The LinusTechTips channel shared a new video showing the benefits of buying used graphics cards, even if they were used for mining. The authors set out to disprove the common myth that post-mining cards are a bad buy, and to show clearly that they can be in the same or even better condition compared to used video cards of ordinary gamers.
For testing, LinusTechTips purchased many video cards that were popular among miners at one point. They include NVIDIA RTX 3060, RTX 3080 10 GB, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and others, totaling 19 units. All models were compared with less intensively used analogues.
Kombuster was used to test the GPU, after which several AAA games were run at 1080P, 1440P and 4K resolutions. Any video card that performed 3% worse than the reference analogue was considered defective.
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In general, almost all graphics cards passed the test, including all used RTX 3070s, RTX 3080s, most RTX 3060s, and most RX 5700 XT GPUs. Problems occurred with only two models: Gigabyte Eagle RTX 3060 OC and Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT.
The RTX 3060 from Gigabyte was a complete failure: the temperature exceeding 100 ° C caused extremely low operating frequencies. The YouTuber checked the integrity of the VRAM – the memory completely failed the test. The RX 5700 XT graphics card wasn’t too bad, but failed the Kombustor test, clocking in at more than 3% lower than the reference model, the LTT RX 5700 XT. But in gaming, the graphics card performed well, with virtually identical performance compared to other RX 5700 XTs tested.
Other than those two cards, the rest of the adapters worked flawlessly and effectively worked just as well as when they were new. Again, it’s worth noting that all of these graphics cards were probably used by miners at some point in their life cycle.
Buying used graphics cards is, of course, more risky than buying new ones. Their manufacturers also say this: according to Palit, after intensive use, cards can lose up to 10% of productivity. As in the case of any other products, their resource decreases after use.
The cooling system is at risk – often in such video cards, fan controllers and other elements fail, as a result of long-term constant heating of the board, the thermal paste dries up, and the thermal insulation properties are lost. Also, unscrupulous sellers and fairly skilled miners resolder components.
However, most of the offered video cards are really capable of working for several years without problems. It is better to buy a video card after mining from sellers who offer returns within several months. It is desirable to be qualified to evaluate the proposed product before purchase, and to be able to later remove the cooling system to replace the thermal interface or replace it in case of failure.
A large retailer named the most reliable components – Asrock, Gainward and Inno3D video cards are less frequently sold, and MSI is the leader among motherboards
Source: Tom’s Hardware
