How much will mining impact my GPU life span?

[henrudorsey320]

I am looking into mining with my 1060 6gb when I am sleeping and during the day, how much will it shorten the life span of my hardware? I keep it at 65 degrees with MSI afterburner. Should I even mine concurrency?

 

[atomicWAR]

It will shorten the life pretty significantly. GPUs on the consumer side are deigned to be used for a few hours at a time not long bouts like your talking. So basically it depends on how long you mine for. As for whether you should or should not. Depends. Is it economical where you live (ie does power cost to mine cost more then you will make)? Not to mention the fact GPU miners (what few there are after the crash) will want the newer 2000 series which your card will not compete well with.

 

[The prime mediocre]

I think people tend to overstate the impact of mining on GPUs--though I don't have firsthand experience. It'll shorten the lifespan of the fan(s) more than the GPU or memory. That depends on what card you have, of course. I'd expect reference cards to last pretty long.

That said: home GPU mining is over. I don't think it's profitable at all anymore. The difficulty is too high.

 

[atomicWAR]

I think people tend to overstate the impact of mining on GPUs--though I don't have firsthand experience. It'll shorten the lifespan of the fan(s) more than the GPU or memory. That depends on what card you have, of course. I'd expect reference cards to last pretty long.

That said: home GPU mining is over. I don't think it's profitable at all anymore. The difficulty is too high.

I do and it absolutely does affect life by a lot. Doesn't matter if it is mining or folding@home these things burn through GPUs. Fans are most common but the rest of the package will die quicker as well. I burnt plenty of GTX 8000 series cards up folding@home and my wife burnt through a few GPUs just before the mining crash and cashed out. So Yeah it wears cards out.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Classically on older cards mining would really shorten the lifespan, mostly due to heat. However, the 1000 series is quite a bit more efficient than those older cards and runs at lower temps. Unless you are overclocking you should still get a reasonable amount of life out of it. So, you can and it shouldn't be TOO hard on the card.

Now, should you? I'd say no. Even in a mining pool working as a team with other miners, your return would be crap tier. A single 1060 is respectable as far as hash rate goes, but at this point the return on invested time and power, as well as wear on the hardware doesn't really justify the returns you'd get. If you could get in on the ground level of a new currency that had good growth potential you might have a chance, but with the currencies out there right now you are pretty under powered with a single 1060.

 

[atomicWAR]

Classically on older cards mining would really shorten the lifespan, mostly due to heat. However, the 1000 series is quite a bit more efficient than those older cards and runs at lower temps. Unless you are overclocking you should still get a reasonable amount of life out of it. So, you can and it shouldn't be TOO hard on the card.

Now, should you? I'd say no. Even in a mining pool working as a team with other miners, your return would be crap tier. A single 1060 is respectable as far as hash rate goes, but at this point the return on invested time and power, as well as wear on the hardware doesn't really justify the returns you'd get. If you could get in on the ground level of a new currency that had good growth potential you might have a chance, but with the currencies out there right now you are pretty under powered with a single 1060.

Indeed things are better then they were because of the heat as mentioned but things like fans don't care as much about heat as silicon, only hours run. Replacing them can be a real pain too. Despite the heat being lower running cards 24/7 is very hard on them. As stated they are not designed for it. Caps wear out, VRMS pop, you name it. Yes the incidence are less then older designs but I would argue that is usually true anyways. Point being there is still a solid risk to his GPU the longer he mines. To say anything else is well not doing a service to the OP and his hardware.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Most crypto currencies that have been popular to mine recently don't stress the GPU 100% (like bitcoin mining did). GPUs are typically underclocked and undervolted to improve power draw, thereby reducing load on the components (and required fan speed). Also, having a constant load is better in a way in that it eliminates thermal cycling which can result in mechanical stress on the components.

Edit: I would agree that fans would probably wear out faster, but something to consider is that (to my knowledge) the trend of graphics cards shutting off their fans completely is somewhat new. So up until that started being introduced your fans would be running whenever your PC is on. But I don't think many people were worried about wearing out their fans just by regularly leaving their PCs on.

 

[atomicWAR]

Most crypto currencies that have been popular to mine recently don't stress the GPU 100% (like bitcoin mining did). GPUs are typically underclocked and undervolted to improve power draw, thereby reducing load on the components (and required fan speed). Also, having a constant load is better in a way in that it eliminates thermal cycling which can result in mechanical stress on the components.

Edit: I would agree that fans would probably wear out faster, but something to consider is that (to my knowledge) the trend of graphics cards shutting off their fans completely is somewhat new. So up until that started being introduced your fans would be running whenever your PC is on. But I don't think many people were worried about wearing out their fans just by regularly leaving their PCs on.

I agree with most of what you said. As for the undervolting that is something the OP would have to do themselves and if they went full custom bios, also common in the mining community, they would void there warranty assuming any is left. I do remember old GPUs and the fans running 24/7 but I also never one having to replace one. Had cards VRMs die, caps blow smoke but never a fan died even after years of use. Since the fans have gone to stopping completely. I have replaced them a few times. Not a ton but enough to be pissed. Had one die in less then a year while another 30 days after the warranty evaporated. I would argue the quality fans were better on those older boards because the manufacturers knew they had to run all the time but admittedly this is only my personal experience. I could have just been unlucky that last 4 generations. Regardless my point is mining is not risk free to hardware and in a market where it isn't worth much money the risks greatly out weigh any benefits as far as I can see.

 

[TJ Hooker]

if they went full custom bios, also common in the mining community, they would void there warranty assuming any is left.

Very late reply, but I just wanted to point out that you can't do custom BIOSs (mining or otherwise) on Nvidia cards. That's an AMD thing.