Paulo Gomes shows on YouTube how the two memory chips differ. (Image source: Iskandar Souza)
The crypto boom is over. At least with graphics cards, mining no longer makes sense since Ethereum switched to the proof-of-stake process.
What remains are warehouses full of unused cards that are thrown onto the used market by their owners. But not all miners are so honest when selling obsolete graphics cards.
Instead, some of them try to sell the cards damaged by mining as new – and use strange tricks to do so.
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Black color is meant to make GPUs look like new
A popular trick is to paint the graphics card memory black. The trick is not new. Such revised maps are said to have been published a year ago TecLab popped up at various Brazilian tech retailers.
At the moment, however, the target of the mining scammers seems to be the Chinese market, where painted cards have been listed as new in various shops.
Why does the black color trick even work? Graphics card memory changes color with continued use. While a memory fresh from the factory is pure black, an increasingly yellow tint is added over time.
The two Brazilian YouTubers Iskandar Souza and Paulo Gomes show how clearly this yellow cast can be seen in comparison. The two also present an example graphics card in which the yellow cast is hidden under the painted black color and show the traces of a mining graphics card that has been cheated on.
link to YouTube content
To protect yourself from such scams, you should make sure that you buy new graphics cards from trustworthy dealers when buying them. At the same time, missing or discolored warranty stickers or loosened screws are noisy PCGamer
According to the website, however, discolored memory does not allow any clear conclusions to be drawn about the condition of the rest of the card. It’s common practice to solder old memory onto new cards if they’re still usable. However, these cards should then be marked by manufacturers as refurbished or refurbished
be designated – and not as new.
The fact that more and more players are taking advantage of particularly cheap offers from dubious sites is also due to the high prices that manufacturers are charging for their new models. Nils opinion on Luxury good graphics card
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Luxury graphics card: I didn’t think it would come to this so quickly
Have you ever been scammed when buying a graphics card? Or do you avoid bargains that sound too good on principle? Write us your experiences and opinions in the comments!
