Is buying used R9 290X worth it?

[MinedTangerine]

Hello people.

We all know current situation on the GPU market is not exactly bright. So I was thinking about actually buying used R9 290X AMD cards. Now this card is old, but its a beast of a card still. I have one at home mining ethereum at 28.2 MH/s without overclocking. I just have the bios moded for lower consumption. If I OC this beast it mines 31 MH/s but its not stable. It seems my card had not the most quality RAM.

Anyway its not only ETH hash rate that is impressive but also other algos. It does (stock settings):

- Ethereum: 28.2 MH/s
- Neoscrypt: 1 MH/s. Yes it does 1000 KH/s. Very impressive
- Equihash (ZCash): 360 Sol/s
- Cryptonight: 760 H/s

Its a very versatile and powerfull card. Now ofc the bad part. Its a power hog. It can literally use 280-300 W from the wall. It can be optimized but I did not yet try how much low I could get. Now the good thing is I pay around 0.06$ per KWh so electricity is cheap here. The card can be bough at around 280$ on Ebay.

The question I can't seem to answer is: Is it worth it?

I mean with current prices of cards its a great deal looking power / price wise. Also while RX 580 and other newer cards are mostly one trick ponnies this card is very versatile and can mine basically any popular coin efficiently. But yea the consumption is horrible.

Your thoughts on it?

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[markodude2017]

If you are familiar with the downsides - as it seems you are - then go for it.
I have some mining since 2014 or so and still going strong.
They are beasts as you say, but noisy and hot!

[Aegean Skipper]

everything you write is exactly how the things are

myself i have several series of AMD cards, R9 280,280X, 390, HD 7950 and RX 480, 580
The smaller ones i got them used since 8-10 months (from gamers) ago at about $120 each and they are
still working fine, for sure they made me profits

the 390, which is like yours, i also bought it from a gamer at $300. It's a beast!
i had it rebulling once and it works great, 30H/s for ETH

My opinion regarding your thoughts
i bought those used cards before the panic in the GPU market, in which every card disappeared. People wasn't aware of the mining staff yet and the cards i bought were "clean", just used only for gaming.
nowdays how can be sure if this 290x that you saw on ebay wasn't mining 24/7 with overclocked bios and probably it's life is coming to an end near soon...?

Hope that helped in expanding your thoughts

[leowonderful]

If profitability doesn't change and you're mining with Nicehash (or just plain Ethereum as it's currently one of the most profitable coins you can mine with the 290X), you'll break even in around 11 months. Whether or not you think that's good is your own interpretation, though I will say that if the card does last that long then it's a good investment (considering most other investments aren't as lucrative as mining), even though profitability may have been greater in the near past. When you're buying a used GPU from pretty much anywhere (but especially eBay) you're taking a gamble that the card wasn't overclocked, even if the description says it hasn't been. eBay is buyer sided, but I often see people with broken GPUs shortly after the return period ends.

[adaseb]

Wait a week or two and try to get a RX 470/570 for that price.

It's a good GPU however they are crazy loud and bad power consumption.

You can forget dual mining on them.

[Vann]

I don't know where you are getting the RX 580 is a 'one trick pony' compared to the 290X. The RX 580 does better at ETH and about the same on the other algorithms you mention. It also does it at half the power consumption.

RX 580 4GB Neoscrypt ~970 KH/s:



RX 580 4GB Equihash ~333 H/s:



RX 580 4GB Cryptonight ~935 H/s:

[yugyug]

With hardware and electricity cost that was cheap, it is still worth to use that rx290 for mining the only downside is the longevity of the hardware of how many months of year can it stand, the only way to make profit is to hold the coins, don't sell it immediately after mine. Consider also the electricity is still part of the investment and not part of the operation cost for short term goal.

[Geraldo]

Better to wait a couple of weeks and see what will be going to happen with the market. Market condition at this time plus many issues about new devices might give you a chance to get a card with better speed/power (cheaper also).

Personally, I'm also an R9 user. A few of my rig use 290, 290X, 390, 390X. My electricity cost higher than yours. Still, I can pay my electricity bill plus a box of pizza. 

[Mrjenong]

my advice is you better buy rx 580 than the old type like r9 290 ..
because the diff coins will go up every once a month, you still have to know that. in the next year your r9 290 may no longer work, almost every country has its own mine at home, so soon the level of difficulty to mine will rise.

[Suslived]

Not worth it. GIven that the card is old and has less support, it also has more chances of dying out soon.

Not to mention the fact that it is a power consuming monster. With profitability down, you will need power efficient cards to even make a dent in profits.

[Geraldo]

my advice is you better buy rx 580 than the old type like r9 290 ..
because the diff coins will go up every once a month, you still have to know that. in the next year your r9 290 may no longer work, almost every country has its own mine at home, so soon the level of difficulty to mine will rise.

Which coins that increasing its difficulty each month? Go, read and back here again after. It sounds what you said referring to almost all coins, except you said, X coin with 10 minute block time and difficulty retargeting each 4032 block (acceptable). Be a good boy! 

[manji]

my advice is you better buy rx 580 than the old type like r9 290 ..
because the diff coins will go up every once a month, you still have to know that.

totally wrong...
the diff doesn't increase every once a month but a matter of minutes and depend on a coin its, every coin has a technical data each.

in the next year your r9 290 may no longer work

useless for what coins?

