificially generated scarcity I don't think there was anything artificial about the scarcity generated by miners; the demand was genuine. Scalpers are a different matter.... > And don't believe that a card that has been on 24/7 is safe to use Are you claiming that it is somehow unsafe to use?

thefz 4y ago
> Are you claiming that it is somehow unsafe to use? For your wallet, yes. Do you have any information about the environment in which a card was used? Temperature, dust, air moisture were like in a home or there operated in an industrial warehouse? Fan bearing status after all these hours? Voltage applied? Stock BIOS? were they in an enclosure or in a sort of a case? Thermal paste has been changed? Ever been disassembled? I would not trust a miner's card even if it was a gift. Miners screwed the market over and now they want you to think that their used crap is such a bargain. Let them deal with their waste, don't help them.
- TomVDB 4y ago
  I'd be more than happy to by a 3080 (or similar) for a bargain price, knowing that it has been run at lower voltages and power levels. As for waste: I very much hope it will not become waste. Why would you be advocating for that?
- drunkendog 4y ago
  > Do you have any information about the environment in which a card was used? That would be even more true for cards owned by non-miners; most miners will operate at a large enough scale to use some best practices, which definitely isn't true about most people who buy GPUs for personal use.

iforgotpassword 4y ago

Just let them become e-waste and buy something new. Turn on the stove and open all Windows when not at home while you're at it. SMH. And that "not safe to use"? You think it's gonna explode? Worst case it doesn't work, but even that's probably pretty low risk. Hardware doesn't "wear" that way that quickly.

super256 4y ago
Exactly. The thing that stresses silicon the most is extreme change of temperature. Guess what doesn't change during mining: Temperature. When mining, you want a steady rate and will most likely downclock and undervolt it in order to get maximum efficiency out of your card. The only thing I could imagine to break are capacitors, but I still have to run into anyone who has issues like that.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Fans, soldering, thermal pads
thefz 4y ago
The environmental argument crumbles a bit when defending miners, don't you think?
- TomVDB 4y ago
  They're defending taking advantage of a miner's forced fire sale. Less waste, lower price for a good GPU. What's not to like?
  - thefz 4y ago
    Why don't you go to a beach and scoop up some oil from the BP spill? It's good oil after all. Let them clean up their environmental disaster.
    - TomVDB 4y ago

mckirk 4y ago

I would actually be quite interested in seeing some numbers to back that up, but I'm not sure if there have been studies on the damage of mining yet. In some ways, letting a GPU run at a constant load (and thus constant temperature) is less damaging than a typical gaming workload I imagine, where the temperature fluctuates often. In other ways it probably isn't (e.g. atoms of the chip 'migrating' over time with the constant electron flow, though I have no idea how much of an issue that is with modern chips).

thefz 4y ago
Do you have any idea about where these were kept? Not all mining operations are commercial-like white rooms with people going around in sealed suits. Maybe someone had half a dozen cards in his chicken coop, exposed to dust and moisture and energy fluctuations. You will never know. Would you happily buy that at say, 50% MSRP?
- sanguy 4y ago
  Yes.
  - 0x0f_4 4y ago
    same
- seanp2k2 4y ago
  As long as there isn't any corrosion that will lead to premature failure, I don't care. Dust is easy to clean off and I would expect anyone trying to sell a $500+ GPU to at least try to clean it up a bit. Even if not, I have an air compressor and a blow gun. "Energy fluctuations"...what? Power supplies and VRMs are built to deal with this. Check your home with a power analyzer with a high sampling rate and see what happens when your AC kicks on. At the same time, measure the 12v rail going into your GPU when that's happening.
  - genocidicbunny 4y ago
    How do you tell there's no corrosion though? You need to at the very least take off any coolers on the card and look at the PCB itself to have some level of confidence that there's no damage, and even then I've seen corrosion sneak under components where you need to pay really close attention to notice it. If I can inspect a card in person, I would be plenty happy to buy an ex-mining card, but most of these are going to be sold online sight-unseen. This isn't a problem exclusive to mining cards though; people have been selling damaged GPUs as 'working' for years.

saati 4y ago

So, generate artificial scarcity?

Ekaros 4y ago

I don't think there was anything artificial with demand... Just somewhat combining demand from limited other spending and mining. For Nvidia it made no sense not to produce as many ships as they could.

Melatonic 4y ago

This is a horrible take and I will definitely be buying a card at rock bottom prices once miners start dumping them big time.

belthesar 4y ago

This is but one test, but Linus Media Group did some testing and found that mining GPUs worked just fine. Fan time and thermal pad degradation are about the only real detractors from buying a used GPU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKqVvXTanzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKqVvXTanzI Of course, if a card's running at thermal throttle for long periods of time, that has a chance to damage the card, but given that most cards are running underclocked, the likelihood that you'll run into that problem is low.