Crypto miners are now feeling the heat of the massive cryptocurrency crash, and to cut their losses, they're offloading their hardware - most specifically, their pricey GPUs.
A group of PC graphics cards, including (L-R) a Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 AMP Edition, MSI Radeon RX 470 Gaming X 8G and an AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB, taken on July 22, 2016.
Miners have been conducting livestreamed auctions for used mining GPUs that range from NVIDIA's RTX 3000 series to AMD's RX 6000 series. According to PCGamer, it's mostly Chinese miners that are feeling the brunt of the crash as their used cards have been flooding Xianyu - basically China's version of eBay.
RTX 3080s are among the hottest commodities on the Chinese marketplace right now. As shared by Twitter user I_Leak_VN, these used 3080s are being listed for basically dirt cheap (3500 Yuan or approximately $523 USD) - all in an effort to just get rid of them as quickly as possible:
Chinese Miners are dumping 3080 at a pretty crazy price on Xianyu (Taobao 2nd market smartphone app), from just 3500 yuan ($523).@CapFrameX @davideneco25320 @kopite7kimi @chunvn8888 pic.twitter.com/KMCPyXJDzI
— I_Leak_VN (@I_Leak_VN) June 21, 2022
This is crazy low pricing, considering the RTX 3080's MSRP is $699. Yes, you read that right: crypto miners are selling their 3080s for far below the initial asking price from NVIDIA. That goes to show just how badly the crypto market crash hit their bottom line.
As for the aforementioned live auctions for used mining GPUs, crypto miners have been hosting them on the website Baidu where people are bidding crazy low prices for the cards. According to Tom's Hardware, the most frequently seen cards in these Baidu auctions are RTX 3060 Tis, which have been priced at around $300-$350 USD. In comparison, the 3060 Ti's MSRP is set at $399 - below MSRP pricing yet again.
It's starting to get serious that folks on the web are now calling it a "GPU flood," and by all means it is. Gone are the days when NVIDIA and AMD GPUs basically sold for an arm and a leg. However, this does beg the question of whether or not you should even go for a used mining card, which then brings us to the next part of this article.
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Should You Bite The Bullet And Go For GPUs From Crypto Miners?
Back in August of last year, graphics card maker and NVIDIA AIB partner Palit posted a warning saying people should not go for used mining GPUs. Their reason: these cards lose 10% of their overall performance every year. And considering how crypto miners will run these cards ragged 24/7, some people thought that made a lot of sense due to the nature of wear and tear.
However, tech YouTuber Linus Sebastian posted a video refuting Palit's alleged claims. The video goes into excruciating detail, but the main gist is this: crypto mining cards do not lose performance even if they've been mining for several years straight:
At the end, the conclusion of the video is simple. Palit, as GPU maker, only makes money selling brand new graphics cards. So naturally they'd say something like that to dissuade people from buying cheaper secondhand units. That's it. But at the end of the day, it's really people's jobs to decide whether or not to go for used mining GPUs.
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This article is posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce
