Anyone looking to buy a graphics card can rejoice at falling prices. A user jumped at what seemed like a great deal and purchased an RTX 3080, but the joy didn’t last long.
Graphics cards have been really expensive over the past months, and you had to pay a lot if you wanted to game with current hardware. But currently, graphics card prices are dropping: Former crypto miners are flooding the market with cheap graphics card offers and are selling graphics cards even below the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
A user couldn’t resist one of these offers for used graphics cards and got a GeForce RTX 3080 for half the price. At first glance, a damn good offer, but just a few hours later, his excitement about the new GPU faded.
User buys RTX 3080 for 500 Euros, but it is damaged from mining
What did the user do? A user bought a used MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X for 500 euros. This graphics card had been offered to him by a crypto miner at this price, and he couldn’t resist. After all, 500 euros for a used RTX 3080 that usually costs about double that seemed like a good deal. However, the user reported in a Chinese forum why the deal hadn’t been so great (via wccftech.com).
The user quickly found out why he got the RTX 3080 so cheap. The seller had likely already opened the graphics card once. The seals on the screws of the graphics card were broken. This means that the graphics card had previously been opened.
What exactly are the problems? The previous owner likely replaced the thermal pads on the video memory of the graphics card. This isn’t unusual, as the GDDR6X memory of the RTX 3080 is known to reach very high temperatures.
But the biggest problem was something else: First, the graphics card wouldn’t boot at all. With a trick, the bargain hunter managed to start the graphics card anyway. By using what is known as “Memory Shielding,” one can mask faulty memory. You can find instructions for this on the Chinese platform Bilibili in video form (via bilibili.com).
When he checked the graphics card with the small tool GPU-Z, he found that only 8 GB of the 10 GB video memory were recognized. Apparently, two of the ten memory modules had malfunctioned during mining and were no longer functioning properly.
While the user can use a cheaply acquired graphics card with some tricks and tweaks, he is not genuinely thrilled: Once memory modules are gone, there is a high risk that other memory modules will fail as well. The bargain turned out to be a problematic purchase for the bargain hunter.
What should I do if I buy a used GPU? Look closely at offers for used graphics cards and ask the seller if you are uncertain. This will save you trouble and a lot of problems.
Even if a seller sells you a defective graphics card, you, as the buyer, still have good chances. After all, both Amazon and eBay clearly state that products must work as described. Otherwise, the seller must rectify the issue, provide a discount, or take the product back. This also applies to private sellers who hide behind “no returns”.
Graphics cards can be operated continuously – if you adhere to the rules
Typically, you can also run a graphics card continuously. However, the condition is that you operate the GPU within the recommended specifications. These are usually set by Nvidia or the board partners (MSI, ASUS, and others). Nothing should go wrong in this area.
If you’re unsure whether you want to buy a graphics card, keep in mind that the next generation of AMD and Nvidia will be coming soon. Whether prices will improve further in the future, we can’t say:
