Miners are now mass-selling GPUs for really cheap – Should you buy AMD and Nvidia graphics cards now?

You can now buy graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia below the RRP price. But not all offers have to be good, even if they seem tempting at first.

If you wanted to buy a graphics card in the last few months, you often had to pay significantly more. Because the dealers demanded significantly more money than the suggested retail price (RRP) and in some cases you could pay thousands of euros on eBay for an RTX 3080. There were several reasons for this:

• Semiconductors in particular became scarce as a result of the corona pandemic. However, these occur in almost every electronic device. High demand when supply is low causes prices to rise.
• Crypto currencies such as Ethereum or Bitcoin reached new record values. Many people invested in so-called mining rigs, which mainly consist of graphics cards, in order to mine digital currencies.

But now a lot has changed. You can now get graphics cards again at the recommended retail price. Many had almost “got used to” the fact that you can pay twice the RRP for graphics cards if you want to use the latest hardware.

Thousands of miners sell high-end graphics cards below the recommended price

Why are miners selling their hardware? The most important reason is the significant drop in value of cryptocurrencies. If you look at Bitcoin in the last 6 months, the value of over 40,000 euros per Bitcoin has fallen to below 20,000 euros. So the currency has lost more than 50% of its value.

In addition, the Ethereum currency is currently being converted to a new process. This also worries many users who have invested in mining hardware. Because with Ethereum 2.0 it no longer matters to have many fast graphics cards.

Many miners are therefore now selling their hardware in order to at least offset the losses. Because many moners invested money in graphics cards when they were still very expensive. Online magazine Tomshardware reports that some big mining companies are selling hardware and bitcoins to get their money back (via tomshardware.com).

As a result, gamers now have the opportunity to buy graphics cards even below the recommended retail price:

• You can sometimes get a GeForce RTX 3080 for as little as $550.
• Some people are charging around $300 for an RTX 3060.

Nevertheless, you should be careful when you see such offers. Because the good offers also have a catch if you are not careful. A similar action could already be observed exactly a year ago and here the prices were similarly low:

If you want to buy a used graphics card, you should take a close look at the offer

How good are these offers really? Opinions differ greatly as to whether you should buy a used graphics card from miners. Because the GPUs are said to have always been in such a mining rig and mined cryptocurrencies under load for months. And that non-stop and without interruption.

Basically, however, miners do not handle their hardware any worse than gamers. Because professional miners, like gamers, are also careful to treat their hardware with care. After all, the hardware is their basis for their income. If you deal with professionals, you can usually be sure that the graphics cards are working properly. This is how a user writes down redditwhether you can buy a graphics card from miners:

99% of the time, yes, because people who are serious about mining take better care of their cards than casual computer users.

Some add that mining is even better than gaming for the cards:

• The graphics cards are often operated with less power (undervolted). This lowers the temperatures, but has little effect on the performance.
• When mining, the graphics card runs at more even temperatures. There is less stress on the board as the material is not stressed as much as when temperatures fluctuate constantly like gaming.

However, the situation is different when people have bought mining equipment in order to benefit from the mining hype quickly and without much prior knowledge. In the worst case, the GPUs are then not properly cooled or are not perfectly adjusted. So you cannot be completely sure whether someone with little expertise has handled the hardware carefully.

Where is the real risk then? It doesn’t matter whether you buy from a miner or someone else: Normally you don’t get a guarantee on your graphics card when you sell it privately. It is therefore your responsibility, even if the graphics card gives up the ghost 2 months later. If you don’t want to take the risk, you pay the normal price at the dealer. And that’s around 150 euros at the current time (22.06). Because if you buy from a dealer, you get the manufacturer’s normal guarantee and the dealer’s warranty as well. The warranty also applies to refurbished products.

If you are unsure whether you want to buy a graphics card, then note that the next generation from AMD and Nvidia will be coming soon. We can’t tell you whether the prices will get even better in the future:

This is what you should definitely know about the next generation of graphics cards before you buy a new one now