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GPUs after mining, what to look for?
  • It is good time as GPU based mining became unprofitable now

    image

    So, what models to look for on used market if you plan to use it in video editing?

    First. Most frequent used cards in mining are - AMD RX570 (and RX470) 4GB/8GB, AMD RX580 (and RX480) 8GB, NVidia GTX 1060 3GB, NVidia GTX 1060 6GB.

    All of them are very good in editing.

    Note! Mining do not do anything horrible with the cards if rig had been maintained properly, do not fall for horror stories.

    image

    Second. Issues to look for:

    Fans. Make sure to test fans at all speeds, at cold state and after warming. Lot of modern GPU fans are not too good after prolonged work.

    You can also look for card with silent fan mode, where fan stops under low load (it is around 80-90% of editing work time).

    Thermal pad leaks. Famous issue of some cards, looks like oily areas, or just slightly oily looking board parts

    image

    Contrary to this photo, it is usually located under cooler close to RAM or VRM area, and you can miss some of it. Such thing appear due to vertical position of the card in most mining rigs contrary to horizontal position in almost every computer case. Thing that is leaking is dielectric, so nothing bad must be happening.

    If card works good, and discount is big, plus you are able to replace thermal pads you can buy such card.

    Card under load. Use https://geeks3d.com/furmark/ and https://benchmark.unigine.com/superposition to check card under load for at least 30 minutes, it must not be crashes or visual artifacts, same as abnormally high temperatures. Can also check card model using https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

    Third. Cards to prefer - AMD RX580 8GB, NVidia GTX 1060 6GB, GTX 1070 Ti 8GB, GTX 1080 Ti 11Gb

    Try to buy more powerful card with more memory. Video software, especially Davinci Resolve or advanced plugins is GPU memory hungry and become more so with each new release.

    Mac/Hackintosh guys. Many Mac users buy AMD cards as external ones with special Thunderbolt case, yet it has lot of issues, check good articles and videos first. It is still way cheaper than pay for BM external solutions.

    GTX 10xx series had good drivers and supported by recent MacOS versions (but Nvidia Drivers for Mojave 10.14 Not Available!). Just make sure to check Hackintosh special resources before doing anything.

    If you are on super tight budged - your choices are good 1050 Ti 4GB models, GTX 1060 3GB and RX570 4GB (can be usually found for $120-150 used).

    Cooling to prefer

    Avoid so called turbine coolers on cards

    image

    Lower end cards are fine with just good large two coolers.

    Best under moderate and low load are usually three cooler long cards (as they have bigger dissipation area and lower coolers speed)

    image

    Can check ASUS Strix line for such.

    Fourth. Warranty. Many cards still have 2-3 year of warrant left, so you can buy such for more safety. In many countries outside US/EU you can see cheaper cards with no local warranty at all as they had been shipped from US/EU. If discount is big and seller provide his own small warranty you can try to risk.

    Last. Newest RTX 20xx and AMD RX 590 cards provide very little for video editing and is considered non optimal generation due to little progress and price hikes. Most advantage is in very heavy tasks and usage of RTX 2080 Ti. So, for almost anything, including advanced grading you will be good using older card.

    Note. Usually local sellers provide best deals and it is possible to check card, contrary to ebay. Check your country most popular C2C platform to buy used stuff.

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  • 41 Replies sorted by
  • Nice post. Thanks

  • @LongJohnSilver

    Glad you liked this.

    Btw, it is some estimation for number of GPUs in only Ethereum mining - on the peak it had been around 11.600.000 video cards wasting electricity, now it is estimated to be below 7.000.000 and dropping fast.

  • +1 great post. Tx.

  • Thanks VK, very informative and useful.

  • +1. Very useful post. Thanks.

    In Vancouver, used rx 580's are going for under $200 CAD ($150 USD) and there are tons on Craigslist so I think the price will go even lower.

    I would prefer a Vega 64 Frontier Edition for the 16 GB of memory, but have not found a good deal yet. Anyone seen price drops for these?

  • In Vancouver, used rx 580's are going for under $200 CAD ($150 USD) and there are tons on Craigslist so I think the price will go even lower.

    Most probably it won't. It all depends on dynamics and amount of cards. In such cases, as it is not normal you can see wave of cards and later much smaller amount of them. All depends on location.

    I'll look more on 1080Ti, as they are going away fast.

    I would prefer a Vega 64 Frontier Edition for the 16 GB of memory, but have not found a good deal yet. Anyone seen price drops for these?

    For mining buying this had been stupid decision, hence none of deals.

  • Do you know which cards were the most popular with miners?

  • @kinvermark

    Most frequent used cards in mining are - AMD RX570 (and RX470) 4GB/8GB, AMD RX580 (and RX480) 8GB, NVidia GTX 1060 3GB, NVidia GTX 1060 6GB.

    Post start from this.

    Actually 1070/1070Ti also had been used but smaller usually, 1080Ti was popular for more compact rigs.

  • Ooops! Sorry, I was just looking at the pretty photo's :)

  • First good Navi leaks show that buying cards after mining is very good idea

    https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/21052/amd-navi-gpus-coming-soon

  • Beware of buying Nvidia cards for Mac eGPUs or Hackintoshes: no Nvidia drivers for Mojave until now, maybe never. You'll be left alone in the desert ;-)

  • @nomad

    Yep, actually I mentioned AMD only for eGPU for this above.

    no Nvidia drivers for Mojave until now, maybe never.

    Fuck. Yep.

    https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/nvidia-drivers-for-mojave-10-14-not-available-workaround.260857/page-51

  • I will ask here. All this tests are actually tests Opencl/gl. My old 980Ti give me Feild exports in PPro exports which (with lumetri) which is known issue of Adobe then Nvidia.

    However Is there a way of testing Cuda? I never did Gpu test as Im using Hackintosh. But I will boot it on windows 10 to check it. Any good test for CUDA?

  • Thanks for all the info. After checking some Davinci Resolve benchmarks, actual Ebay pricing and doing some calculations I came up with this:

    • Best (affordable) performance vs. power draw: 2x GTX 1070 8GB

    • Best price vs. performance with not to much power draw: 2x RX 480 8GB

    So, if you are on a budget, get one RX 480 8 GB, start using Resolve and if you need more performance, get another RX 480 8 GB. If you have more money and need even more performance do the same with GTX 1070 8GB.

    Resolve can benefit of a second card up to 75%, just make sure to get identical cards.

    (I will try 2x RX 480 in my aging Mac Pro bevore moving to a new system.)

  • 1080TI good price for US https://www.ebay.com/itm/372537788874

    [VK Warning scam link!]

  • @konjow

    Price makes no sense.

    https://www.ebay.com/sch/gift_girl/m.html?item=372537831110&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

    Check seller items - they sell completely different things normally, if you check few latest items you will see that this is just scam that used hacked account.

  • yes Im checking this now.... But whats the point to do it for them? Its for fun?

  • @konjow

    But whats the point to do it for them? Its for fun?

    No, they have access to paypal, and will move money out of account instantly.

  • But who are "they"? The only benefits would be for paypal to have money for few days before refund. Money goes on hold to seller account and he cant take them for a long time anyway. The only benefits goes to paypal for holding money and aditionaly currency convert if applicable - despite hassle with refunds.

  • @konjow

    No, for long time sellers paypal does not block funds on account, so they will transfer funds to other account and move them out. So it won't be anything to make refunds.

  • When I sell something I have to wait weeks before I get it after shipping. And I just got refund from this one, ebay canceled this itself. Of course It will take few days for money to camback.

    Unless it was only me who is waiting for buyer money so long to be avelable when selling....