Is the mining thing slowing down?

[oldmanbal]

It depends on your definition of "make money." You can turn pretty much any higher end video card loose on Nicehash and make $1 a day in BTC. You'll never get rich from it, but you will turn a profit.

I have a 970 in my living room media box that casually makes $1/day on nicehash. I just keep it running all the time when I'm not watching movies or soft gaming on the big screen. Once a month I shift the funds off the account for it. When Bitcoin drops below 7 grand I turn it off since the price of electricity starts to get close to hazardous.

I have rigs with dedicated miners that do other fare, but for someone just looking to do it casually, literally anyone with a mid range GPU can make a little money off of it. Over the course of a year it really adds up.

 

[KazeoHin]

It's not instability alone. It's instability due to overclocking. You did not under volt your VRAM, you overclocked it you increased leakage you increased temps. That right there is evidence, deduced by YOUR VERY OWN interpretations of what can cause failures. Now you're trying ot say "well yeah, but only if it gets very hot"

What's very hot? Whats a little hotter? and at what duration at these random temps is ok or not ok? You haven't the slightest clue. You got caught up in your own failed arguments and now you're virtually regurgitating random piles of shit to see what sticks.

First off, I don't mine. I just see no issue with it.

Second, Miners don't tend to overvolt things at all. its better to run slower and more efficiently than to run faster but less profitably. Most miners undervolt their cores and memory.

I'll go back to my original point. Turning up the clockspeed to the point of instability without touching the voltage will not harm a chip. Increasing the clockspeed by 50% (which by the way, is basically impossible on RAM) will increase the temperature by 50%. Which means you go from 50 to 75, or from 60 to 90. That's with a ridiculous 50% overclock. How about that 10-15% OC you're popping a vein about? Sorry to say, that extra temperature isn't going to damage a chip.

 

[dragonstongue]

^^ AHAHAHAHAHA.. that would suck SOOO BAD...10 for effort, mins 10000000000 for complete miss of target lool

as for the optimizing of clocks etc, that depends on the miner in question.

Some will reduce volts optimize clocks etc but people are people, so there is just as many likely that dont give a crap and will run it as it is even if it means burning tons of excess power that THEY do not pay for and even should they burn up cards, power supplies or what have you, that is ok, they are making bank.

Just like many folks will drive their vehicle responsibly there are just as many that run it like they stole it, just because they can ^.^

 

[RamonGTP]

View attachment 68827

First off, I don't mine. I just see no issue with it.

Second, Miners don't tend to overvolt things at all. its better to run slower and more efficiently than to run faster but less profitably. Most miners undervolt their cores and memory.

I'll go back to my original point. Turning up the clockspeed to the point of instability without touching the voltage will not harm a chip. Increasing the clockspeed by 50% (which by the way, is basically impossible on RAM) will increase the temperature by 50%. Which means you go from 50 to 75, or from 60 to 90. That's with a ridiculous 50% overclock. How about that 10-15% OC you're popping a vein about? Sorry to say, that extra temperature isn't going to damage a chip.

You don’t know what will or won’t harm a chip. You’re guessing. There’s instability for a reason. At a certain point even voltage doesn’t cure instability. Your own argument for overlooking failed misrabily now you’re switching it up saying it’s arill ok because it’s only a little hotter.

 

[Archaea]

What theory are you trying to put to work exactly?

Your theory that my memory overclock, while mining, has degraded my card in any way.

 

[Archaea]

Well lets see... Are you of the opinion that clocking your VRAM to levels that would lockup and/or artifact nearly any game you play, is perfectly safe for the card?

Your answer to this question will also answer the idiot question.

Yes. For mining. With repetitious calculations, my power target and cool thermals. The way I’m using the card to mine is not degrading the card in any way. I also use the card for gaming regularly (when not mining) so that’s precisely the reason I issued you the challenge based on your assumption. Prove me wrong. Surely 9 months of Mining with my two 1080ti cards that I bought last summer should be enough to start showing signs of this damnable dedregation.

 

[RamonGTP]

Your theory that my memory overclock, while mining, has degraded my card in any way.

I didn’t say *your* memory clock has degraded your card. I said that overclocking to unstable speeds can damage the card. All you’ll prove is that your card still works. Which it very well might. A working card doesn’t mean it’s life span hasn’t been reduced.

