Mining cards starting to hit the used market

birthdaymonkey

Golden Member
Oct 4, 2010
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I've been noticing what appears to be the start of a flood of AMD Tahiti and Hawaii graphics in the Canadian B/S/T forums that I frequent.

People are still asking $350+ CAD for a 7970, but I expect the prices will start to drop soon due to supply and demand. (On the first couple pages at Redflagdeals, there are at least 9 of them up for sale or trade currently, not including those being offered in dedicated mining rigs.)

Hopefully this period of inflated video card prices will be over soon. It's been hard to find a good deal even on nvidia cards, since there hasn't been any price competition from AMD.
 

nurturedhate

Golden Member
Aug 27, 2011
1,767
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Have seen people here in the US asking for $350+ for 7970s also. Rather interesting seeing as how we have seen prices on new ones return to around $300 over the past two weeks or so. Granted, they are few in number but I would rather scour for a new one than a used one especially when new is cheaper.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
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That and the mining ones have been beaten like an almost dead horse more or less I'd imagine.
 

UaVaj

Golden Member
Nov 16, 2012
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perhaps this is the needed push to give the red team another test run.
290x trifire w/ mantle for bf4.

mtgox lost £70m (115m usd) worth of bitcoin is not helping either.
 

Zanovar

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2011
3,446
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The cards are probably working fine,its the fans you should check:S
 

KingFatty

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2010
3,034
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Confirmed: Ebay prices are much lower for 7950s, which I've been looking for recently. Also, the price of a bitcon flirted with $550/coin this morning, which depresses prices for all the alt-coins and causes some miners to reach a point where electricity costs more than the profit, so they are selling off the video cards now before the rush to sell. I'm eager to pick up some cheap used video cards, and I've already got the bearing grease ready for overhauling the fans on those cards...
 

dn7309

Senior member
Dec 5, 2012
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ever since the Mt Gox incident people are starting to have less trust in their cryptocurrency causing the prices of the coins to drop. People are fearing it will drop further so they want to get out and sell off and try to profit or break even. I remember reading a blog from a guy who spend 18,000 on his mining farm buying liek 60 7950s and is in the hole as of Aug 2013 because LTC has drop in prices and his electric bills are off the roof. He's currently trying to sell his radeons to recoup the cost and pay off the his credit card

and yes those AMD used price are insulting on ebay.
 
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dn7309

Senior member
Dec 5, 2012
469
0
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Did you look at the date on that article?

Wonder when he sold those 894LTC he walked away with....Could have been moon walking if at the peak!

yes I am aware that its an old article I read it back in OCT playing with this kind of investment if always a gamble
 

MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
4,458
4
81
That and the mining ones have been beaten like an almost dead horse more or less I'd imagine.
As long as the card wasn't improperly overclocked or run in a poor environment, mining is actually better for the card than your typical gaming usage. Silicon ages/wears by repeated heated/cooling cycles (such as idling on desktop -> gaming -> idling -> shutting down, etc.).
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,950
13,460
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As long as the card wasn't improperly overclocked or run in a poor environment, mining is actually better for the card than your typical gaming usage. Silicon ages/wears by repeated heated/cooling cycles (such as idling on desktop -> gaming -> idling -> shutting down, etc.).

- Yea, can I get a receipt for that and a one year warranty:)
 

TreVader

Platinum Member
Oct 28, 2013
2,057
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I don't think the miners have realized that they're 7970s aren't going to sell for $350 when new 280Xs cost $300. I just got a sapphire for $299.


Once the lot of them realize that a) they aren't making any money and b) nobody wants to buy a beaten 7950 for $300 we're gonna start seeing 290s for $300 and 7970s for $200.


I don't think nvidia is gonna be selling a whole lot of $999 titan blacks when you can buy 2 290s for $600. Same goes for 295x2 and the 790.


I would've bought a 7970 for $200 instead of my 280x. Even if it is beat, it will prob still run fine for awhile and worse case scenario I'm out $200. Well… idk actually maybe $150 would be a good price.
 

