Comment by bmurphy1976
1 day ago
It's because they run 24/7 in a challenging environment. They will start dying at some point and if you aren't replacing them you will have a big problem when they all die en masse at the same time.
These things are like cars, they don't last forever and break down with usage. Yes, they can last 7 years in your home computer when you run it 1% of the time. They won't last that long in a data center where they are running 90% of the time.
A makeshift cryptomining rig is absolutely a "challenging environment" and most GPUs by far that went through that are just fine. The idea that the hardware might just die after 3 years' usage is bonkers.
Crypto miners undervote for efficiency GPUs and in general crypto mining is extremely light weight on GPUs compared to AI training or inference at scale
With good enough cooling they can run indefinitely!!!!! The vast majority of failures are either at the beginning due to defects or at the end due to cooling! It’s like the idea that no moving parts (except the HVAC) is somehow unreliable is coming out of thin air!