 

[RamonGTP]

Yes. For mining. With repetitious calculations, my power target and cool thermals. The way I’m using the card to mine is not degrading the card in any way. I also use the card for gaming regularly (when not mining) so that’s precisely the reason I issued you the challenge based on your assumption. Prove me wrong. Surely 9 months of Mining with my two 1080ti cards that I bought last summer should be enough to start showing signs of this damnable dedregation.

So mining with repetitious calculations is your metric that it’s perfectly fine. My metric is If at that speed games are unstable, and that instability is also reputable, that it’s not perfectly fine. What makes your metric valid and mine invalid?

 

[Archaea]

So mining with repetitious calculations is your metric that it’s perfectly fine. My metric is If at that speed games are unstable, and that instability is also reputable, that it’s not perfectly fine. What makes your metric valid and mine invalid?

Cause I’ve tested my metric with something like 60 cards????

And you’re making stuff up!!!

If I ran my card at thermal limit 24/7 yes there is demonstrated evidence it shortens the capicator lifespan and the fan lifespan will be decreased. My cards aren’t doing that and I’ll contend that most miners don’t do that either - because it is LESS profitable. It’s not like you even have to rely on people being good samaritans — it’s simply LESS profitable to run the cards full bore and deal with thermals and downclocking and increased electricity use. Sure there are some that do so - greenhorns mostly, but I’m not one of them.

If you don’t increase over stock voltage I’ve NEVER hurt any computer component over all these years and I’ve overclocked nearly every CPU and GPU I’ve had since 1997 when I bought my own first PC my first semester in college. I feel just as strongly that a 10-15% voltage overclock is as safe as stock. (By the time any potential dedregation has been realized the component would be so outdated so as not to matter)

 

[KazeoHin]

You don’t know what will or won’t harm a chip. You’re guessing. There’s instability for a reason. At a certain point even voltage doesn’t cure instability. Your own argument for overlooking failed misrabily now you’re switching it up saying it’s arill ok because it’s only a little hotter.

Sorry dude, now you're falling back. Saying " You don't know ALL the variables, so you're wrong!" is one of the more juvenile things you can do when losing an argument. I gave you exact numbers for how much an increase in clockspeeds will effect a chip's temperature. Also, that's not a guess, is documented fact. My argument has not failed, as you have yet to refute it.

My point: "increasing the clockspeed does not inherently damage a chip"

You're response: "NYUH UH, STUPID"

My Point: "Increasing the voltage is what kills the chip, not the clockspeed"

You're response "NYUH UH, STOOPID"

My Point: "We know the memory clockspeeds, we know that they are unstable (as you have claimed) thus we know the range of voltages that could have been used"

You're response: "YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING THUS YOUR WRONG"


Prove me wrong.

 

[RamonGTP]

Cause I’ve tested my metric with something like 60 cards????

And you’re making stuff up!!!

If I ran my card at thermal limit 24/7 yes there is demonstrated evidence it shortens the capicator lifespan and the fan lifespan will be decreased. My cards aren’t doing that and I’ll contend that most miners don’t do that either - because it is LESS profitable. It’s not like you even have to rely on people being good samaritans — it’s simply LESS profitable to run the cards full bore and deal with thermals and downclocking and increased electricity use. Sure there are some that do so - greenhorns mostly, but I’m not one of them.

If you don’t increase over stock voltage I’ve NEVER hurt any computer component over all these years and I’ve overclocked nearly every CPU and GPU I’ve had since 1997 when I bought my own first PC my first semester in college. I feel just as strongly that a 10-15% voltage overclock is as safe as stock. (By the time any potential dedregation has been realized the component would be so outdated so as not to matter)

Am I?

Let me ask you this. Do you think component makers like Samsung for example would agree with your metric? You think they'd say "oh yeah, as long as your mining app isn't crashing, you're free to over clock our memory chips as high as youd like"

How about AIB's. If one of your cards failed under warranty and you wanted to process an RMA, would you volunteer that the memory was overclocked to +500-800Mhz?

I have a feeling the answer is NO to both those scenarios.