[pickleburglar]

way not worth it, too high consumption so at the rate of where mining profits are going, you'll only get to run it for a few months before it start to eat more money than it produces

[Keelhaul]

Buy RX5xx instead. It's the right time to get in when prices seem to draw back. R9's wouldn't make you any good since they all were worn out as for now.

[rascabily]

I have Rx 470 8gb, Rx 480 4gb, Rx 570 4gb for sell.
Spain. I can sell for eBay too.

[sadyas]

If you are familiar with the downsides - as it seems you are - then go for it.
I have some mining since 2014 or so and still going strong.
They are beasts as you say, but noisy and hot!

I have a few those cards. I undervolt them so that they are not so hot and noisy.

[Geraldo]

If you are familiar with the downsides - as it seems you are - then go for it.
I have some mining since 2014 or so and still going strong.
They are beasts as you say, but noisy and hot!

I have a few those cards. I undervolt them so that they are not so hot and noisy.

I always set the fans to 100% for R9 290/290X except for 390/390X (using manual temperature graphic setting). Even I add additional pwm fan's in the front of cards. This rig produces a sounds same as ASIC miner, lol.

Undervolting pretty good to decrease 2^o-4^o C.

[Ultegra134]

Hello people.

We all know current situation on the GPU market is not exactly bright. So I was thinking about actually buying used R9 290X AMD cards. Now this card is old, but its a beast of a card still. I have one at home mining ethereum at 28.2 MH/s without overclocking. I just have the bios moded for lower consumption. If I OC this beast it mines 31 MH/s but its not stable. It seems my card had not the most quality RAM.

Anyway its not only ETH hash rate that is impressive but also other algos. It does (stock settings):

- Ethereum: 28.2 MH/s
- Neoscrypt: 1 MH/s. Yes it does 1000 KH/s. Very impressive
- Equihash (ZCash): 360 Sol/s
- Cryptonight: 760 H/s

Its a very versatile and powerfull card. Now ofc the bad part. Its a power hog. It can literally use 280-300 W from the wall. It can be optimized but I did not yet try how much low I could get. Now the good thing is I pay around 0.06$ per KWh so electricity is cheap here. The card can be bough at around 280$ on Ebay.

The question I can't seem to answer is: Is it worth it?

I mean with current prices of cards its a great deal looking power / price wise. Also while RX 580 and other newer cards are mostly one trick ponnies this card is very versatile and can mine basically any popular coin efficiently. But yea the consumption is horrible.

Your thoughts on it?

Profitability is pretty low at the moment, hence, it will take ages to reach ROI (Return of your investment). As others have said, it will take 11 months, I don't think it's worth it for that price. I just checked eBay myself and found better priced ones than the one you found at $280. I would do a market research first if I were you, see what GPU suits your needs and see if it is worth it in the long-run, since mining profits have decreased significantly.

[MinedTangerine]

Thanks to all the people who responded. A lot of usefull feedback and information was given, I appreciate it.

As lucrative as the used 290x was I decided not to buy them simply because they are all old and I could risk to much in terms of failure. Also the power factor cannot be thrown away, even if electricity is cheap here.
So I will probably do one of two options:

1. Buy some RX 580. I have these marked as good deals atm: https://www.whinkel.be/sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-580-8gb and https://www.whinkel.be/sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-580-8gd5-special-edition

Thats the cheapest new cards I could get in EU. Newegg and similar would be great, but then I have to pay customs which is a whooping 20% VAT. So no way. Did anyone buy at this shop? Any credibility?

2. I will simply wait as the crypto prices keep droping and the market should correct itself with the GPU prices. But its not a given.

Anyway I am in for the long run. I also find it fun to do mining and I took it as a hobby with long term investments. So 12 months ROI is not a problem for me, neither is holding the mined coins untils the prices rise. I still think the GPU mining is going nowhere and there are and will be plently of coins to mine, no matter the market and ASIC situation.

[MinedTangerine]

Thanks to all the people who responded. A lot of usefull feedback and information was given, I appreciate it.

As lucrative as the used 290x was I decided not to buy them simply because they are all old and I could risk to much in terms of failure. Also the power factor cannot be thrown away, even if electricity is cheap here.
So I will probably do one of two options:

1. Buy some RX 580. I have these marked as good deals atm: https://www.whinkel.be/sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-580-8gb and https://www.whinkel.be/sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-580-8gd5-special-edition

Thats the cheapest new cards I could get in EU. Newegg and similar would be great, but then I have to pay customs which is a whooping 20% VAT. So no way. Did anyone buy at this shop? Any credibility?

2. I will simply wait as the crypto prices keep droping and the market should correct itself with the GPU prices. But its not a given.

Anyway I am in for the long run. I also find it fun to do mining and I took it as a hobby with long term investments. So 12 months ROI is not a problem for me, neither is holding the mined coins untils the prices rise. I still think the GPU mining is going nowhere and there are and will be plently of coins to mine, no matter the market and ASIC situation.

That whinkel.be looks like a scam. And given the current market prices of GPUs its probably best to wait until either pricess fall or new cards come to market to update the situation.