Should Graphics Card have their own grading?

[armygreywolf]

I feel yes. BUT let's look at the obvious, the board has gold fingers, memory, a gpu (which is higher grade than cpus if it concerns), they also in most cases contain tantalum caps. I am interested in having a lot assayed and refined so we know what they are worth. I suspect they are closer to hard drive logic boards than finger cards.

[Sirscrapalot]

Please share your results, I'd be interested. An I agree with them being a different grade.

Sirscrapalot - I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it. - Douglas Adams

[ryanw]

I've always considered them having a higher comparative value to many other cards. But, I have never talked to a buyer that separates finger cards according to type. They are bought and sold on an average total mixed value. I personally would rather it be like this than having even more categories. I have taken some very nicely populated cards before, taken off the bracket, and put them into a higher category. This is very rare though.

[armygreywolf]

Yea well, let's look at the obvious, from my perspective as I am getting to scrapping late P4s and Pentium Ds, (and first gen core 2s) The ONLY finger card most of them have IF they have one is the graphics card. I did a breakdown yesterday and ended up with 65 graphics cards and only about twenty other cards. Frankly I welcome grading because it properly pays me for what I have. Yes it's just one more thing to remember but so what? Laziness or money? This lot came out of massive printshop and all of them had a graphics card. Even the previous machines all Pentium 3 slot machines all had graphics cards and ethernet cards only. In total...I ended up with a weighted lot of finger cards and I'd like to see what I SHOULD be paid for them.

[Sirscrapalot]

Similar for me also Army. When I get towers in it kills me to throw the graphic cards in with all the others. I need to find a way to test them without having to spend a lot of time. Anyone know a docking station for them? lol.

Of late I've just been setting them to the side to figure out what to do with later down the road. I don't mind seperating things if it makes me more money. As most of you know I'll take the time to break things down that some of you won't. So whats a little more time tossing things into one more bucket/tote?

Either way I'll be interested to here your results from the assay. I keep more an more for being refined, I of course still keep things to just be straight up sold.

Keep us informed Army, be extra beverages in the cooler for ya.

Sirscrapalot - Maximize profit anyway you can.

[emeeks]

I have a few testing stations for PCI-E, PCI, and AGP cards. I also do my different memory tests here. I have a different setup for my hard drives. Pop it in, fire it up, and if we're up and running, I sell it.

Some video cards will still function with bad caps, so make sure you check those out prior to selling. They'll work, but when they overheat it'll shut off on you. My two cents!

Similar for me also Army. When I get towers in it kills me to throw the graphic cards in with all the others. I need to find a way to test them without having to spend a lot of time. Anyone know a docking station for them? lol.

Of late I've just been setting them to the side to figure out what to do with later down the road. I don't mind seperating things if it makes me more money. As most of you know I'll take the time to break things down that some of you won't. So whats a little more time tossing things into one more bucket/tote?

Either way I'll be interested to here your results from the assay. I keep more an more for being refined, I of course still keep things to just be straight up sold.

Keep us informed Army, be extra beverages in the cooler for ya.

Sirscrapalot - Maximize profit anyway you can.

[ryanw]

Yea well, let's look at the obvious, from my perspective as I am getting to scrapping late P4s and Pentium Ds, (and first gen core 2s) The ONLY finger card most of them have IF they have one is the graphics card. I did a breakdown yesterday and ended up with 65 graphics cards and only about twenty other cards. Frankly I welcome grading because it properly pays me for what I have. Yes it's just one more thing to remember but so what? Laziness or money? This lot came out of massive printshop and all of them had a graphics card. Even the previous machines all Pentium 3 slot machines all had graphics cards and ethernet cards only. In total...I ended up with a weighted lot of finger cards and I'd like to see what I SHOULD be paid for them.

I agree and understand on wanting to get the full value of what you have. Though, the way I see it, other finger cards are brought up by these prices. Are you always going to have a surplus of video cards? Would older video cards with ISA fingers go for more than newer PCI cards? What about video cards with two BGAs instead of one? Or video cards with no BGAs? Same goes for RAM, motherboards, hard drive boards, etc etc. You can always get the most out of your material by having it properly processed yourself, but I'm not sure buyers want to tread into expanding an already large array of categories.

Possibly if you have a gaylord of two of just video cards you can talk to a buyer about it...just a thought.

