I believe everyone has heard the advice that it is best to avoid mining cards when buying second-hand graphics cards. However, many people may not know how much difference there is. Will it really reduce the performance a lot? Recently, someone on a foreign YouTube channel actually tested the RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. Comparing the performance of a new card with an 18-month-old card used for mining, there is indeed a difference in the results, but strictly speaking it is not as much as expected.
Is there a difference in game performance between brand new and old cards that have been mined for 18 months?
Recently, the foreign YouTube channel Testing Games used 8 3A games to test the performance of new and old RTX 2080 Ti cards. Each one basically uses high-quality settings and is equipped with an i9-10900K processor.
The first is “Red Dead Redemption 2”. On the left is the new card, and on the right is the old RTX 2080Ti card that has been mined for 18 months. You can see that the average difference is 4FPS. The old card runs at a higher temperature (74 degrees), and the clock speed also drops a bit, becoming 1815MHz:
The difference in “CYBERPUNK 2077” is also in 4FPS. The temperature of the old card when running is also above 70 degrees, and the clock speed is 1815MHz:
“Mafia: Definitive Edition” has a little more difference, coming to 5FPS, and when running, the temperature of the old card increased to 86 degrees, and the clock dropped to 1785MHz:
“Horizon Zero Dawn” also has a 5FPS difference. The temperature and clock performance of the old card are the same as the first two:
The gap in “Battlefield 5” is a little bigger. The new card has an average of 6 FPS more than the old card. The old card still runs at a higher temperature and has a lower clock speed:
The difference in “Forza Horizon 4” is more obvious. The new card reaches an average of 105FPS, while the old card only reaches 94FPS, a gap of 11FPS:
Kingdom Come: Redemption was okay, with only a 3FPS difference, but the old card ran as high as 81 degrees:
Finally, there’s Assassin’s Creed: Viking Age, with an average difference of 5FPS:
Obviously, when running games on a mined graphics card, the temperature will be higher and the clock speed will be lower, which will undoubtedly shorten the service life. However, if you simply look at FPS, the difference is basically within 5FPS, which is very small. You can’t actually feel the difference when playing.
Therefore, for those who plan to buy a second-hand graphics card, if the price of the mining card is really very cheap and you plan to only use it for a few years, you can still consider it, but if the price is not much different from that of a new card or even a second-hand graphics card that is used normally, then it is not recommended.
Full video:
Source: KOCPC Chinese