Is it worth buying Video Cards After Mining

Current prices for new video cards are very high and can ruin the wallet of the average citizen. This factor may force the consumer to secondary market. When purchasing, the product description may say “after mining.” After all, the price of such ones is much lower than new ones and even on the secondary market they are the most profitable.

In order for the money spent to be justified, and you do not get caught and protect yourself from the hands of scammers, you need to understand this topic a little. Of course, it is advisable to take with you a specialist who understands this. If there are none, then you will have to figure it out yourself. First, you need to understand whether mining has such a detrimental effect on a video card.

Is it worth buying used video cards after mining: quick answer

In short, you can buy such video cards, you just need to carefully check the video card, and do not agree to purchase without checking!
Suitable for checking:

FurMark - video card stress test (mostly tests the GPU)
Video Memory Stress, MemtestG80 / MemTestCL - stress test of the video memory of the card! This is especially important now, since many cards mine Ethereum, and it actively uses video memory
GPU-Z - will show the general characteristics of the card
Run the card in mining, make sure it produces the desired hashrate

After all these checks, you can make a purchasing decision!

Read more about this further in the article!

All GPU IDs of Nvidia RTX 3000 video cards

Video card	GPU ID	LHR	More details
RTX 3060	GA106-300	—	Software LHR
RTX 3060	GA106-302	LHR
RTX 3060 Ti	GA104-200	—
RTX 3060 Ti	GA104-202	LHR
RTX 3070	GA104-300	—
RTX 3070	GA104-302	LHR
RTX 3070 Ti	GA104-400	LHR
RTX 3080	GA102-200	—
RTX 3080	GA102-202	LHR
RTX 3080 Ti	GA102-225	LHR
RTX 3090	GA102-300	—

Introduction

Is it worth buying used video cards for mining? This is one of the frequently asked questions, both during the “crypto winter” and during the growth of rates.

It is impossible to answer this question with a clear “YES” or “NO”, since many variables prevail here:

How long did the video card last for the previous owner?
How well did he take care of it (blowed it out, cleaned it, cooled it well)
This is the purchase of an entire mining farm or video cards from work (gaming) PCs
Is there a manufacturer's warranty?

In short, we are more inclined to NOT buy used video cards for mining.

So, in this article we will figure out whether it is worth buying a used video card for mining, both a used farm and a used card from a computer, and we will also separately consider whether it is worth buying a video card after mining for a home PC.

Which used video cards should not be bought in 2022

As we already understood from the quick answer, you can buy used video cards, but in 2022 there are many video cards that are not worth buying for mining, for the following reasons:

These cards are already very old, they worked in mining (or just in games) for more than 4-5 years! That is, the cards may already be on their last legs
These cards cannot mine most popular coins. Don’t go for inexpensive cards, especially if they are no longer profitable in mining
The cards are almost not profitable and in the future they will be VERY difficult to resell - even gamers will not need them!

So, now let's list the video cards that you should not buy for mining in 2022. It goes without saying that all these cards are used.

Nvidia:

Nvidia 750 and 750 Ti
Nvidia 1050
Nvidia 1050 Ti
Nvidia 1060 3 Gb
Nvidia 1650 (4 Gb)
Nvidia 1650 Super (4 Gb)

AMD:

AMD 560
AMD 470 / 480 - 4 Gb
AMD 470 / 480 - 8 Gb - yes, 8 GB can mine Ethereum and most other profitable coins in 2022, but the video card itself is already 6 years old, and it itself is obsolete, and over the years it could have completely worn out
AMD 570 / 580 4 Gb
AMD RX 5500XT 4 Gb

All of these listed cards are either completely outdated or cannot produce profitable coins. Of course, you can buy a video card with 4 GB of memory for mining in 2022, but you are cutting off your own path to mining most coins! 3 GB cards in 2022 are not worth buying even for very cheap!

Verification using software

Online verification is a superficial method that does not reflect the full picture. If we talk about games, the map is revealed only after several hours of play. Testing from Nvidia is not at all suitable for the owner of an AMD board.

It is recommended to use computer utilities to check the efficiency of the video card as objectively as possible and to obtain more analytical information, such as heating range, maximum power, technical errors. As an example, the most simple and popular programs will be considered.

To read: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti mining review and video card hashrate.

ATITool

A fairly well-known program in narrow circles of users. Needed to test the functionality, performance and error rate of the board. Works better on Windows, starting from XP version.

