Question Does mining really reduce the performance of the graphics card?

[anahone123]

When yes how can i know if my used graphics card was used for mining if i don't have contact to the seller? And when it was used for mining how can i know if the performance got decreased and by how much?

 

[Phaaze88]

When yes how can i know if my used graphics card was used for mining

If they cared for it well enough, you won't know until enough time has passed, or you may never know, if you happen to move on to another card before then.

A card that was mined on stresses the memory controller that's embedded into the gpu die. That's what tends to go first, and is not repairable.
It doesn't reduce card performance - if the seller was using was a mining-specific vbios and forgot to swap it back to the normal one, then that's a different story.

Cards that were gamed on are stressed in a different area: the VRM. That's at least repairable.

If the card was used for both, well, you get wear in both areas.


TL;DR: No, except in the case of a mining vbios.

 

[USAFRet]

When yes how can i know if my used graphics card was used for mining if i don't have contact to the seller? And when it was used for mining how can i know if the performance got decreased and by how much?

Unless he changed the BIOS and left it like that, you can't know "if".

An if it was, you can't know how it was treated.
A "responsible" miner would not have overtaxed it, overheated it, etc, etc.
Key word there, "responsible".

There are many many idiots out there that slapped some parts together, overclocked and undercooled it...all in hopes of getting free easy money.

 

[anahone123]

Is it true that it just degrades the performance of the graphics card through higher temperatures? If this is the case and the temperatures are too high you can just put the fan speed higher and the problem is solved, right?

 

[punkncat]

It is a combination of the work load and heat. It puts the card under a very high load that doesn't stop or lower such as would most games and such.

If this is in relation to purchasing a card you know has been mined on, the price needs to be exceptional and your expectations for performance and reliability need to be low.

 

[jojesa]

Is it true that it just degrades the performance of the graphics card through higher temperatures? If this is the case and the temperatures are too high you can just put the fan speed higher and the problem is solved, right?

GPU mining itself won't degrade a GPU.
But mining 24/7 with a GPU at 100% workload, with fans constantly running and drawing maximum power, causes GPU components to degrade faster because of the sustained use.

 

[Avro Arrow]

If the card is properly taken care of, mining doesn't degrade the performance at all. The problem is that some of these mining operations didn't take proper care of their cards and so the cards suffered excessive wear. I used my RX 5700 XT and RX 6800 XT as mining cards for 6 months (first half of 2022) but I took proper care of them. For example, I had their fans set to 100% at all times to ensure that they ran as cool as possible.

To this day, both of my cards still run perfectly. When you think about it, these mining operations that didn't take proper care of their cards were stupid as hell because those cards were making money for them. They were an investment and you should always take care of your investments.

 

[Eximo]

Wear and tear on the fans.
Wear and tear on the voltage regulation modules and accompanying components
High read/writes to the GPU VRAM, which does have a finite lifespan. RAM is volatile, so the data is reset at the frequency of the memory system. Billions of times a second multiplied by potentially years.
The GPU itself is the least effected by most of this, basically the health of all the surrounding components you have to worry about.

A lot does depend on how the miners treated them. A big pile of them sitting in a hot room for months on end, or installing custom BIOS on them to reduce voltages to save on power in an air conditioned datacenter. Going to get both types and everything in between.

 

[anahone123]

Thank you for the answers