[armygreywolf]

I only bring it up because a graphics card contains high grade materials, a GPU which is comparable in value by weight to a ceramic chip or more aptly, black fiber. memory chips which are two or three generations ahead of whatever ddr standard is in practice at time of manufacture, tantalum caps, I've seen several now with a decent population of MLCCs too, In addition to all this, every card I pulled from this last lot actually had 5 outputs, all female pinned gold connectors, svideo, 2 vga and 2 dvi.

I also don't think it skews the normal finger card price...almost everyone is paying for the gold fingers, and gold plated connectors, I simply think it might be better that graphics cards be stripped of their heatsink and possibly paid more like a hard drive logic board. I still don't have enough to send in, Mudlucky said 50 lbs, and my cards without the heatsinks are about half that right now. I also wanted to wait until I had a larger sample variety of cards to go on that spans 1999-2005 or so. Right now all I have is Nvidia 7950s and ATI Radeon 3xxx cards, along with a few much older tnt2, ati rage, and geforce 4 cards.

I will keep everyone posted, give me a few more weeks to get through more material (most machines dont have a card that I break down right now).

[Mechanic688]

AGW, almost every graphic and sound card that still looks decent after pulling I get a pic or two and put them up on Ebay for 9.95 up to 19.95.
Every great once in a while I'll get one that doesn't sell, then I just keep marking it down till so low then it goes into the scrap pile.

[ScrapYaHerd]

I think this is the same as when I throw a green board into the "green boards" that I clearly know doesn't belong there however it doesn't fit in a different grade. Like mentioned above most recyclers work on the average of a category yes graphics cards are better than say a modem card however if we were to take them out and put them in a separate category the price of finger cards would probably go down.

The prices for graphics cards under 1gb unless they are something special doesn't make most of them worth testing and listing.

[PartTimeScrapper]

What your leaving out is video cards unlike most other finger cards have a heatsink and sometime fan attached to them as well. I know most buyers dont require these to be removed to get finger card price either.

[armygreywolf]

Bingo. They know their worth it without removing that stuff.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Bingo. They know their worth it without removing that stuff.

So should buyers have a seperate price for video cards with that stuff removed? If you have 1000lbs with the metal brackets removed and heatsinks and fans removed and have 2 months to wait for the check ill gladly send it to a refiner for you then give you a seperate price.

[bigburtchino]

Army great question and thanks for asking as this is the type of intelligent and constructive conversations we need more of. I separate the graphic cards from the other finger card in my breakdown process. I do this as they are a higher valued item, requiring further evaluation (a second look!). I identify the graphic cards that have the greatest potential to resell as is. Then I remove the fast and easy brackets, fans, heatsink, etc. from remaining graphic cards.Those graphic cards are then added to the other finger cards. As Ryan said this is all about a products actual value, determined by the refiner. We are all taking a low perceived valued item, processing that item as efficiently as possible. To sell to our customers a product that now has a higher value. (ACT) Average Total Cost is one of three averages that a refiner uses to do a, short-run production analysis. This way a refiner knows they can make a profit, determining the unit price they can pay you (us). That unit price is the "sort category" we know as finger boards. Just my $.02 for what it's worth ($.00) lol

[armygreywolf]

Actually part time, I was referring to removing the heat sink on these to be paid better because shipping costs money. They are easily identified as graphics cards as they all share the same structure, GPU, several caps either mlcc/ta or high grade electrolytic and memory chips. (That and they will all have either a vga/dvi or hdmi output).

Anyways, for me I'm just waiting to collect enough to turn in for an assay.

[happyscraper]

Have you tried talking to buyers about theses cards or maybe sending them some pics.?

[armygreywolf]

Nobody is going to want these cards, I already tried selling them, even wholesale. Most are at best 128MB 5 generations old, when the computers were built they were already 2 generations old as is the norm when building computers for a good price.

Best I had of the lot was a non working 8800gtx and that went to mudlucky.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Actually part time, I was referring to removing the heat sink on these to be paid better because shipping costs money. They are easily identified as graphics cards as they all share the same structure, GPU, several caps either mlcc/ta or high grade electrolytic and memory chips. (That and they will all have either a vga/dvi or hdmi output).

Anyways, for me I'm just waiting to collect enough to turn in for an assay.

How many pounds you need for an assay and where do you send it and how much does it cost?

[armygreywolf]

50lbs apparently, MY guy is in iowa and he requires 100lbs. I am hoping to use someone new. I should have the material in less than a month at present rate. The assay will be a percent of the take which could be 65-85 percent depending on who and what your dealing with. This is a PCB and Ceramic breakdown so I'd imagine my take would be 70ish percent.