They don’t exactly age, but top of line chips have very large currents in very small conductors. When you do that with DC current, your conductors deform with time, up to the point that they stop working correctly.
That said, you probably can get plenty of casual use out of them.
Supposedly they do but I’ve had surprisingly good luck with used GPUs from ebay.
I’m good with warning others against buying used GPUs on ebay though because then costs will stay lower for me.
It depends on how they were deployed. For instance, GPU’s used for crypto mining can be fine unless they were really cranking them (which many do).
Ultimately unless you are buying used GPU’s From a reseller that has gone through them and either refurbished or just done extensive enough testing to show it doesn’t need to be refurbished, you’re taking a pretty big gamble
Most crypto mining outfits undervolt their cards for lower power usage. They aren’t cranking them as you say they are. A dead GPU doesn’t produce anything for you; cranking it up the chance that it will fail. You’re better off running it an extra 4 years at a lower voltage than you are cranking it for 1.
Oh but I do, ironically, for the same use cases LMAO. I like to tinker with AI and I like Microshits concept of Recall and similar ideas, like having an AI to be able to search through all my documents with nothing but a sentence or idea of what I’m looking for
But ain’t no fucking way I’m going to give a closed source AI that I’m not running myself that level of access
Yeah you don’t want those used GPU’s.
Have you seen the price of new GPUs? Sure ya do. Maybe they only last a few years. That’s alright.
When the price of those drop, the price of the ones that werent used for that purpose will also drop
Why not, though? Does the silicium really age?
Yes.
They don’t exactly age, but top of line chips have very large currents in very small conductors. When you do that with DC current, your conductors deform with time, up to the point that they stop working correctly.
That said, you probably can get plenty of casual use out of them.
Supposedly they do but I’ve had surprisingly good luck with used GPUs from ebay. I’m good with warning others against buying used GPUs on ebay though because then costs will stay lower for me.
It depends on how they were deployed. For instance, GPU’s used for crypto mining can be fine unless they were really cranking them (which many do).
Ultimately unless you are buying used GPU’s From a reseller that has gone through them and either refurbished or just done extensive enough testing to show it doesn’t need to be refurbished, you’re taking a pretty big gamble
Most crypto mining outfits undervolt their cards for lower power usage. They aren’t cranking them as you say they are. A dead GPU doesn’t produce anything for you; cranking it up the chance that it will fail. You’re better off running it an extra 4 years at a lower voltage than you are cranking it for 1.
I thought the efficiency curve for GPUs peaked before 100%. If electricity is your primary cost, driving the GPUs at lower loads saves money.
So you might end up with GPUs that spent their entire life at a steady 80% load or something.
This was my understanding as well - that miners often underclock their GPUs rather than overclock them.
Oh but I do, ironically, for the same use cases LMAO. I like to tinker with AI and I like Microshits concept of Recall and similar ideas, like having an AI to be able to search through all my documents with nothing but a sentence or idea of what I’m looking for
But ain’t no fucking way I’m going to give a closed source AI that I’m not running myself that level of access
Like this?
https://docfetcher.sourceforge.io/en/index.html
Personally, I want to try to have a llama or something rewrite voice to text prompts into Home Assistant commands. Should be very cool.
But yeah, I won’t pay the current prices to run it either, nor use the cloud.
Makes sense!