 

[RamonGTP]

Sorry dude, now you're falling back. Saying " You don't know ALL the variables, so you're wrong!" is one of the more juvenile things you can do when losing an argument. I gave you exact numbers for how much an increase in clockspeeds will effect a chip's temperature. Also, that's not a guess, is documented fact. My argument has not failed, as you have yet to refute it.

My point: "increasing the clockspeed does not inherently damage a chip"

You're response: "NYUH UH, STUPID"

My Point: "Increasing the voltage is what kills the chip, not the clockspeed"

You're response "NYUH UH, STOOPID"

My Point: "We know the memory clockspeeds, we know that they are unstable (as you have claimed) thus we know the range of voltages that could have been used"

You're response: "YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING THUS YOUR WRONG"


Prove me wrong.

I have no idea what you're even talking about anymore and I'm pretty sure you don't either. There is no falling back. Your own "overclocking 101" argument filed to get you where you wished it would and you're just spewing out random words at this point

 

[KazeoHin]

I have no idea what you're even talking about anymore and I'm pretty sure you don't either. There is no falling back. Your own "overclocking 101" argument filed to get you where you wished it would and you're just spewing out random words at this point

Lets look at the quote that triggered you:

Unstable overclocks do not harm hardware. This is overclocking 101 here.

Hardware is harmed by temperature spikes at the transistor level, either through too high whole-chip temperatures or extreme voltage producing micro hotspots.

You have yet to refute this.

Sure, you've said I was wrong, you've said I'm uneducated, you've said things like "you don't know what you're talking about"....


but you haven't refuted the point.

like I said:

Prove me wrong.

 

[Archaea]

Am I?

Let me ask you this. Do you think component makers like Samsung for example would agree with your metric? You think they'd say "oh yeah, as long as your mining app isn't crashing, you're free to over clock our memory chips as high as youd like"

How about AIB's. If one of your cards failed under warranty and you wanted to process an RMA, would you volunteer that the memory was overclocked to +500-800Mhz?

I have a feeling the answer is NO to both those scenarios.

It’s apparent you haven’t spent much time with overclocking. I have, for over 20 years.

I’d have no problem telling anyone I overclocked the memory to 585mhz and the power target to 75%. I’d have no problem mentioning that in my RMA request to EVGA if such a need arose because EVGA is a no nonsense tech company that would understand that’s not going to damage the card and not be looking for a way to weasel out of warranty support like a company like powercolor.

And I’d have no problem buying cards used from someone who did the same. In fact I bought 9, 1070s used last week from someone who did similar. They work perfectly.

But it seems we keep going round and round. You, with junk made up data, and supposed outcomes,(but no real world qualifiers) and others in this thread countering your inexperience.

I’m still waiting on the clock settings you are going to provide to show me clearly how my 1080tis have deteriorated with mining.
Should be easy after all to conclusively point out how my cards are failing?!!?

 

[Archaea]

razor1,

At this point how many hundreds of cards have you used for mining?

How many have failed due to overclocking the memory to a MHz that is beyond what the card would be stable for in gaming???

 

[KazeoHin]

razor1,

At this point how many hundreds of cards have you used for mining?

How many have failed due to overclocking the memory to a MHz that is beyond what the card would be stable for in gaming???

Spoiler alert: few if any.

 

[Master_shake_]

razor1,

At this point how many hundreds of cards have you used for mining?

How many have failed due to overclocking the memory to a MHz that is beyond what the card would be stable for in gaming???

i don't think you'll ever get an answer

 

[RamonGTP]

It’s apparent you haven’t spent much time with overclocking. I have, for over 20 years.

I’d have no problem telling anyone I overclocked the memory to 585mhz and the power target to 75%. I’d have no problem mentioning that in my RMA request to EVGA if such a need arose because EVGA is a no nonsense tech company that would understand that’s not going to damage the card and not be looking for a way to weasel out of warranty support like a company like powercolor.

And I’d have no problem buying cards used from someone who did the same. In fact I bought 9, 1070s used last week from someone who did similar. They work perfectly.

But it seems we keep going round and round. You, with junk made up data, and supposed outcomes,(but no real world qualifiers) and others in this thread countering your inexperience.

