I was looking arround on a market site, for used stuff. And i found allot of reference Sapphire R9-290´s with "probably" Hynix ram, for dirt cheap. Prices arround €180,- which is basicly realy a bargin. cause new they are €365,-
I know the cooling solutions on those cards are rubbish, but still its dirt cheap, now i was thinking of maybe sell my HiS-7870GHZ for arround €100 maybe i could pickup such a reference 290 for realy cheap. And gain allot of performance.
Is there anyway if you could see if those cards where used for mining? Any tips to look at? kind of person? kind of rig etc? lol.. Most advertisers claim they have used them for gaming only...but yeah lol.
Is there also any possible way to see on some sort of a serial number or what not, if there is true Hynix or Elpida ram on it, the problem with reference cards is that they have used both.
Probably not. The only way you'll know if they've been used for mining is that if the card is performing worse than normal. Taking into consideration potential thermal throttling. Or if the seller tells you, which we all know that won't happen. I still wouldn't trust buying a reference 290 unless it was perfectly new in the box.
Mining is pretty pointless at this point, just not worth the power needed. Unless you plan on a new random currency, in terms of what vram is on it, you might need to take off the cooler and look at the actual vram. Not sure if you will get much out of the serial code, but worth a shot.
You can always slap on a arctic accelero, thats what I did at least, or a water cool it. Both are a bit pricey, but its worth with in terms of temps and performance.
You could slap that Arctic-Cool Extreme thing on it to lower the temps I'd just worry down the line. Especially in your situation running an 8350 with no onboard GPU.
Yea... I don't blame you, if it was mined hard then you could be asking for trouble. Idk, anything that's used hardware I tend to stray clear of. Then again I did buy a 6970 for dirt cheap and that worked out fine. So it's sorta hit or miss, you can maybe get in contact with the seller, though I'm sure he/she won't say much.
Yeah thats basicly a thing, i could take the gamble, if i dont sell my 7870GHZ, then its a gamble of €185,- if i could sell my 7870GHZ for arround €100 then its only a €85 gamble. But yeah you right, if its an ex miner, and it dies just outside warrenty period, then im stuck with no GPU anymore lol. Most that are on sale, are still in arround 1.5 year warrenty, but the strange thing is that the whole bitcoin mining collapsed arround April / May or so? and now you see all those cards for dirt cheap
The only thing is, i dont know if i could still claim warrenty if im not the original buyer.
No indeed, like i said above, the whole bitcoin mining, collapsed arround April / May or so? and now you see all those reference cards for dirt cheap. some are even with 18 months of guarantee still, but i dont know if you are able to claim warrenty, if you are not the original buyer. If that is possible, then things would be interessting.
That first linked image looks like just a run of the mill desktop system - 650w psu, etc. So assuming that the card was from that system then it may not have been used for mining and the person just got jack of the leaf blower noise. If it were a picture of an open build with a 1500w psu then yeah its a miner.
2nd one - cant tell.
There is so many ex-miners for sale atm. Depending on where the person bought the card from will dictate the validity of warranty transfer. You can always just use their name on the receipt and have it (RMA'd item) posted to your address... done that before.
I reckon grab the first one and throw an aio + g10 on it.
yeah its still very tempting, even if its one with Elpida ram, its still a bargin.
The blower noice is not realy something that i personaly care about to be honnest. I dont game for manny hours a day. So it would probably not that annoying for me. ☺
About warrenty´s i guess if you have the original ticket, it should be no problem, still researching this.
About mining that something that i am more concerned about.
sorry complety off topic, but seems lke you're the only mod on but can you check on this arse : nkfreeteksyndicate Just been spamming french selling products.
Yeah they are very tempting for the price, i dont realy care to much about the cooling. i dont realy game several hours a day.. only wenn im bored or i need to relax i could run a game for a maybe 2 hours or so, like Need for speed or Trine 2. Basicly my 7870GHz is still fine for 1080p, but in some way it just attracts me to have a 290. Pistol has a full AMD setup FX9590 and sapphire 290x tri X, i have a FX8350, so i cannot stay behind on the GPU side lol ☺
I´m still gonne think about what i´m doing, i also found a Sapphire 290 TriX OC for €250,- new in box...but yeah is it trust worthy?.. lol