To check you will need:

Download, install and run the program.
Find the “Show 3D View” button in the menu to start testing.
A window with an image of a cube will appear on the screen, and below is information about the frequency of the reproduced FPS (indicator - frames per second).
We leave the computer to “think” for 5 minutes, observing the progress of testing.
If colored dots, vertical or horizontal stripes, or any other objects begin to appear, the card is faulty.
The first part of the test ends by pressing the “Close 3D View” button.
Next, you need to click on the “Scan for Artifacts” button to start scanning for artifacts.
The number of errors will be shown below.
At the end of the test, all information about the state of the video card, its characteristics and test results will appear on the screen.

The only negative is that the program cannot analyze the heating temperature of the board. This indicator is monitored separately through the 3dmark application or through RivaTuner.

What used video cards should you buy for mining?

This question is much easier to answer. You can buy almost any video card that has video memory of 6 GB or more!

However, the older the model you buy, for example the 10 line from Nvidia, the more problems you will encounter with it in the future. Firstly, these are old cards, secondly, the memory is GDDR5 and GDDR5x (only in 1080 Ti).

But despite these disadvantages, this line is still popular and turns out to be a good plus! The main thing is to remember to check your cards thoroughly!

The best models (in terms of quick payback / price / reliability):

Nvidia 1660 Super
Nvidia 2060 Super
Nvidia 3070
Nvidia 3080
Nvidia 3090
Nvidia 1080 Ti
AMD 5700XT
AMD 5600XT
AMD RX 6800

Now let's talk in more detail about how to buy used cards after mining, what you need to pay attention to!

Reasons for the market crash

This paragraph is a summary of our previous article on cryptocurrency, if you are interested, you can read it, video cards will not run away.

Any fall is preceded by a rise: at the beginning of summer, the rise in the exchange rate of several cryptocurrencies (resistant to hardware optimization) made their mining not just profitable, but super profitable. Since the only means of mining such a “cryptocurrency” are video cards, experienced miners estimated the payback period and swept the most productive models off the shelves. Of course, this activity did not go unnoticed, and a stream of neophytes poured into the topic of “free money”, buying up simpler hardware. Many publications added fuel to the fire by talking about a new mining boom. Since the end of spring, interest in cryptocurrency has been steadily growing: all more or less decent GPUs have disappeared from the market, and prices for the remaining ones have soared by 30, 50 and in some places even 70%.

The result of this chain of events was not only a problem with the supply of video accelerators, but also an increase in the exchange rate of “cryptocurrency” to dollars. Those who didn’t want to bother with assembling a farm simply bought cryptocurrency, waited a few days, sold it at a higher price... in general, a classic currency operation for producing money out of thin air.

Since the concept of mining implies an increase in the complexity of settlements with each mined “coin” (and a corresponding increase in each coin on the market, since more “effort” has to be put in to mine it), such an explosion of interest and the number of active participants could not but affect the mining speed and profitability of the entire enterprise.

As soon as the cash flow from maintaining farms decreased, the most cautious “investors” began to slowly jump ship. Even a couple of short notes about the loss of financial attractiveness of the new-fangled resource was enough to slightly sag the rate of Etherium and some other coins. This led to a repeat “panic” and another outflow of capital, but the further decline was, as they say, a little predictable. Money and people ran in all directions, the “digital Klondike” became indecently similar to the sinking Titanic.

Time

The longer the video card or farm worked for the previous owner, the greater the chances that it will work less for you.

To buy a used video card, it is ideal if it is no more than six months old, maximum no more than 1 year!

Therefore, when looking for used video cards, look only for those that have worked just a little bit and are still under warranty.

Also pay attention to whether the guarantee can be transferred to you. That is, the card must be purchased in your city and for cash. Since if the card turns out to be, for example, warmed up (that is, already broken) and it works for you literally for a week or a couple of months, then it is unlikely that you will find the person who sold it to you in order to go to the store with him and hand over the card under warranty.

Plus, time is a very important factor when it comes to video card parts that may break sooner or later. For example, the most common failure of video cards is the cooler. If you do not immediately notice this, the card will overheat greatly or mining will turn off altogether (due to peak temperatures).

So, to summarize: look for video cards with a minimum service life and a warranty in your city.