I’m still waiting on the clock settings you are going to provide to show me clearly how my 1080tis have deteriorated with mining.
Should be easy after all to conclusively point out how my cards are failing?!!?

There are real world cards that have failed that were mined on. I'm sure both you and I can do a google search and find examples of such things happening, so i'm not even sure why you're saying I'm "making this up" because it provides me a very easy avenue to show you that i'm not... I get it, you're trying to win a debate. Shall I do the google search for you?

 

[KazeoHin]

There are real world cards that have failed that were mined on. I'm sure both you and I can do a google search and find examples of such things happening, so i'm not even sure why you're saying I'm "making this up" because it provides me a very easy avenue to show you that i'm not... I get it, you're trying to win a debate. Shall I do the google search for you?

Most gold-rusher cards sold off early were thrashed hard, I wouldn't doubt most would have problems.

But long term miners generally want their equipment to last as long as possible.

 

[noko]

Seems like more gamers have had failed cards than miners. I reduce volts, temps and power limits and keep things cool and constant -> No issues, no apparent degradation on 8 cards that are running virtually 24/7, most of them over 4 months some 9 months. I seem to only push a card or cards when gaming when I take the voltage, temperatures etc. back to stock or OC. Keep it cool, voltage reasonable ( in my case lower) and error free ( folks, most miners let you know if your video card is developing errors, as in not calculating it right) -> when you see 50,000 shares accepted and 0 errors -> ahmmm you are not pushing the video card or memory too much.

Looking at used cards and they are starting to be reasonable - was about to pick up another 1070 for $370 but decided na, that is like slightly under MSRP plus AMD cards right now are kicking ass for mining. A water cooled Vega FE (looks more like a user setup water cooler) $700. I paid $749 each for both of mine, air cooled. In other words prices used are getting to point where it may perk the interest of miners like me. I will just keep my eyes open as time goes on and what the mining situation is.

 

[Archaea]

There are real world cards that have failed that were mined on. I'm sure both you and I can do a google search and find examples of such things happening, so i'm not even sure why you're saying I'm "making this up" because it provides me a very easy avenue to show you that i'm not... I get it, you're trying to win a debate. Shall I do the google search for you?

Antecdotal. Shall I find for you examples of gamers who’s cards have required RMAs?

Thing is you have no clue and you keep stating your hypothesis like it’s a sure, proven thing.

At least the miners who are countering you are providing real world experience with numbers.

 

[Furious_Styles]

I don't really see what the hell Ramon is railing against. Miners invested in these cards and they want to protect their investment as much as they can. A damaged card is a card that makes them no money. Lots of GPUs we buy off the shelf come factory OC'd, so does that mean they are going to be damaged eventually by just using them for desktop/gaming use? No.

I've come across a couple people like Ramon though who think any cards used to mine are somehow tainted and not worth buying. 10 series cards are bios locked so generally you shouldn't be worried buying them second hand imho.

 

[RamonGTP]

Antecdotal. Shall I find for you examples of gamers who’s cards have required RMAs?

Thing is you have no clue and you keep stating your hypothesis like it’s a sure, proven thing.

At least the miners who are countering you are providing real world experience with numbers.

What real world experience with numbers? Is that not anecdotal too? Why is your anecdotal evidence superior to another piece of anecdotal evidence? Higher clock speeds causing higher temperatures, more leakage isn't made up. Unless you think physics is made up.

 

[RamonGTP]

I don't really see what the hell Ramon is railing against. Miners invested in these cards and they want to protect their investment as much as they can. A damaged card is a card that makes them no money. Lots of GPUs we buy off the shelf come factory OC'd, so does that mean they are going to be damaged eventually by just using them for desktop/gaming use? No.

I've come across a couple people like Ramon though who think any cards used to mine are somehow tainted and not worth buying. 10 series cards are bios locked so generally you shouldn't be worried buying them second hand imho.

Does the factory OC cause games to artifact and/or lock up? I've actually purchased a card that was mined on before and it's working fine.

