News Gaming Performance Tested On 'Worn Out' RTX 2080 Ti Mining Card

[Admin]

An RTX 2080 Ti mining card was tested against a fresh new RTX 2080 Ti in several games to see if mining will reduce GPU performance.

Gaming Performance Tested On 'Worn Out' RTX 2080 Ti Mining Card : Read more

 

[fevanson]

Even if you're not mining and even just gaming it is good to replace the thermal pads/ paste on a graphics card after the warranty period is over (2-3 years depending on the manufacturer). I had an old gtx 770 and it was reaching almost 80oC on the core before I repasted it to give it to a friend, now it runs around 65oC -70oC at full load after repasting the gpu and cleaning out the heatsink.

 

[Gurg]

I'll flush the radiator on my AIO CPU cooler in the sink when compressed air and vacuum can't get all the dust out.

 

[UWguy]

Not even remotely scientific. Click bait video.

 

[lunar.holiday]

Seriously lol. What happened to the quality of reporting here.

"Old mining 2080Ti worn out and gets hot!"
"Definitely due to mining...but there's also really dirty fans that may or may not be related"

How do these people get hired?

 

[Clarence_Darrow]

I agree the article told us nothing many folks dont already know. (GPUs need to be repasted after years of use) But in fairness to the author, he was just reporting on a test done elsewhere. I would be more interested to see a comparison of a larger sample size of "new" cards and a larger sample size of used (some mined, some just heavy gaming)

I bought a bunch of used AMD polaris cards this past summer. Temps were higher on a few, repasted them and have been running for 8 months now straight at cool temps and no problems

 

[JOSHSKORN]

What if all the used mining cards were retrofitted with custom coolers?

 

[digitalgriffin]

The review was fair. TG likely acquired these cards "AS-IS" on the market. I would dare to say few buying a used card don't have the hutzpah to take apart his heat sink from the GPU and do all the above.

I want to see a raise of hands to whom here has actually taken off their cooler on a working card, repasted it, and then took a can of air / toothbrush and cleaned the fins.

BTW: GPU fans wear out with time too. They get noisy, don't run as fast, and eventually bite the bullet. There's also a potential of silicon decay and paste caps failing as well as power delivery circuits. All things to take into consideration when buying a bleeding edge last gen card.

Basically I wouldn't touch one, even if it had a warranty. (OEM's reserve the right not to honor warranties on mining cards. I believe there are burn fuses to indicate a custom rom was used. (this I'm not 100% certain on, but I know Intel and AMD both employ these internal fuses to look for things like overclocking on CPUs)) I might consider a used GPU IF it was half MSRP. Until then I'll just do without.

 

[escksu]

Haha, what a terrible clickbait article that tells us nothing. ITs more like just to promote the youtube video, so pple will click on it and they could generate money.....

Btw, there is NO performance difference between a brand new GPU and a mining GPU. IF both are running at same clock speed for core and RAM (Same RAM timings as well), they perform exactly the same, period....

What happens to a mining GPU is wear, esp. for the RAM. So, RAM may no longer be stable at stock speeds. Its similar to running an overclocked CPU for prolong periods. After some times, its no longer stable and you need to reduce the speed.

 

[escksu]

The review was fair. TG likely acquired these cards "AS-IS" on the market. I would dare to say few buying a used card don't have the hutzpah to take apart his heat sink from the GPU and do all the above.

I want to see a raise of hands to whom here has actually taken off their cooler on a working card, repasted it, and then took a can of air / toothbrush and cleaned the fins.

BTW: GPU fans wear out with time too. They get noisy, don't run as fast, and eventually bite the bullet. There's also a potential of silicon decay and paste caps failing as well as power delivery circuits. All things to take into consideration when buying a bleeding edge last gen card.

