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I think Ebay and TaoBao are now filled to the brim with discarded mining GPUs

Can you link some examples?

My first search at taobao gives gtx1080 for 300 usd at first position

how much life do these typically have left in them?

Limited by caps and electromigration. I'd say a half life of 10-15 years

My concern would be the fans dying. Consumer-grade cards have quiet fans which have 1/4 the life of a loud ball-bearing fan.

This is the biggest failure point for mining cards, they're easy/cheap to replace though.