Used graphics cards are falling in price – buy mining cards now?

Friedrich Stiemer

Graphics card prices have been falling rapidly for months, and many believe now is the right time to upgrade. However, you should think twice about this decision. We explain why prices are falling and whether it’s worth buying a used mining graphics card.

RTX 3080 & Co.: Graphics card prices at their lowest point – buy cheap here

The reasons for the falling graphics card prices

It seems that gamers and hardware enthusiasts can finally breathe a sigh of relief, as graphics card prices are now leveling off near the actual, non-binding price recommendations from AMD and Nvidia for the first time in two years. But before you make your long-awaited hardware upgrade, you should first understand the reasons for the price reductions.

“Proof-of-Stake” makes Ethereum mining with gaming GPUs obsolete

Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, has always been mined using the “proof-of-work” model, in which mining PCs only have to work hard enough to obtain ether (ETH). Of course, this resulted in high power consumption. But the change to the new model called “Proof-of-Stake” is imminent. Instead, miners must stake a certain amount of ETH to be rewarded back in Ethereum for running software that executes and monitors the blockchain transactions. This reduces the power consumption for generating ETH by a whopping 99 percent!

With the change, it no longer matters who has the most and most powerful gaming graphics cards in his mining rig. A bitter blow for everyone who has earned a golden nose here. According to an estimate by Bitpro Consulting, Ethereum miners worldwide have invested a whopping $15 billion in graphics cards to date. And they should soon flood the market as soon as the mining model finally changes.

Graphics card comparison 2022:

GeForce RTX and Radeon RX GPUs in the test – with ranking

Cryptocurrencies are rapidly depreciating

In addition to Ethereum, Bitcoin is also facing a drastic price drop. The main reasons for the drop in value are the high rate of inflation, fears of a new recession in the stock market and the fact that the American central banks are raising interest rates. This makes mining cryptocurrencies unprofitable, especially in view of the rising electricity prices in many places.

Miners are therefore now selling their graphics cards en masse – and not just literally. Especially in China, used models can be bought by miners like the

RTX 3060 Ti

for $300 to $400. And in order to get the greatest possible profit from the GPU sale, the crypto miners also want to get rid of the graphics cards as quickly as possible.

Insider info: Nvidia is secretly reducing prices on high-end GPUs

Meanwhile, the colleagues from Computerbase made an interesting discovery. So Nvidia has the price of the flagship

Geforce RTX 3090 Ti

reduced from 2,499 to 1,899 euros. The reduction did not take place on the official Nvidia website, but at the well-known online retailer Notebooksbilliger.de – the only shop that sells the FE version (Founders Edition) in Germany. This is not an official price reduction, but probably an unofficial one. Because with the Founders Edition, Nvidia alone dictates the non-binding price recommendations.

Incidentally, the same thing happened in the USA, but there at the retailer Best Buy. A little later, however, there was talk of official price reductions in America, which, however, were only communicated to retailers: In addition to the RTX 3090 Ti, the RTX 3090, 3080 Ti and 3080 are also available there at a much lower price. An indication that the market is currently saturated, as miners sell off their graphics cards at affordable prices and in bulk. Because when the dealers’ warehouses are full, Nvidia has to lower the prices so that the dealers can buy the upcoming new generations again. Read more about this in our article “Retailers and board partners are stuck on RTX 3000 GPUs: Will prices continue to fall?”.

Buy used graphics cards

Basically, it’s not a bad idea to buy a used graphics card. In addition to the classic Ebay, there are also used models from some online retailers such as Amazon, Cyberport or Galaxus. The advantage is that you can often find a real bargain here. However, such models are often outside the manufacturer’s warranty period or show visible signs of use such as dust deposits or scratches.

Contrary to what is thought, graphics cards used for mining are not as bad as they are made out to be. Miners often optimize the GPUs to make them dig more efficiently. For example by underclocking them and limiting the energy consumption. In addition, continuous operation is demanding, but frequent heating and cooling of the chips is actually more stressful. The sticking point here is rather the video memory (VRAM), which is often overclocked for more performance, which is not conducive to the service life – just like the resulting high temperatures. So don’t hesitate to ask the seller more details about the operation of the mining GPU to know the above things.

Is buying a used mining GPU worth it? The answer

Alternatively

Thanks to falling prices, you can also buy new goods if you don’t trust used models. We are constantly updating the following article: “Buy GPUs cheaply: More and more graphics cards are listed below the RRP”