Basically I wouldn't touch one, even if it had a warranty. (OEM's reserve the right not to honor warranties on mining cards. I believe there are burn fuses to indicate a custom rom was used. (this I'm not 100% certain on, but I know Intel and AMD both employ these internal fuses to look for things like overclocking on CPUs)) I might consider a used GPU IF it was half MSRP. Until then I'll just do without.

Sell it to me at a low price then!! I will get them refreshed!!

 

[jmc]

The review was fair. TG likely acquired these cards "AS-IS" on the market. I would dare to say few buying a used card don't have the hutzpah to take apart his heat sink from the GPU and do all the above.

I want to see a raise of hands to whom here has actually taken off their cooler on a working card, repasted it, and then took a can of air / toothbrush and cleaned the fins.

I agree with you and not everyone is a tech savy to do a full disassembly to replace the thermal pads or the paste on the die, especially on cards with more than 10 screws.

Its not always necessary to reapply the paste tho but if it is, there can be the issue of damaging a component by lifting the heatsink wrongly, ripping the fan cable for being too short or a cap de-soldering after many thermal cycles, bad mounting pressure (more of an issue on the AMD side)... It happens even with experience.
Getting a heavily used card like this to fully operational can be risky.

This video is more towards the masses who want to get a cheap used card that have little knowledge and use it as it is.

 

[jmc]

Btw, there is NO performance difference between a brand new GPU and a mining GPU. IF both are running at same clock speed for core and RAM (Same RAM timings as well), they perform exactly the same, period....

It can actually have a performance degradation even if you run at low temperature afterwards with these modern chips that have a complex boost algorithm. If the chip is worn out from thermal cycling, oxide breakdown(rare case) or electrical migration, the frequency might drop, just like ryzen chips do after heavy overcloking or under high current for a long period of time. That initial frequency that once had becomes unstable so the chip keeps at a safe range, at lower clocks.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Haha, what a terrible clickbait article that tells us nothing. ITs more like just to promote the youtube video, so pple will click on it and they could generate money.....

Btw, there is NO performance difference between a brand new GPU and a mining GPU. IF both are running at same clock speed for core and RAM (Same RAM timings as well), they perform exactly the same, period....

What happens to a mining GPU is wear, esp. for the RAM. So, RAM may no longer be stable at stock speeds. Its similar to running an overclocked CPU for prolong periods. After some times, its no longer stable and you need to reduce the speed.

Testing Games (TG) has a really good YouTube channel. I don't know who they are, but they make some good comparison videos.

 

[theerodd]

Re-paste, re-pad, and flash the BIOS back, really easy, and sure there might be some degradation although I am certain this is mostly a BIOS concern.

 

[watzupken]

To me, the main concern for ex-mining cards is how long they can last. If one is to get it at a steep discount for say a RTX 2080 Ti, I feel I can still stomach the slight lost in performance. Especially if it is due to thermals, i.e. dusty heatsink + fan and dry thermal paste, I think that can be easily rectified. But I will also keep an eye on the age of the card because that may be one way to determine how long is the card overworked.

 

[brian532]

Even if you aren't a miner, this test shows why it's a great idea to dust out your computer every now and then, and even apply a fresh coat of thermal paste to your CPU and GPU after several years. Thermal paste is known to get dry (especially on laptops) after years of use, which will reduce its thermal performance.

????

I was talking to the arctic silver tech support line just today and they said arctic silver thermal paste never needs to be reapplied. Unless the joint is disturbed arctic silver is good for the life of the machine. I followed up by asking if "life of the machine" means 5-10 years and he said no, he literally means it is good forever, as long as the joint is not disturbed. So, is this idea that thermal paste wears out and needs to be reapplied an internet myth or can anyone point to any study that shows this to be true. I should qualify this by saying with arctic silver and not some factory pad or paste.

 

[Nick_C]

Sponsored article to attempt to dissuade those looking for a GPU from buying second hand?