I don't think you understand what i'm getting at. Sure you can mine and you may never run into an issue. The problem is the sales pitch a lot of miners give when selling the card. That it was under volted or under clocked (referring to the GPU) like they did the buyer a favor or somehow it's in better condition than a used gaming card. They do not mention that the card was run for months or years at a VRAM clock that would have never made it through a single hour of gameplay. Its only being mentioned here because I brought it up, and now those same miners that would never tell you that in the FS forum are telling you that it makes zero difference how high the VRAM gets pushed to. If it's stable while mining, there is no problems. If you want to believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

 

[Algrim]

Neither my wife or I have ever mined. We've had three graphics cards fail out of possibly a dozen or so. Shit happens; MTBF is a thing because you will have things fail early and some things will last until the heat death of the universe (oh, okay, not that long).

 

[Nebell]

I've had my 13 GTX 1060 oced (+150core, +400mem) and working since mid June 2017, that is 10 full months with an uptime of 24/7. The temp depends on the card but usually between 50C and 70C. No issues at all with any of them (now I've jinxed it).

 

[Furious_Styles]

Does the factory OC cause games to artifact and/or lock up? I've actually purchased a card that was mined on before and it's working fine.

I don't think you understand what i'm getting at. Sure you can mine and you may never run into an issue. The problem is the sales pitch a lot of miners give when selling the card. That it was under volted or under clocked (referring to the GPU) like they did the buyer a favor or somehow it's in better condition than a used gaming card. They do not mention that the card was run for months or years at a VRAM clock that would have never made it through a single hour of gameplay. Its only being mentioned here because I brought it up, and now those same miners that would never tell you that in the FS forum are telling you that it makes zero difference how high the VRAM gets pushed to. If it's stable while mining, there is no problems. If you want to believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Have you seen any evidence of lots of failures though? I'm just not sure how the memory gets damaged with lower voltage/proper cooling. After many years of OCing I've realized that OCs were often game specific. Sometimes you locked in one that worked for everything you played but then you would buy a new game and it would fail and you would have to dial it back/tweak it perhaps. Never in that time did I read about anyone saying someone elses' clocks were "too high" and that it would damage the card if they ran them that high.

 

[Archaea]

Have you seen any evidence of lots of failures though? I'm just not sure how the memory gets damaged with lower voltage/proper cooling. After many years of OCing I've realized that OCs were often game specific. Sometimes you locked in one that worked for everything you played but then you would buy a new game and it would fail and you would have to dial it back/tweak it perhaps. Never in that time did I read about anyone saying someone elses' clocks were "too high" and that it would damage the card if they ran them that high.

Yep - people try to overclock System Memory allllllllllllllllllll the time. 2133Mhz is the basis for all DDR4 RAM. If you buy 3200Mhz DDR4 - you are buying overclocked RAM. If your motherboard applies to low a voltage to the 3200Mhz RAM (1.2 vs. 1.4 or whatever) it doesn't fry the RAM, it simply doesn't work at rated speed or will have errors at rated speed.

Think how many people have CPU overclocks that aren't stable in something like Prime 95 for any length of time but are stable for daily workloads. Those CPUs aren't damaged.

 

[Gideon]

Used mining cards are only worth 30% of current MSRP due to all the wear and tear on the card. Extreme usage will always be harder on components that were not made for 100% use all the time. Heat will always be the enemy and many miners dont care how hot it runs just as long as it's getting max output. Anything man made has a limited life span and running it at 100% will shorten it no matter what. I am sure a flood of mining cards are coming especially as summer approaches and the probability tanks even more.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Used mining cards are only worth 30% of current MSRP due to all the wear and tear on the card. Extreme usage will always be harder on components that were not made for 100% use all the time. Heat will always be the enemy and many miners dont care how hot it runs just as long as it's getting max output. Anything man made has a limited life span and running it at 100% will shorten it no matter what. I am sure a flood of mining cards are coming especially as summer approaches and the probability tanks even more.

As I've said before maybe some miners don't care (the dumb ones) the others do because:
1) a broken card makes them no money
2) a broken card's resale is significantly lower than a working one.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

Profitability is actually going back up, on a 1080ti, its nearly at $3.50 per card for the last couple of days, vs the $1.50-$2 it has been for a while

 

[Furious_Styles]

Yep - people try to overclock System Memory allllllllllllllllllll the time. 2133Mhz is the basis for all DDR4 RAM. If you buy 3200Mhz DDR4 - you are buying overclocked RAM. If your motherboard applies to low a voltage to the 3200Mhz RAM (1.2 vs. 1.4 or whatever) it doesn't fry the RAM, it simply doesn't work at rated speed or will have errors at rated speed.

