Donate it. Many many people on this planet will be happy with it. Not everyone is on the latest AAA games, especially in poorer communities and on a discrete gpu from 2014 you can have enough fun. Think a lot of people even in the poorer part of your city would bite off your hand for it.
Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
11–20 of 24 posts
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#12What happens to the next GPUs you buy? I have wasted a lot of money buying nVidia GPUs. They used to be quickly outdated for different reasons (e.g. unsupported by the next versions of CUDA). I decided to stop buying new ones until I really really need a modern GPU. Now, that's around 7 years, I am happily away from nVidia GPUs. If needed, I would get a GPU instance on cloud. The same issue is with Apple iPads (my iP…
It is the first and only GPU I ever bought. Since it is the most expensive part in a PC, I have also kept to the "do I really really need it?"-mantra and have never upgraded it.
With this PC I will not be doing anything anymore, I believe. I just don't have a use for it. So I guess I will follow the advice of most comments here and just sell it after all :)
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#13Donate it. Many many people on this planet will be happy with it. Not everyone is on the latest AAA games, especially in poorer communities and on a discrete gpu from 2014 you can have enough fun. Think a lot of people even in the poorer part of your city would bite off your hand for it.
Good point, I haven't considered this. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#14I'd suggest installing an old version of CUDA and pytorch using it for machine learning anyway? It's still possible to learn the principles with an older GPU like this, although you'll get less than half the performance of a bottom of the range Ampere.
I could, yes. Yet it makes more sense to run what I need on my work laptop or if I ever really need it buy a could GPU on demand, since I'm not fiddling with the lower layers of ML tools, but learning the basics.
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#15Use it for a multi-monitor setup? I've got 8 monitors connected to my desktop thru two old GPUs.
What do you use 8 monitors for?
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#16Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#17Sell it? There will never be a better time to get rid of garbage GPUs at unreasonable prices. Dump it on Ebay, pop the popcorn, and watch the desperate bidders roll in!
I really doubt it. People that want to play recent games will be looking for 900-series at least and mining on a 780 is nonexistent.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m...
Looks like you can fetch $120 for a working one.
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#18Donate it to someone who wants to play either non-AAA games or retro ones. StarCraft II plays well on basically any discrete GPU. Age of Empires may work well too (I haven't tried but graphics don't look too demanding.)
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#19This GPU is quite close to the most powerful nVidia GPU you can use in macOS 10.14 and above. It's beaten only by the GTX 780 6GB (since you didn't specify, I assume yours is a 3GB model), the GTX 780 Ti, and the original Titan. (And I'm not actually sure about the Titan.)
For the same reason, it also happens to be close to the most powerful GPU you can use with OS X 10.9, period. That's my favorite OS, so that makes your card special. But I'm probably the only person in the world who cares about that, and I already have a GTX 780 6GB and a 780 Ti. :)
Re: Ask HN: What to Do with an Old GPU?
#20Maybe mine crypto in the winter if there's some software compatible with it.