Environmental obsession will soon appear on our computers and among the topics will be the treatment of waste and the use of resources. well, the graphics card recycling It will be one of the things we see the most in the years to come. What will it consist of? Will this result in cost overruns for end users? Let’s see.
Graphics cards are found in various types of computers, from those integrated into the chip of our mobile phone to several of them installed in a high-powered server or even a supercomputer. However, over time their Memento Morí approaches, either due to breakage or replacement, they will cease to function. Of course, they will never disappear and will become waste that will have to be treated, either by recycling them, or by giving these products a second life.
How is the recycling of graphics cards done?
There are several things that can be done when a graphics card is obsolete in order to avoid environmental impact. For example, one of the most common is to give the material that for us no longer performs well and is obsolete for those who are good enough. Especially schools, public administration and even NGOs of different types if we cooperate. However, this is not the only thing that is done. Of course, the solutions that go further are industrial grade from a resource utilization perspective and can be replicated from home, but they are not yet fully applied yet.
The first method is to take the faulty graphics cards to the store to see if they can be reused with a complex parts swap repair. These models will be sold refurbished in store. However, as recycling regulations become stricter, we will see an additional step in component recycling. Since these will be discarded and given new life. Either as memory in a model or the GPU will be reused. Maybe the graphics card from a gaming laptop has served a while in a desktop graphics card.
Obviously, manufacturers will need to have methodologies to check the quality levels of used parts and whether they can have a second life in a new product. As you will understand, we are not talking about parts that have been forced to extreme overclocking outside of what is natural to them. However, it has been shown that a properly maintained component can last for decades without issue.
Could this be the end of the low ranges?
Well yes, because it is possible that in a while we will no longer see this segment in the graphics card market, since these do not give a lot of margins and even more so with inflation. The performances of these models are too high for those who want something simple and for the rest it is the opposite. The best solution? Take advantage of older hardware for input ranges, as they don’t need more power.
In this way, manufacturers save on creating a graphics chip with low margins that will earn them little money, and a second life is given to models that are not competitive to play. Although some of these end up in the trash, we have at least saved ourselves from manufacturing more than necessary and consuming fewer resources thanks to this recycling of graphics cards.