Attic

Diamond Member
Jan 9, 2010
4,282
2
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Dependent on the seller, but there will be good/great cards available even if they have been mined on. The price will need to be right, but there will definitely be deals that are going to be tempting.


The sellers to avoid are the ones that drop stuff like, "only used for a week, like new!" when describing 7950's and the guy is trying to offload dozens or more.

If scrypt keeps getting pummeled, then most of the cards in the used market will have been mined on I think, best to get someone upfront about the fact.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
3,067
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I still love my Asus 280x DCII TOP, glad I bought it months ago new before the prices went through the roof at even 330 then.
 

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
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I'm either going to skip this generation from AMD or perhaps hold out for $300 USD for a new 290. The problem with buying any higher end Radeon for much more that is that it immediately depreciates in value because there will be an excessive amount of competition in the used market when it comes time to sell it.

I imagine if you were to buy a new GTX 780 for ~$520 and a new R9 290 for ~$475 now, and sell the both for market value in 6 months, you would come out ahead on the 780.

It's a shame too. I was pretty excited at the launch of the $400 MSRP R9 290, but the whole mining thing really threw the economics off. Normally, we would be seeing these cards with bundles and aftermarket coolers going for $375 all day long at newegg. Instead, I've actually recently considered buying a used one on ebay for ~$400. I need to keep that in perspective.
 

Atreidin

Senior member
Mar 31, 2011
464
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I hope this means that prices for cards like the MSI Lightning 290x won't be in the stratosphere.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
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I'm either going to skip this generation from AMD or perhaps hold out for $300 USD for a new 290. The problem with buying any higher end Radeon for much more that is that it immediately depreciates in value because there will be an excessive amount of competition in the used market when it comes time to sell it.

I imagine if you were to buy a new GTX 780 for ~$520 and a new R9 290 for ~$475 now, and sell the both for market value in 6 months, you would come out ahead on the 780.

It's a shame too. I was pretty excited at the launch of the $400 MSRP R9 290, but the whole mining thing really threw the economics off. Normally, we would be seeing these cards with bundles and aftermarket coolers going for $375 all day long at newegg. Instead, I've actually recently considered buying a used one on ebay for ~$400. I need to keep that in perspective.

Although if you bought a 290 at release for $400 you could have made out like a bandit if you resold it the last couple of months. Would have been really screwed if you had bought a new 780 on release when they were $700.

There are no guarantees in the free market, mate. ;)
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
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Although if you bought a 290 at release for $400 you could have made out like a bandit if you resold it the last couple of months. Would have been really screwed if you had bought a new 780 on release when they were $700.

There are no guarantees in the free market, mate. ;)

I don't think mining with a card is a bad thing under ideal circumstances. I guess if it's out in the garage or a shed baking away it's not so good.....But I do mine with my 2 290's. Not sure how much longer as lately it's easier to just play the ups and downs of the market to get more coins than one can get mining anyways. Most likely this will be my last week mining.

I bought a 290 close to launch for $406 shipped. I mined a little over $200 with it. I sold it with full discloser about mining for $440 hand delivered. My buyer was happy, buyer had no intentions of mining with it at all....I sold at peak of mining tax.

My cards are in the house, I monitor the temps, I clean out the fans when needed.

On another note amazon looks to have just about any 290/290x card a person would want for msrp currently.
 
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nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
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91
This is actually shaping up to good for gamers. From looking at completed listings on ebay only about 1/3 of the R9 290's are selling, and most of those are going for closer to ~$350 than the $400+ most sellers are asking.

Used supply seems to be outstripping demand, which hopefully will have an impact on new card prices as well. I'm hoping we'll start seeing some sweet deals in a month or so.
 

TeknoBug

Platinum Member
Oct 2, 2013
2,084
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Yup in my local classifieds there's a handful of mid-high end AMD cards, I wouldn't buy a used AMD card right now because most of the time they've been abused to death with mining.