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Looking to upgrade my new PC with a friend's help. Techies, how bad an idea is buying a refurbished graphics card? That seems to be the main expense.
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I'm not a latest gen player. Essentially, my benchmark has been "would run Tropico 6 without problems", so I wasn't going for a massively expensive card. But coronavirus has fucked my income hard, so I'm working to a much tighter budget.I wouldn't do it unless they give the same warranty duration as a new one.
Which kind of uses is the PC going to see? The only reason to buy pricy high-end cards is if you plan to play latest generation video games at max quality settings. For a full HD resolution monitor at medium settings, any card in the 150-200 range should be fine.
It's a mixed bag. The card may have been thrashed by crypto mining, particularly on a high-end card, so its coolers may be a bit shagged. In some cases (ASUS Strix comes to mind) you can buy replacement cooling fans off Ebay. It should also be possible to pull the cooler off and replace the heatsink gunk, which sometimes dries out. To do this you will need a tube of silver-based heatsink gunk, a bottle of limonene-based cleaner (stinks really badly of oranges) and a credit card or similar to smear the gunge on.Looking to upgrade my new PC with a friend's help. Techies, how bad an idea is buying a refurbished graphics card? That seems to be the main expense.