 

[MarsISwaiting]

It can actually have a performance degradation even if you run at low temperature afterwards with these modern chips that have a complex boost algorithm. If the chip is worn out from thermal cycling, oxide breakdown(rare case) or electrical migration, the frequency might drop, just like ryzen chips do after heavy overcloking or under high current for a long period of time. That initial frequency that once had becomes unstable so the chip keeps at a safe range, at lower clocks.

Miners dont overclock the GPU. your comparison is wrong.

 

[kippapa]

Miners dont overclock the GPU. your comparison is wrong.

That is true for the GPU. Can you please verify that they don't overclock the Memory also; Hint: Look for ethereum mining guides

 

[luissantos]

Performance is one factor, but remaining lifespan is perhaps even more important - and good luck accurately measuring that.

 

[Phaaze88]

I was talking to the arctic silver tech support line just today and they said arctic silver thermal paste never needs to be reapplied. Unless the joint is disturbed arctic silver is good for the life of the machine. I followed up by asking if "life of the machine" means 5-10 years and he said no, he literally means it is good forever, as long as the joint is not disturbed. So, is this idea that thermal paste wears out and needs to be reapplied an internet myth or can anyone point to any study that shows this to be true. I should qualify this by saying with arctic silver and not some factory pad or paste.

I think this statement from them is bull... a gpu will need to be taken apart at some point or other.
While one can use an air compressor to 'blow out' a gpu, it still can't make up for a good, deep clean; dust will cake in areas that can't be knocked out by a compressor.

Even if one filters every inlet/outlet of their chassis, they'll have to deep clean it at some point. Dust is inevitable.
Perhaps in Arctic's defense, the gpu will have outlived its usefulness by the time that becomes a problem...

 

[evdjj3j]

Seriously lol. What happened to the quality of reporting here.

"Old mining 2080Ti worn out and gets hot!"
"Definitely due to mining...but there's also really dirty fans that may or may not be related"

How do these people get hired?

No doubt. I've been noticing a lot of this quality on Tom's lately.

 

[evdjj3j]

The review was fair. TG likely acquired these cards "AS-IS" on the market. I would dare to say few buying a used card don't have the hutzpah to take apart his heat sink from the GPU and do all the above.

I want to see a raise of hands to whom here has actually taken off their cooler on a working card, repasted it, and then took a can of air / toothbrush and cleaned the fins.

BTW: GPU fans wear out with time too. They get noisy, don't run as fast, and eventually bite the bullet. There's also a potential of silicon decay and paste caps failing as well as power delivery circuits. All things to take into consideration when buying a bleeding edge last gen card.

Basically I wouldn't touch one, even if it had a warranty. (OEM's reserve the right not to honor warranties on mining cards. I believe there are burn fuses to indicate a custom rom was used. (this I'm not 100% certain on, but I know Intel and AMD both employ these internal fuses to look for things like overclocking on CPUs)) I might consider a used GPU IF it was half MSRP. Until then I'll just do without.

Hand raised.

 

[sandvik.fredrik]

How can they compare an old mining card with old paste, pads and full of dust, with a new clean card?

There is only one reason for that, to make it seem as the mining has degraded the card.

Everyone knows that a hot card performs wors then a cooler card..

This was a terrible comparison..

 

[Gurg]

I want to see a raise of hands to whom here has actually taken off their cooler on a working card, repasted it, and then took a can of air / toothbrush and cleaned the fins.

About 10 years ago I did the "Mod" on my GPUs taking off the fans and cooler and replacing them with a zip tied small Corsair AIO on the main GPU and heatsinks on the memory and every thing else. Then OC'd the GPU to the max. Influenced by reviews for the AMD R9 290x in 2014 I bought one and came home and ran a Passmark test to see how much my performance had improved from the "Mod" 680 gtx. It had actually declined so I packed up the AMD R9 290x and returned it after owning for less than three hours. Two weeks later the gtx 970 came out and didn't need the "Mod".

Since then I've done 970s in SLI, 980 SLI, 1080ti and current 2080S. Reviews of all of those show little or no improvement from using AIO water cooling vs. mfg air cooling.