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Yeah I don't really understand this worry about buying cards used for mining. If you're worried about wear I'd still rather take a miner's card than one that wa

by simias 4y ago

Yeah I don't really understand this worry about buying cards used for mining. If you're worried about wear I'd still rather take a miner's card than one that was used by a heavy gamer and routinely pushed to the limit. I feel like people dislike cryptominers (IMO reasonably, and for all sorts of reasons) and want to punish them all the way by preventing them from liquidating their stocks of cards, but I don't think it's a good reason to make stuff up. I wouldn't buy a card that I know was used for mining because I'm effectively boycotting miners, not because of some made up technical excuse.

hot_gril 4y ago
I'd not be worried about wear but about whatever meddling was done with the firmware (edit: or hardware). Maybe an experienced miner knows how to easily return it back to stock, but who knows who you're dealing with. Someone else can take the chance. Also, PC gamers are the last group I would expect to successfully boycott something. They'll install some spyware-ridden game launcher just to get a $5 discount on a game, while complaining about it. What discount will they resist for a mined-on GPU? $50? Assuming they even know it was mined on.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Easy to reset the firmware (vbios) to stock.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    Hardware fuses.
SilverBirch 4y ago
The only problem I have with miners is that I don't understand the economics. My understanding is that air conditioning in data centres is a non-trivial cost. So the question is pretty much a balance of: Is air conditioning so expensive that it's cheaper for miners to blast these cards at high temperatures and accept a failure rate, or is the maths behind (cost * mean time between failures) so high that the miners are actually selling off good used equipment. You could tell me that either of those things dominate, I don't know. But I would want to have atleast an idea of this before I bought a used miners GPU. Having said that, I wouldn't buy a gamer's old GPU.
- latchkey 4y ago
  The economics are simple: capex + opex. As long as you have an idea of ROI and can lower the cap+op as much as possible, you're making money. Otherwise, you're buying the coin directly. You can't run the cards at high temps or they crash. They also have built in thermal protection where they shut down at about 85c (depends on the settings). Miners also undervolt/underclock the cards. Lower power is better for opex in the equation above. =) This means they aren't run as hard as you might think. ethash as an algo is also memory hard, so the GPU portion isn't 100% at all. That's why older cards are still in use and more ROI efficient.
Melatonic 4y ago
Last crypto crash years ago I bought a used Titan XP for an insane price after the miners started having to dump them super cheap. Still running it today and it has chewed through even the craziest games. They probably bought it for way more so I don't think it is really effective to "boycott" them by not buying the card if you are the one getting a super good deal.

by simias 4y ago

hot_gril 4y ago

I'd not be worried about wear but about whatever meddling was done with the firmware (edit: or hardware). Maybe an experienced miner knows how to easily return it back to stock, but who knows who you're dealing with. Someone else can take the chance. Also, PC gamers are the last group I would expect to successfully boycott something. They'll install some spyware-ridden game launcher just to get a $5 discount on a game, while complaining about it. What discount will they resist for a mined-on GPU? $50? Assuming they even know it was mined on.

latchkey 4y ago
Easy to reset the firmware (vbios) to stock.
- ok123456 4y ago
  Hardware fuses.

SilverBirch 4y ago

The only problem I have with miners is that I don't understand the economics. My understanding is that air conditioning in data centres is a non-trivial cost. So the question is pretty much a balance of: Is air conditioning so expensive that it's cheaper for miners to blast these cards at high temperatures and accept a failure rate, or is the maths behind (cost * mean time between failures) so high that the miners are actually selling off good used equipment. You could tell me that either of those things dominate, I don't know. But I would want to have atleast an idea of this before I bought a used miners GPU. Having said that, I wouldn't buy a gamer's old GPU.

latchkey 4y ago
The economics are simple: capex + opex. As long as you have an idea of ROI and can lower the cap+op as much as possible, you're making money. Otherwise, you're buying the coin directly. You can't run the cards at high temps or they crash. They also have built in thermal protection where they shut down at about 85c (depends on the settings). Miners also undervolt/underclock the cards. Lower power is better for opex in the equation above. =) This means they aren't run as hard as you might think. ethash as an algo is also memory hard, so the GPU portion isn't 100% at all. That's why older cards are still in use and more ROI efficient.

Melatonic 4y ago

Last crypto crash years ago I bought a used Titan XP for an insane price after the miners started having to dump them super cheap. Still running it today and it has chewed through even the craziest games. They probably bought it for way more so I don't think it is really effective to "boycott" them by not buying the card if you are the one getting a super good deal.