Mining short/long term effects on hardware

[MentalFuneral]

Hi i just built my second computer, I was very intrested in BTC mining a year back, but my first computer had a 9800GT so it would have been a waste to mine with it. Now that i got my new computer up and running, i built it with gamining in mind but have now just gotten fairly intrested in BTC mining again. It is unfortunate that the exchange rate has dropped, even though this discourages many people from mining i would still like to try it out and mabye expand in the distant future depending on how this venture goes.

Now i know how to build a computer and how all the hardware works, but my question concerns the durability and lifespan of the GPU. If i use this computer to play high end games for 3-5 hours a day, and have it mine for 15-18 hours a day what kind of durability damage will my card take? I have a 6870 right now, i wanted to crossfire another one around may/summer time for the next round of games, so my concern is for the lifespan of the card.

Anyways another small question; I have my miner set up right now and its working away. I tried out BitMinter and my hash was around 300mhash/s, i switched the GUIMiner-V2012-02-19 and my hash dropped to 180mhash/s. What is the cause of this, from looking at other peoples performance with the 6870 i would assume 300mhash/s is what i should be getting.

Thanks for the halp

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[amazingrando]

Hi MentalFuneral and welcome to the forums!

I've been running many GPUs 24/7 since last July.  So far none have died completely.  I have had fans go out on about 10% of my GPUs during that time.  I have also noticed that the cards don't overclock as well over time.  For example, a 5830 that ran nicely at 960Mhz for many months is now running reliably only at 940 or even 920 MHz.  With a voltage increase you might be able to keep the clock rate high, but I prefer not to increase voltage.

[MentalFuneral]

Yes that is what i mean, what kind of performance did your cards have on high end games?

[Uliena]

It really depends on your luck and temperatures your cards are running.

I have 1 computer that has 3 5970 (2 have gone through warranty) and second computer with 2 5970 (none through warranty).
Both computers have been running circa 6 months almost on full 'steam'.