[SOLVED] What to know before buying used graphics cards ?

[Windows22]

I had witnessed several GPUs on Craigslist for a good price and wanted to buy. I would like to know the pros and cons of purchasing used GPUs. Is it worth the price? Why are they getting rid of it? How would one determine its effectiveness? If it is ill-advised, why?

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

My biggest concern buying a used GPU is if it has been mined on..if so, its running conditions (hot, humid environment).
Also, when decommisioned and stripped out of the warehouse, how has it been handled, thrown into a box quickly with 100's of other gpus.
I bought 2 Radeon RX570 gpus sold as ex mining cards a few years ago, one had a broken left fan blade and the other had the right fan had sheared off its fans axis so neither card could be used until I took both apart and rebuilt a full working card from the good parts.
I got a full refund on one card and happily built the working one into a cheap gaming pc for a charity.
Both cards had corrosion buildup on the heatsink fins from being run in high humidity or salty location.
The BIOS were left at stock, so werent tweaked for mining, but thats a concern too.

 

[hang-the-9]

I had witnessed several GPUs on Craigslist for a good price and wanted to buy. I would like to know the pros and cons of purchasing used GPUs. Is it worth the price? Why are they getting rid of it? How would one determine its effectiveness? If it is ill-advised, why?

Is it worth the price? Depends on the model and what they are asking, easy to find current prices on various models online to compare to. It also depends on you, many cards are selling for well over what they did a couple of years ago, some used cost more than they did when new. For me, it would not be worth it at all to pay more for a card than what I could have bought it for new unless I absolutely needed it.

Why they are getting rid of it? Whoever is selling it would know, no one else.

It's effectiveness in what way? How fast it is? Look up benchmarks for the model, available online from many sources usually.

I've bought a lot of used computer items, very rarely have I gotten something that does not work but video cards can be a danger area due to how people can run them with overclocking and mining. Best thing to do is to arrange to see it running a stress test/benchmark or a game to make sure it is not crashing or having video issues.

 

[alceryes]

I had witnessed several GPUs on Craigslist for a good price and wanted to buy. I would like to know the pros and cons of purchasing used GPUs. Is it worth the price? Why are they getting rid of it? How would one determine its effectiveness? If it is ill-advised, why?

Unless it's a phenominal deal, I wouldn't even consider buying ANY components from Craigslist. Even IF the seller is offering you a 'try before you buy' with paying just a small sum up front, there are many, many scams getting people for $20-100 at a time with the 'just pay a small amount first,' scam. A very smart friend of mine recently got scammed out of ~$100 this way. (yes, I warned them to no avail)

Even if it's a completely legitimate sale, you STILL have the fact that it's used and without any type of warranty. Mining cards are regularly run in warm/wet environments, 24/7, with a very heavy load on the VRAM subsystem. Even if I was desparate for a GPU, I would not go this route.

 

[spentshells]

What card is it?
If it were me I'd look to a 3050 new or a 6600 from amd