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I’m saving up for the flood of old GPUs. I can finally realize my dream of taking all my ML work off the cloud once I scoop up some old mining GPUs for relatively cheap

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You really may be waiting a good while. And if a desirable used model is ever a decent price, it’ll be a unit burnt out from mining fake money that’s only used to buy real money or a mail order of LSD.

Mining usually does not "burn out" a GPU. Most miners cool their cards adequately and undervolt them. If a GPU is somehow damaged from mining then it’s typically observable - it either does not work or it artifacts quickly, making it easy to detect and avoid.

Even if they do that, they’re still running it 24/7/365 for possibly years at a time. Wouldn’t that be some serious wear and tear? Genuine question - I have no clue.

Most of the wear and tear on a GPU is going to come from temperature changes due to the workload changing, or, for the fans, the card spinning the fans at start up, ramping up and ramping down due to a change in load, or halting the fans at shutdown.

It's very possible that an undervolted, well-ventilated card, run with a steady workload 24/7/365 for three years would have _less_ wear and tear than a card used for gaming and then shut down every night for three years.

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