Cons of purchasing

Having understood the advantages of the purchase, you can move on to its disadvantages. The disadvantages of this acquisition are:

Possible video card malfunction . Components that have been in mining for a long time and in poor conditions will gradually wear out and, if not checked, may produce artifacts in your computer or overheat.
Fraud . Scammers in the secondary market are quite common. And this applies not only to the video card. Fraudsters can simply hide information about the conditions in which the computer component was located. Or, in a bad case, sell it with a re-flashed Bios, but a completely different chip.
Guarantee . This point is also included in the advantages of this purchase. However, there are nuances. The graphics card may have a valid warranty, but the owner may have taken it apart and the seals may have been damaged. In this situation, the warranty card is no longer valid.
The video card you liked may have been repaired . For example, the video card was warmed up. You can notice it upon inspection; most likely, the printed circuit board will be dark.
A difficult purchase for a beginner . Those who are not well versed in video cards and computers will most likely have difficulty with this purchase. Therefore, you will need to spend a lot of time studying the GPU design and the impact of mining on it.

It can be noted that there were approximately equal numbers of pros and cons. Having looked at them, everyone decides for himself whether he should purchase such a product or not.

Card care

This point is the most important, since its future depends on how the previous owner looked after the card.

First, the card needs to be blown out frequently to ensure it works well and doesn't overheat. Under ideal conditions, the card should be purged every 2 months.

Secondly, the card must be well cooled. If the previous owner did not monitor the temperatures, and the farm worked 24/7 at a temperature of 75+ °C, then such a card can survive much less (but not necessarily - it depends on your luck).

Both of these aspects greatly influence the future life of the card. If all these points are not fully observed, then the card will definitely not last very long, even if you keep an eye on it.

The biggest disadvantage is that in 90% of cases you will not know what conditions the cards were in, since the seller will probably blow and clean them before selling them. It is because of this that you take a big risk when buying a “pig in a poke”.

Separate purchase of video cards from a PC or the entire farm at once?

If the cards are no more than a year old, and if they have been well looked after (which is almost impossible to find out), you can immediately buy a mining farm. Most likely it will work for you for quite a long time.

However, the conditions of maintenance and operation of video cards are almost impossible to find out, so buying an entire mining farm is a questionable decision. We were often approached with questions: “how to clean cards?”, “What is the ideal temperature for cards?”

Unfortunately, people ask such questions quite late, since most of them have not blown their cards for six months or even more, and in an open stand the cards quickly become clogged with dust. After 2 months of working in an open bench when blowing through a video card, you will see how much fine dust will fly out of the card.

If you don’t blow the cards through for so long, the coolers will become clogged, and every day they work harder and harder until they break down completely. This will also affect the temperatures of the cards - they will be significantly higher.

Therefore, we can talk about purchasing an entire mining farm only if the cards have been working for no more than 7-8 months, have not been repaired and are under full warranty.

Buying a video card from a PC is also not the best option. Why? Because there is NO guarantee that this is a card from a PC, and not a cleaned card from a farm, inserted into the computer just for a photo - that is, there is no guarantee that you are not being deceived.

For example, one of our friends bought a video card on Avito. The seller assured that it worked on a regular PC and was very rarely played on, which is why they were selling it because it was no longer needed, since the games had become completely uninteresting to the seller.

The card was visually neat and clean, plus a guarantee was included (from a little-known store).

After a thorough examination, our friend bought this card. After 2 weeks it stopped working normally in mining and crashed from light games.

As it turned out, the card was warmed up, plus everything was already returned under warranty. A little later, it was discovered that this seller was constantly selling several video cards, so it became clear that the cards were after mining.

This short story means that buying a card, even from a PC, is not a guarantee of a higher quality purchase than buying an entire mining rig.

However, this does not mean that everything is so bad. For example, the author of this article has a video card in his computer after mining, and it works great, without any problems.

All this can also be applied when buying a video card for your PC, if you need a powerful card for doing some specific work or for playing video games.

Conclusion

Buying a used video card is still not such a good thing, considering that from the same Computeruniverse you can buy 100% new video cards with a full warranty for not much more.

In general, if you buy a card that works no longer than 1 year and can diagnose and evaluate its condition and find out in what conditions it was kept, then buying used equipment makes sense.

However, we advise you to save some money and buy new video cards, since a very small percentage of people sell video cards (really high-quality ones) only because they do not see profit in mining and do not want to do it anymore.

Most of them sell video cards because they understand that soon the cards will begin to break down (certain parts of them will fail), so they, having sold old cards, buy new equipment with this money. Buying video cards from such sellers does not bode well; perhaps very soon you will have to invest money from your pocket to repair the card (or a certain part of it, for example, a cooler).

Verdict: It's better to save up money and buy new video cards. Or you can buy a used video card if you are 100% sure that the card is in good working order and has not worked for long (plus remember about the warranty!).

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