Think how many people have CPU overclocks that aren't stable in something like Prime 95 for any length of time but are stable for daily workloads. Those CPUs aren't damaged.

I think I need to just accept that some people have a bias against the whole mining trend (for whatever reason) and I understand the high prices suck for those trying to upgrade but most of the fear and scare about mined on cards seems really unfounded to me.

 

[RamonGTP]

Have you seen any evidence of lots of failures though? I'm just not sure how the memory gets damaged with lower voltage/proper cooling. After many years of OCing I've realized that OCs were often game specific. Sometimes you locked in one that worked for everything you played but then you would buy a new game and it would fail and you would have to dial it back/tweak it perhaps. Never in that time did I read about anyone saying someone elses' clocks were "too high" and that it would damage the card if they ran them that high.

You aren’t lowering voltage to the memory. You’re getting system ram and vram confused.

 

[kirbyrj]

Used mining cards are only worth 30% of current MSRP due to all the wear and tear on the card. Extreme usage will always be harder on components that were not made for 100% use all the time. Heat will always be the enemy and many miners dont care how hot it runs just as long as it's getting max output. Anything man made has a limited life span and running it at 100% will shorten it no matter what. I am sure a flood of mining cards are coming especially as summer approaches and the probability tanks even more.

1. Wear and tear? The only wear and tear item on them is the fan.
2. What is more extreme? Mining on a card a 70-80% power target at a constant 60C or playing a game with a max overclock with a 120% power target with extreme heat/cold cycles? The answer is #2.
3. What miners are you talking about that don't care how hot it runs? That's a complete straw man as any miner worth his salt doesn't run extreme OC'd settings for max output. There is a balance between heat/power usage/profitability that everyone is striving for.
4. Shorten the lifespan to what? I still have old AMD 7950's that I mined with that work fine to this day. I have a 8 year old Xeon X5660 that was a datacenter pull still running fine. By the time that most of the parts reach the end of their lifespan, they are useless anyway (or at least very cheaply replaceable).
5. If anything profitability is up as BTC has increased in price to ~$9300 up from ~$7000.

Disclosure: I'm not a professional miner. I have one card I mine with in my spare time, and make maybe $75 a month. I wouldn't think twice about buying a mining card over the top card in an SLI setup of an extreme gamer.

 

[Furious_Styles]

You aren’t lowering voltage to the memory. You’re getting system ram and vram confused.

I'm not, I was talking about only GPU OCing. Also I'm pretty sure on the 10 series cards the voltage is distributed dynamically by the card between the core/mem/other so why would you assume the memory is getting the lion's share of the voltage output?

 

[RamonGTP]

I'm not, I was talking about only GPU OCing. Also I'm pretty sure on the 10 series cards the voltage is distributed dynamically by the card between the core/mem/other so why would you assume the memory is getting the lion's share of the voltage output?

I haven’t seen any appreciable difference in memory clocks when doing voltage modifications going to the GPU, and neither have you. So the better question is why would you assume vram voltage is decreasing? What method are you using to decrease VRAM voltage? If the voltage is dynamic, again what makes you think the voltage is decreasing while you're pushing +800MHz? You're literally making things up as you go at this point.

 

[RamonGTP]

1. Wear and tear? The only wear and tear item on them is the fan.
2. What is more extreme? Mining on a card a 70-80% power target at a constant 60C or playing a game with a max overclock with a 120% power target with extreme heat/cold cycles? The answer is #2.
3. What miners are you talking about that don't care how hot it runs? That's a complete straw man as any miner worth his salt doesn't run extreme OC'd settings for max output. There is a balance between heat/power usage/profitability that everyone is striving for.
4. Shorten the lifespan to what? I still have old AMD 7950's that I mined with that work fine to this day. I have a 8 year old Xeon X5660 that was a datacenter pull still running fine. By the time that most of the parts reach the end of their lifespan, they are useless anyway (or at least very cheaply replaceable).
5. If anything profitability is up as BTC has increased in price to ~$9300 up from ~$7000.

