News Crypto Miners Are Painting GDDR Memory to Make Graphics Cards Look New

[Admin]

Crypto miners find new ways to deceive gamers to sell them used graphics cards.

Crypto Miners Are Painting GDDR Memory to Make Graphics Cards Look New : Read more

 

[hannibal]

Nice...
Car "dealers" tricks has arrived in GPU market...
Well actually they have done this for years, but it is good to remain people that it does exist!

 

[Deleted member 431422]

It's getting better and better. The solution would be to save money and buy a new card, but I doubt people will pass on a huge discount. Soon we might be getting more stories like Kris-Fix published recently.

It makes me happy that even though I bought a mining card, mine is fine and when disassembled I could see dust around vrms. Someone cleaned it, but didn't resort to shady practices.

 

[Math Geek]

"i've heard it may not be that good to buy a used gpu, that can't be right. can it??"

i can't stress it enough or loud enough. THERE IS ZERO REASON TO BUY A USED GPU ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW, UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO THROW AWAY YOUR MONEY!!! YOU ARE 100% GUARANTEED TO BE BUYING A MINING CARD AND 100% GUARANTEED TO BE THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY.

 

[atomicWAR]

Between miners and scalpers...they are the bane of consumer graphics cards in regards to consumers. I don't mind a mining card if the person is honest, the price reflects it but most aren't and prices don't. I wish we had better laws in place to protect consumers from these types of purchases.

 

[DavidLejdar]

In other words, cryptotokens didn't bring in much money for the miners, which is why they go to great lengths to sell a GPU for a bag of groceries, huh?

 

[RichardtST]

"i've heard it may not be that good to buy a used gpu, that can't be right. can it??"

i can't stress it enough or loud enough. THERE IS ZERO REASON TO BUY A USED GPU ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW, UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO THROW AWAY YOUR MONEY!!! YOU ARE 100% GUARANTEED TO BE BUYING A MINING CARD AND 100% GUARANTEED TO BE THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY.

Nah. I needed a turbo card (small case with bad airflow), a 3080, and the only ones available at non-insane prices are the used ones. Got it for about $600 instead of nearly triple that for new. Worth the risk for me.

 

[PEnns]

And then we have people here on this forum wondering why their "slightly used / looks new" PGUs stopped working 1-2 days after purchase.....

Or trolls on YouTube blaming AMD drivers for their misfortune with "almost new" cards...all bought from the same scumbag miner!!

 

[ComputePronto]

"i've heard it may not be that good to buy a used gpu, that can't be right. can it??"

i can't stress it enough or loud enough. THERE IS ZERO REASON TO BUY A USED GPU ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW, UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO THROW AWAY YOUR MONEY!!! YOU ARE 100% GUARANTEED TO BE BUYING A MINING CARD AND 100% GUARANTEED TO BE THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY.

Nah. I needed a turbo card (small case with bad airflow), a 3080, and the only ones available at non-insane prices are the used ones. Got it for about $600 instead of nearly triple that for new. Worth the risk for me.

Ditto.

I've personally bought multiple generations of graphics cards over the last 5 years that I'm pretty sure were mined on. They never had problems. I heavily tested them so I could catch any issues well before eBay's 30 day cutoff. The testing turned out not to be necessary in this case, but better safe than sorry!

Ironically, the only bad graphics card I've bought in the last 5 years was one that was NOT mined on. It had water damage because it was in a PC with a leaky AIO liquid cooler.

 

[Math Geek]

Nah. I needed a turbo card (small case with bad airflow), a 3080, and the only ones available at non-insane prices are the used ones. Got it for about $600 instead of nearly triple that for new. Worth the risk for me.

Ditto.

I've personally bought multiple generations of graphics cards over the last 5 years that I'm pretty sure were mined on. They never had problems. I heavily tested them so I could catch any issues well before eBay's 30 day cutoff. The testing turned out not to be necessary in this case, but better safe than sorry!

Ironically, the only bad graphics card I've bought in the last 5 years was one that was NOT mined on. It had water damage because it was in a PC with a leaky AIO liquid cooler.

and thus why we have them happily dumping their crap cards on so many people. some may willingly take the risk, do your thing, but these sleezeballs are clearly making every effort to hide the fact from buyers and tricking them into buying their junk. true so many are going into it with eyes wide shut, but it's hard to open their eyes when folks like you will pretend it is actually a good idea.

do you also forget that the reason the gpu's cost 3x what they used to is specifically due to the miners buying them all up allowing the manufacturer's to keep jacking the price up until they are what we see now. your solution to "they cost too much" is to bail out the people responsible when the mining world fell flat.

enjoy being part of the problem

 

[thisisaname]

If I was going to buy a used 30 series card I would want at least 50% of new price and a from what I seen on ebay prices are higher than this.

