Any recommendations for inexpensive secondhand GPUs?

[ZePompom]

Welp, got the riser, PC boots but BSOD the very second win 10 starts...

I send an email to the seller telling him the video card doesn't work

Tried on 3 PCs :
-One doesn't boot, motherboard goes beeping (1 long and 3 shorts, meaning "Video card issue")
-One boots but ignores the Video Card
-One boots but win 10 goes BSOD the second it starts

So to me it starts to be obvious the video card is defective


EDIT : Just to be sure it wasn't the riser fault, I replaced the P106-90 by an old ATI X1300 I have around for years, and it works. No BSOD, and GPU-Z sees it.



I'm really disheartened right now

I try to be optimistic and tell myself maybe the 2nd card will work and/or the seller will refund me. but I don't really believe it.

I guess I'll justgive up or buy a GTX 1650S instead ...
(What I should have done from the very begining)

[Joe_H]

The signal lines do not carry power. All of the power connections are in the first group of connectors that is common to all PCIe slots, pins 1, 2 & 3 carry 12 V DC and pins 8 & 10 carry 3.3 V DC. All can use up to 3 A of 3.3 V current.

The power limitations in the standard for 12 V are that an x1 slot can use a max of 0.5 A of 12 V (6 W) and 10 W in total normally, after initialization and being identified as "high power", up to 25 W if it is a full size card. An x4 or wider card is limited to 2.1 A of 12 V and 25 W in total. Full sized x16 cards are able to go to 75 W after initialization and identification as high power.

The specifications are in terms of "cards", not slots. Though different board manufacturers may not interpret this the same for their power management.

[MeeLee]

From X4 to X16, there are a lot of ground wires.
I'm thinking that the power must come from the top 6/8 pin connector(s), and that the additional ground wires allow for higher TDPs.
Without the ground wires, it may not process that much power.
I see no other reason why there are well over 32 ground pins on an x16 slot, that aren't there on an x4 slot.

[ZePompom]

Second P106-90 landed yesterday, I should get my hands on it soon (maybe Monday).

I hope this one will works

For the amount of power the 4x populated 16x slot can carry, I just asked the question to gigabyte directly, wait and see

[Joe_H]

I see no other reason why there are well over 32 ground pins on an x16 slot, that aren't there on an x4 slot.

Almost all of those extra grounds are for signal lines, only carry the ground for low current data connections. They are not used to ground a power connection. A few pins are just listed as Ground and possibly are grounds for power supplied to the card. Go look up the PCIe pinout somewhere that includes the description of what each connection is. Also note that each section of the connector has a Sense pin, the one on the other side of the first 12 V pin in the header block is to be connected on the card to the farthest one depending on whether the card is x1, x4, x8 or x16.

[bruce]

Ground wires are also a bit like shielding. If you put two data lines next to each other, you'll potentially get crosstalk, corrupting some data bits. By adding a ground between them. you minimize the crosstalk.

[ZePompom]

Yay, 2nd P106-90 arrived today, I hope this one works (got a refund for the previous one I got, since impossible to make it work)


Also, I have an answer from Gigabyte, about my motherboard :

[ZePompom]

IT WORKS! \o/



It does bottleneck though, around 150k PPD while it should more be around 200k but at least it works! Finally X'D


Now, I must decide if I keep it that way (P106-90 on PC riser in my main PC next to my GTX 1660) or if I buy an upgrade kit to turn my old PC into a folding rig, and put a GTX 1650 SUPER + the P106-90 in it.
(Around 300€ for Motherboard + RAM + GTX, I already have a CPU for it, an Athlon 200GE)


P.S : When I got the second P106-90, I noticed the metal grill was super shiny compared to the one of the 1st P106 I got, so I removed the grill and I saw ... rust.
No wonder why the 1st was not working (but the seller was honnest and sent me a refund)

[MeeLee]

My personal opinion, I never was a fan of the 1650 series.
Though the Super series are sightly better than the regular, for folding, you're better off with a 1660 series GPU.
The main benefit of a 1650 Super is faster memory, which gives only a little performance bump. The 1660 GPU line has more CUDA cores. That is more important than faster memory.
Faster memory might have mattered on old GPUs, but modern memory improvements are not offering the same benefit in folding anymore, due to the VRAM already being well faster than OC ram on older GPUs.
Architecturally the 1660 (/super/TI) is more interesting. It performs much better per watt.

[ZePompom]

I don't agree, the main benefit of the 1650 Super, to me, is not the ram but to have much more CUDA cores (So much more PPDs too) compared to the regular 1650.

The 1650 SUPER is not an improved 1650 btw, but a slightly downsised 1660 (same chip).

GTX 1650 DDR6: 896 CUDA cores @1410MHz base (1590 boost)
Cost : around 170€

GTX 1660: 1408 CUDA cores @1530MHz base clock (1785 boost)
Cost : Around 250€

GTX 1650 SUPER : 1280 CUDA cores @ 1530MHz base clock (1725 boost)
Cost : Around 185€


So to me the GTX 1650S have a better performance per € than both the regular 1650 and the 1660.

The extra power of the 1660 doesn't worth the price difference imo.
While the extra power of the 1650S compared to the regular 1650 is a bargain for such a small price difference.