Disclosure: I'm not a professional miner. I have one card I mine with in my spare time, and make maybe $75 a month. I wouldn't think twice about buying a mining card over the top card in an SLI setup of an extreme gamer.

Add another person who doesn't know the difference between GPU and VRAM

Also, IC's do suffer from wear and tear, it's called electromigration. A condition that is always happening but accelerated with higher current flow. Load increases current, over clocks increase it further.

 

[Gideon]

1. Wear and tear? The only wear and tear item on them is the fan.
2. What is more extreme? Mining on a card a 70-80% power target at a constant 60C or playing a game with a max overclock with a 120% power target with extreme heat/cold cycles? The answer is #2.
3. What miners are you talking about that don't care how hot it runs? That's a complete straw man as any miner worth his salt doesn't run extreme OC'd settings for max output. There is a balance between heat/power usage/profitability that everyone is striving for.
4. Shorten the lifespan to what? I still have old AMD 7950's that I mined with that work fine to this day. I have a 8 year old Xeon X5660 that was a datacenter pull still running fine. By the time that most of the parts reach the end of their lifespan, they are useless anyway (or at least very cheaply replaceable).
5. If anything profitability is up as BTC has increased in price to ~$9300 up from ~$7000.

Disclosure: I'm not a professional miner. I have one card I mine with in my spare time, and make maybe $75 a month. I wouldn't think twice about buying a mining card over the top card in an SLI setup of an extreme gamer.

1. Yes wear and tear, things have a finite amount of times they can operate before they fail. Electronics are rated in hours of use and the more hours on them the more likely to have a critical failure.

2. Mining on a card is more extreme due to the hours of use. Also most gaming cards are ran at stock by gamers, only some enthusiasts push the cards to extremes. Also unless cooling to sub ambinet your not doing a extreme hot/cold cycle. Also your 60C is the processor not everything else on the board which will not be cooled properly without the needed airflow.

3. Been to a mining farm with rack after rack, trust me they didnt care as long as the card was stable and at max production, most were running 80C or so. Were talking much larger operations then a guy running a single card or two. They simply dont have the time to care as much as a guy running a rig or two.

4. Running the card 24 hours a day shortens it's lifespan, dont see how that is hard to understand. You have only so many hours a card can run until the manufacture figures it will fail. Based on the fact their are tons more threads on dead cards then cpu's this tells me that a video card is far more likely to fail. Take a car engine and run it at freeway speeds just cruising and it will last for a long time as it's not being pushed, take that same engine and keep it running hard and it wont go the same distance due to the increased wear from the high demand placed on it.

5. It's extremely volatile and most people pay more for electricity in the summer months then the winter months. I expect it to decline but who knows.

 

[kirbyrj]

Add another person who doesn't know the difference between GPU and VRAM

Also, IC's do suffer from wear and tear, it's called electromigration. A condition that is always happening but accelerated with higher current flow. Load increases current, over clocks increase it further.

Alright genius, refer back to point 4 and tell me if you've constructed a method for determining electromigration in mining cards and determined exactly how much damage has occurred and the rate at which said damage occurs so I know how long my card will last. Oh you haven't? You mean this is nothing other than a theory you're espousing based on your supposed intimate knowledge of VRAM? Then get lost. By your logic, you should never turn on a piece of electronic equipment because electromigration will start occurring and 100 years down the road electromigration will make your hardware useless.

 

[RamonGTP]

Alright genius, refer back to point 4 and tell me if you've constructed a method for determining electromigration in mining cards and determined exactly how much damage has occurred and the rate at which said damage occurs so I know how long my card will last. Oh you haven't? You mean this is nothing other than a theory you're espousing based on your supposed intimate knowledge of VRAM? Then get lost. By your logic, you should never turn on a piece of electronic equipment because electromigration will start occurring and 100 years down the road electromigration will make your hardware useless.

You're so logical. So if I can't give you the exact damage figure from electro migration, it isn't happening? Is that right?

If I can't tell you exactly how many times you'll be able to dart across a busy street before getting ran over, does that also mean it'll never happen?

Electromigration isn't a theory. The increased rate of electro-migration with increased current isn't a theory either. Do you know how to use google?

Try again, this time think before posting.