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Lucky PC scavenger discovers 12 RTX 3070 GPUs from the crypto mining era — cards survived years of basement storage with only minor signs of wear One lucky haul. A Reddit user has stumbled upon a GPU jackpot by claiming two old cryptocurrency mining rigs with 12 Zotac-branded Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics cards. The machines were reportedly used during the COVID-era mining boom and had been sitting unused in a basement, probably since the day Ethereum mining became unprofitable. The discovery was shared on the r/PCMasterRace subreddit, and judging by the photos, all of the parts look surprisingly undamaged despite the long period in a basement. Apart from the graphics cards, the setup also features an MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus motherboard, a 1000W Gold-rated Rosewill power supply, two 4GB sticks of DDR4 RAM, and a pair of 120GB solid-state drives. Upon closer inspection of the GPUs, the Reddit user noticed minor silicone bleeding across most of the cards, which is a common occurrence caused by thermal pads breaking down and releasing oil over time. Commenters pointed out that while the cards might require a clean-up with isopropyl alcohol, as well as new thermal pads and thermal paste, the hardware is very likely salvageable. Launched in 2020 as an upper mid-range graphics card, the RTX 3070 is based on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture with 5,888 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6 memory. It was designed to deliver strong 1440p gaming performance and became one of the more popular GPUs of its generation. The card also arrived during the cryptocurrency mining boom, where its combination of performance and power efficiency made it attractive to miners. GPUs used for mining aren't necessarily a bad proposition for gaming. Mining rigs were often configured to run GPUs at reduced core voltages and power levels to lower temperatures as well as electricity costs. This also helped in reducing stress on the silicon itself when compared to standard gaming. For now, the Reddit user does not plan to keep all 12 graphics cards for themselves. Their first step is to test the RTX 3070s individually to find out how many are still in working condition. If most of the cards pass testing without issues, the user says they plan to sell 10 or 11 of the GPUs and keep at least one for themselves. With each RTX 3070 carrying 8GB of VRAM, the haul represents 96GB of VRAM in total, which in today's economy is a valuable amount of graphics memory, particularly due to the soaring prices of newer GPUs. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC. - Pierce2623 I just wonder what the author’s basement is like since he’s surprised that hardware survived sitting unused in a basement….Reply - usertests Reply Some basements have extra high moisture, which could be a problem. Or worse, mice.Pierce2623 said:I just wonder what the author’s basement is like since he’s surprised that hardware survived sitting unused in a basement…. - King_V Found in a basement, or their own basement?Reply The latter has me wondering how they forgot about their own hardware, and the former has me wondering if this was a breaking and entering situation? - sinnistar99 How is it that this is news? Someone found some computer parts in their basement. They should know the parts are there, It's their basementReply - JayGau Hey Tom's Hardware, I just checked in my closet and found a couple of CPUs, several motherboards, several RAM kits and a few NVMe drives. All in very good shape despite the years in my closet. Do you want to write an article about me?Reply
document fetched 2026-09-13 02:51 · canonical https://tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/lucky-pc-scavenger-discovers-12-rtx-3070-gpus-from-the-crypto-mining-era-cards-survived-years-of-basement-storage-with-only-minor-signs-of-wear