Do gaming video cards lose performance after mining? Yes, no, maybe …

What is the impact of mining on the performance of a gaming video card? Does it reduce them in the long run? A video that appeared on YouTube, and that you can see inside this news, tells us that yes, after a year and a half of mining, a gaming GPU loses performance returning a lower frame rate than that achievable by the same “brand new” GPU.

We thought about it a few days before we told you about this video, because the immediate reaction was to dismiss it as a foregone conclusion, “nothing new under the sun”. On the other hand, a video card put to work 24 hours a day at most or almost, moreover inside a dense mining rig, can only have repercussions. Then for many they reported it uncritically and we retraced our steps for share some doubts with you.

Why do we write “can only have repercussions”? Think of the deterioration of thermal paste. If you have installed any PCs you know that, from time to time, it is better to change the thermal paste on the CPU because it dries up and the heat transfer to the heatsink is less efficient. This can cause the temperature of the GPU to rise dramatically and throttle it, i.e. make it run at a lower frequency. Thermal pads may also be less efficient than “first start”. A periodic thermal paste renewal is one of those automatic tips when someone complains of high temperatures.

Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Mafia Definitive Edition,​ Horizon Zero Dawn, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4,​ Kingdom Come Deliverance e​ Assassin’s Creed Valhalla ci mostrano una 10% average performance loss for the GPU under 18 months of mining. Observing the temperature you can see how they are equal to 15-20 degrees higher than the new card, with lower consumption and maximum frequencies (it goes from 1920 to 1800 MHz).

Before inserting the phrase “mining deterioration” in the “Gospel of technology”, we pass it. The test should also have been performed with the board being mined renewed from the point of view of thermal paste or at least “cleaned” of dust. been done? We do not know, the video says nothing, the description of the same, nothing in the comments. It may be that it was done and therefore the video shows us something real, but “with the ifs and buts” no conclusions are drawn.

We don’t even know if at the center of the comparison there is the same board tested before and after the mining period, or if they are two different models purchased after some time, and therefore there could be differences in terms of GPU quality, but also a different vBIOS version or maybe even some other revamped component. It should also not be forgotten that the memory involved is also involved in mining.

In conclusion, many details are missing to talk about a full-blown video card wear after months of mining. Given the lack of information, it is difficult to take at face value what is shown: it could be something true, and we urge the author to rattle off the details to clarify, or simply a known fact, or that from time to time to do a little hardware maintenance does not hurt, indeed recommended.

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