 

[randyh121]

and thus why we have them happily dumping their crap cards on so many people. some may willingly take the risk, do your thing, but these sleezeballs are clearly making every effort to hide the fact from buyers and tricking them into buying their junk. true so many are going into it with eyes wide shut, but it's hard to open their eyes when folks like you will pretend it is actually a good idea.

do you also forget that the reason the gpu's cost 3x what they used to is specifically due to the miners buying them all up allowing the manufacturer's to keep jacking the price up until they are what we see now. your solution to "they cost too much" is to bail out the people responsible when the mining world fell flat.

enjoy being part of the problem

Man I'd like to agree with you but these scalpers have us by the balls.
My friend bought a 3090 off ebay for cheap and its honestly worth the risk. If it sucks, we can just use ebays return policy to force the buyer to return the money.
imo its worth the gamble, rather than spending an extra 800$ on a new card

 

[Deleted member 431422]

Man I'd like to agree with you but these scalpers have us by the balls.
My friend bought a 3090 off ebay for cheap and its honestly worth the risk. If it sucks, we can just use ebays return policy to force the buyer to return the money.
imo its worth the gamble, rather than spending an extra 800$ on a new card

The majority of people who are scammed this way don't have the funds to take risks. Used good are not subject to return policy, so I'd save money and buy a new card than pay the inflated prices for something without warranty.

 

[razor512]

While the miner bros will pounce on you just as hard as the NFT bros if you point out issues (they have a financial interest in dumping their abused cards on the used market).

Never buy a card that was used for mining, and sadly in general given the past few generations, you will not get an honest answer about how the card was used. A person who occasionally mined on their gaming card will probably give you the same answer to how the card was used as the person running the mining farm where they tried to minimize that TGP and TB P delta as much as possible, and running everything as close to their thermal limits as possible to maximize hash rate per watt without giving up performance since there is a time factor in mining (race against the mining difficulty increase).

Due to how contaminated the market is, it is best to just avoid the cards released during the mining craze. Wait for the RTX 4000 series, and the RX 7000 series to enter that channel and not be gouged where people use a card for years and try to get close to MSRP on the used market.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I say if you buy used, get it from eBay due to buyer protection and run the card hard when you get it so you can hopefully catch any issues.

 

[randyh121]

Used good are not subject to return policy

They are though. Anything that is defective in any form is covered by ebay, even if the seller says they dont accept returns. There is no risk on the buyers part

 

[Math Geek]

Man I'd like to agree with you but these scalpers have us by the balls.

see there's the problem with your argument right there. you place you balls into their hands by convincing yourself you need the latest, greatest, newest thing out there. $600 will get you plenty of gpu new, it just won't be the best on the market. you can't handle that fact so you risk it all buying used "cause i get more for my money"

but whatever, keep risking it and we'll keep laughing at you when you come here looking for help when it dies on you. i say again. you are the problem and these scammers/scalpers are simply giving you what you think you want. they started the problem for sure, but you are the one keeping it going.

 

[ThatMouse]

Used GPU is probably way overpriced anyway. Greedy.

 

[andrew3d]

There are crooks in every business. i just hate to see them increasing in the computer parts business.

 

[USAFRet]

The majority of people who are scammed this way don't have the funds to take risks. Used good are not subject to return policy, so I'd save money and buy a new card than pay the inflated prices for something without warranty.

And a majority also do not have the computer experience to detect good vs scam in the used GPU world.
They see cheap, and a good write up from the seller.

2 weeks later, they come here with tales of woe.

 

[Dantte]

Had a local guy selling a used 3080 for $600 a couple months ago; first question I asked him was it used for mining? He was honest, said yes, and I offered him $200 sayuing you've more than quadrupled your investment in this card and I'm not going to pay more. He refused to sell and said someone will buy it for the asking price and probably by the end of the day.

Moral of the story, the cards, and for that matter ANYTHING is worth what anyone is willing to pay and its not the scalpers or miners fault, its the idiots buying it! If someone is willing to pay me $1000 for a half-eaten big mac, that big mac is worth $1000! On the other hand, if say I'm selling you a full big mac and you get a half-eaten one, that's not just dishonest, but illegal, just like painting the chips and claiming "it wasnt used for mining".

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I am immune. I don’t buy used electronics ever.

 

[Deleted member 431422]

And a majority also do not have the computer experience to detect good vs scam in the used GPU world.
They see cheap, and a good write up from the seller.

2 weeks later, they come here with tales of woe.

I know. It's sad, but we'll be getting more stories like that. I'm surprised it took so long for the problem to surface.

To be honest, if I wasn't interested in PC tech I'd probably fall victim to something similar. My RX570 had altered BIOS and I couldn't install drivers. I knew the card was used for mining and also knew I could expect such problems. It took some searching, but now I have a perfectly working card for cheap. I don't expect many people would be able to deal with it.

 

[USAFRet]

I know. It's sad, but we'll be getting more stories like that. I'm surprised it took so long for the problem to surface.

" so long"?
This is not a new thing.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...u-around-500-i-can-get.3759854/#post-22675948

 

[Deleted member 431422]

" so long"?
This is not a new thing.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...u-around-500-i-can-get.3759854/#post-22675948

I mean the mining hype ended last year and Tom's with other sites were warning people about such possibilities. I was expecting them to write about such scams much sooner.

I don't follow forums, except the news, so I don't really know what people write about.