Don't be fooled by the GTX 1650 SUPER misleading name, as it does have the 1660 family architecture you're praising


The GTX 1650 SUPER could have been named something like 1660 lite or 1660 4GB (like we had a "GTX 1060 3GB" previously), but I guess they sell it in 1650 family for marketing reason.

I even heard nvidia is preparing a GTX 1650 variant (Ti?) around a RTX 2060 chip.

[MeeLee]

I read about the DDR6 upgrade, and presumed it was called the 1650 Super.
Now I see there are 2 models of 1650, one with DDR5 and one with DDR6 (which are nearly identical, the DDR6 being only marginally faster), and the Super was like you mention, a lower end 1660.
My mistake.
It is indeed a good buy for a budget build.
However, the 2060 Super costs less than twice the price, has double the cores, and performs double as fast. You'll get a much higher PPD return than with 2x GTX1650 Super GPUs.
There are $250 Supers on sale, or $300 2060 KOs.
Not sure which one is best, the 2060 Super, or the 2060KO, but both are very good!
They get you more for your money, imho. Plus allow you to play Ray Tracing games, if you ever feel like.

[ZePompom]

I though about that, buying like a RTX 2060 to replace my GTX 1660, but too pricy, so I'll stick to GTX 1660 for gaming and buy a GTX 1650 Super for folding rig
(And the P106-90, of course)

I think I'll first buy my upgrade kit (Athlon 200GE, MB, 4GB ram), plug the P106 on it and call it my folding rig.
Then, later, I'll buy a GTX 1650 SUPER (except if I find a better option) to put it in it too.

And later, at some point, I might replace the old maxtor HDD by a SSD, replace the Athlon 200GE by a Ryzen 5 2600 (if the Ryzen 5 get out of my main PC as I buy a new CPU) and why not upgrade the ram so the rig can also be used if needed as workstation or modest gaming PC.

[MeeLee]

If you want to build a system just for folding, the HDD is the first one to go.
They cost like $20-25 for a 64-128GB Sata 6 SSD, and if you're running Linux (easy to install), you're saving watts, noise, heat, and gaining speed.
A $20-25 SSD, is the biggest no-brainer upgrade I would do, and should work fine on your current system.

For AM4 motherboards, Current 400 and 500 series motherboards are in high demand, and 300 and below are slowly gotten rid of very cheaply.
Mainly because of Ryzen 9 3000 series, built on 7-10nm.
The Athlon CPUs are built on like 12-14nm (or greater).
If you're going for an AMD CPU that's not 7nm, I would just stick with Intel.
Their CPUs (Core i or Celeron) 3rd gen all the way to 9th gen, are just simply better.
Lower power usage, and between 3rd and 9th they're basically all the same.
Trickling down some cores from the higher end CPUs (like i7 or i9) to the lower end I3s and I5s with each passing generation, but nothing much has changed for intel in the last years.

Their 10th gen is pretty good, and energy efficient! In some ways can even compete with AMD's 7nm.
And it's 10nm chips are as good as AMD's 7nm in terms of performance per watt. But they're costly.

[ZePompom]

Trying to minimize the amount of e-waste, I plan to keep the HDD as long as it works properly (aka doesn't reduce the PPDs too much). But if I replace it, of course it'll be for a SSD.

Bought a Athlon 200GE on eBay and a GA-A320M-S2H motherboard + 4GB 2666MHz ram (the highest ram frequency this CPU can handle).
+ Reusing old PC case (no name stuff), HDD (250GB Maxtor) and power supply (Corsair HX520w)
Total cost of the upgrade : Around 125€


THank you for the advice, but I don't want to go intel, I spent 30€ for a 2x 3.2 GHz CPU (+hyperthreading), Included video chip, 35W TDP only despite being in 14nm. It's a bargain, and compatible with my Ryzen 5 (so if I replace the Ryzen 5 2600 in my gaming PC for something like a Ryzen 7, I can give a new home to the Ryzen 5 2600 inside the rig just by removing the cheap Athlon).
I can also use with the athlon the cooler provided with the Ryzen 5 (but I don't use because bought a Coolermaster Hyper 212 for the Ryzen), allowing me to give the Athlon an overkill cooler for free.

Celerons of similar price range burn more power (G4920 have a TDP of 54W for example), need more expensive motherboards, I don't have good cooler for them and they are not interchangeable with my main PC.



I did several tests under Lubuntu with the old hardware already (Intel E5300, 2GB DDR2 800MHz, Asus P5K-PL AM), and will do some more with the new hardware once I'll get it. I try to avoid windows for this kind of use.


I try to keep the prices low, as it was supposed to be a "reuse old PC as it is, just replacing the Video Card" project. I didn't plan to buy a whole upgrade kit. Since it doesn't work with the old hardware, I choose the upgrade way instead of giving up the project, but I spent much more than planned already. So no 7nm Ryzen or 10th gen Intel for me

[bruce]

I keep reusing old PC parts. I've got a bin full of old HD that probably have Windows XP on them that might (eventually) make it to the scrap heap. Most of my CPUs are AMD because they were cheaper that the equivalent Intel at the time. I have solar power on tje roof so the power costs don't bother me --- though it summer, the heat in the house does. I no longer have any Kepler GPUs, but I have a couple of Fermi that are getting pretty long-in-tht-tooth. I've added a couple of SSDs mostly to off-load the paging file.