The used graphics card market is overstocked, the reason being that there is a large volume from mining RIGS that have been decommissioned. Well, there is a test that is easy to detect and that demonstrates its origin. What made his salespeople decide to fire youn hack graphics cards used for miningwhich in turn is as simple as creeping.
Under normal conditions, what the graphics card does when it needs to generate a scene that requires a lot of work is to temporarily increase the clock speed, which means an increase in consumption and temperature. The consequences are an increase in raw power, but a decrease in performance per watt. In the case of mining RIGS, what has been done is to keep the GPU, the main chip of the graphics card, with the clock speed and voltage at the point that gives the most power with the lowest possible consumption . Rather, the improvement came from the other key element.
The pitfall of graphics cards used for mining
And it was obviously the video memory that was clocked, and here we have to start from the fact that memory chips, like many others, are tested under different clock speeds to see if they tolerate their consumption and their temperatures. It’s not usual in a gaming graphics card for the memory to cycle up. On the other hand, in mining it is the case and this causes wear of the memory chips which becomes palpable over time in the form of a yellowing of the chip.
The thing is, if your graphics card’s VRAM dies, then goodbye graphics card, the consequences are things like less memory available to the GPU, lower bandwidth, and even image artifacts from a malfunction . Serious refurbishing companies bought new memory chips to replace the old ones by repackaging, soldering the new chips. The problem is that it can’t be done by everyone, because they don’t have the equipment or the knowledge.
They must therefore resort to a technique that is much simpler and within the scope of their possibilities. which consists on repainting graphics card memory chips so that the effects of wear and heat are not visible. And not only in this part, but also in many others to make graphics cards used for mining look like new. Keep in mind that we are not talking about refurbished and tuned units by manufacturers and assemblers, but we must be very careful when the origin of what we buy is unknown.
A trick, unfortunately, difficult to detect,
Since the vast majority of graphics cards are sold today with the circuitry under large heat sinks and fans, it’s hard to tell if the repaint trick has been pulled off. Think it’s one thing to buy refurbished hardware that’s had maintenance, cleaning and parts replacement and another is a used graphics card, where the owner has put it up for sale and it’s ‘is all.
In any case, and finally, repainting the VRAM is done to deceive and defraud others. That is to say, it’s done on purpose to harm and it’s a shame that these things happen, but unfortunately there are people who do this despicable kind of thing.
